But people who just want a job "in the industry", whether it is journalism or academics, are going to have a bad time
Don't look down on those "just want a job" people. When you don't have an income, the need to get one consumes you. Working "for passion" is a luxury of trust-fund kids and people who pulled off their exits before the Valley became a scam.
The idea that it's dishonorable to work for money is classism. Most people have no other choice.
But more and more research will happen outside of the Academy, because research is useful.
Sadly, we see the opposite trend. Research inside and outside of academia is melting down. Companies use the results of R&D (open-source software is an R&D effort) and buy "innovation" out of a rigged R&D-ish system (the VC-funded Valley) but no one is paying for it, which means that very little of quality is being built at scale.
Something will bring it back, but it will probably start outside of the US. It will probably involve competition at an international level. I'd love to see it take a friendly form: an all-information-shared (the objective being prestige, not dominance over others) 21st-century moon-shot race between North America, Europe, and Asia on curing cancer. Sadly, history shows that it's just as likely to involve war, because humans are perilously stupid.
Until that happens, I feel like technical excellence is such a nonpriority in this country that it shouldn't surprise anyone that Stanford threw its weight behind Clinkle and Snapchat.
The prestige competition between universities may have had that effect at one time, but now they compete on stupid shit like pampering rich douchebags, overpaying top administrators, and funding idiotic startups like Clinkle as a way of selling "the experience" (your kid might be made founder of the next Snapchat!)
I might come a bit late to the party, but I should say not all hope is lost yet. I think there's a lot of inefficiency in the labour market. I'm currently in a really good university doing research, and all the software engineers & computer scientists hired in many labs I know tend to be quite awful, with some exceptions.
I wasn't distinguishing between those who need a job and those who want a job. I was distinguishing between those who want to do the work (no matter their motivation) and those who just want to have the position.
Don't look down on those "just want a job" people. When you don't have an income, the need to get one consumes you. Working "for passion" is a luxury of trust-fund kids and people who pulled off their exits before the Valley became a scam.
The idea that it's dishonorable to work for money is classism. Most people have no other choice.
But more and more research will happen outside of the Academy, because research is useful.
Sadly, we see the opposite trend. Research inside and outside of academia is melting down. Companies use the results of R&D (open-source software is an R&D effort) and buy "innovation" out of a rigged R&D-ish system (the VC-funded Valley) but no one is paying for it, which means that very little of quality is being built at scale.
Something will bring it back, but it will probably start outside of the US. It will probably involve competition at an international level. I'd love to see it take a friendly form: an all-information-shared (the objective being prestige, not dominance over others) 21st-century moon-shot race between North America, Europe, and Asia on curing cancer. Sadly, history shows that it's just as likely to involve war, because humans are perilously stupid.
Until that happens, I feel like technical excellence is such a nonpriority in this country that it shouldn't surprise anyone that Stanford threw its weight behind Clinkle and Snapchat.
The prestige competition between universities may have had that effect at one time, but now they compete on stupid shit like pampering rich douchebags, overpaying top administrators, and funding idiotic startups like Clinkle as a way of selling "the experience" (your kid might be made founder of the next Snapchat!)