That just what being a member of society is, lots of overhead.
Autistic people often face these challenges even outside of science.
Yup, this is every job. Your skills at performing a task are only a small part of success. The bigger part is being able to make friends with the right people.
Edison and Tesla come to mind. Edison wasn’t the best when it came to electrical engineering but he was good at talking. Tesla was brilliant and is the father of modern electrical engineering but his best friend was a pigeon. During their lifetimes, Edison was much more successful than Tesla was.
Yeah, while I can relate to her plight, its pretty much the same situation when you do research in the industry and you want to get ahead in your career. Some things are different, but politics are still politics.
Completely ignoring qualification altogether in favor of nepotistic back scratching is actually not just being a member of society. IMO, HR should hide the identifying information of candidates from people making the hiring decisions so all they’ve got is the qualifications on the resume to judge them by.
That just what being a member of society is, lots of overhead.
I think it’s mostly that you can’t expect people foreign to your field to understand how valuable your work is, you need to communicate it to them. Then there’s a fine line between popularization and bullshiting that your sense of ethics will make you cross or not depending on the situation.
The fact that this is considered brutally honest is part of the problem. I think it’s just regular honesty. Academia’s standards for honesty are too low.
Sorry, unless you start your own sovereign country, you have to participate in society. Not everyone likes promoting themselves, disagreeing diplomatically, etc. Still, we play the game, even though I wish we didn’t all have to…
Living in a society is not the same thing as one specific set of rules to play by. The author isn’t saying that we shouldn’t be coordinating or discussing with each other. As I understand it, they are arguing against valuing people based on their social capital instead of their actual knowledge. Because what is science’s worth if it isn’t based on knowledge but how well you can lick boots? How often is science inhibited by some old dude abusing his power until he dies. Science progresses one funeral at a time. Does it necessarily have to be that way or could we possibly find a better way to organize ourselves?
I prefer to say that humans are not very efficient at organizing. We’re just the most efficient so far for general problems.
your comment reminds me of a text I read a long time ago, comparing humans to ants and pointing that we’re incredibly intelligent when alone, but we become less and less intelligent when in bigger groups, while ants seem not very intelligent when alone, but when in groups, they seem amazingly intelligent
Even if you do start your own sovereign country, once you have more than one person you have to play politics. It’s just the human condition
Isn’t this true for all jobs? Specially corporate jobs? It’s still horrible, but that’s capitalism for you.
I’m sorry, but this has nothing to do with capitalism. If we were under a king, you’d still have to schmooze the king. Socialism may give you money to feed yourself, but it won’t pay you to do science. An economic system doesn’t prevent you from needing interpersonal skills.
The same problem exists in socialism
You need to convince people what you’re doing is worth doing. Whether that is economically or societally
Across the board, we have let people who are primarily motivated by accumulating wealth and power accumulate wealth and power unchecked, and then make all the rules for how everything around them works.
These are the last people you want making the rules if you desire sane and sustainable social environments.
The best thing we could collectively do for ourselves is strip and block these kinds of people from positions of authority on the sheer basis that they seek it so eagerly, tell them to their faces WHY, tell them they can’t have it back and that they can ONLY have it back when they stop wanting it so badly, no matter HOW HARD they cry about it and then treat them with the same kind of disdain they’ve treated people who don’t want to play by THEIR rules for centuries.
“bUt PaRtIcIpAtInG iN sOcIeTy!”, people with imposter syndrome who don’t believe enough in their own abilities to be comfortable with the idea of merit alone judging advancement.
Sadly not just the USA.
Sadly not just science, either.
Yet another flawed system run by humans. Humans always ruining nice things.
My supervisor talked of Barnum and Bailey. He wasn’t wrong, but glad I got out.
Science should be a worthy endeavour, currently it’s not. Sell out for more…
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Sheldon Cooper?
Not a scientist but I have been reasonably successful by proving my worth to the ladder climbers and then they pull me up behind them.
These are just people skills. Of course you’re gonna have to make people like you if you want to work with people. Half the brain is dedicated to networking with other brains.
And it’s not actually that hard to agreeably disagree with someone. You say your thing, and then you do your little song and dance to make sure they know you respect them, and you go on your way.
A little bit of humility goes a long way. Hard scientists aren’t above a little compassion, a little bit of care for explaining themselves to the public and to money movers.
Seeing this, it applies everywhere including something as trivial as a retail job. I wonder if that’s why I too dislike that sort of backroom politicking so much.