"Honestly it really just seems like the world’s PhD programs are designed to ritually haze students and sort them into academic society based on unsustainable and barely acceptable expectations."
This is accurate. It's very hard to explain to people who haven't been through a PhD program the kinds of expectations that are placed on students (example: highly influential profs telling an incoming cohort that their expectations were "all of you should get a top-20 job"). Those who do not "make it" are spoken of in hushed tones as if they died and even those who go on to great industry jobs are considered failures of some degree.
Many of those who "make it" and get those vaunted prestigious TT jobs are also desperately depressed in many cases (at least up through getting tenure, but even afterward the whole experience seems scarring). This seems to select for incredibly dedicated and usually quite intelligent, but also very obsessive and emotionally fragile people to finally make it through into permanent employment in academia. They then often have similar expectations for their grad students to do the same as they did, even if they claim on social media to be "caring" and such.
Yeah, such is the effect of "jigsaw puzzling" hundreds of papers to get a feel for a field. One had better be really interested to come into dialogue with others' observations, and not have it be trite. Philosophically, scientific idealism instead of materialism is one possible way forward as the sense/relationship of self-other evolves.
Many of those who "make it" and get those vaunted prestigious TT jobs are also desperately depressed in many cases (at least up through getting tenure, but even afterward the whole experience seems scarring). This seems to select for incredibly dedicated and usually quite intelligent, but also very obsessive and emotionally fragile people to finally make it through into permanent employment in academia. They then often have similar expectations for their grad students to do the same as they did, even if they claim on social media to be "caring" and such.