ProfQuirrell
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User ID: 606
Congratulations!!!! Welcome to the ranks of parenthood; life is good over here. I do have some sobering advice for first time parents:
Do not shake the baby.
Whenever I give this advice to new parents, they look at me like I'm insane. Of course they aren't going to shake the baby -- they aren't monsters.
But they don't understand -- they have not yet had to deal with the sleep deprivation, the overwhelming feeling of being lost and uncertain of how to care for a new baby for the first time, they don't know what it's like at three in the morning when your wife has begged you to get the baby to sleep because she's exhausted beyond words and she can't do it and you haven't slept either and you have work in four hours and the baby won't stop screaming and you JUST FED the baby and you JUST CHANGED the baby and what the HELL is this stupid baby screaming about and
So. Do not shake the baby. Put the baby down on the floor in a different room (you can put on a fan or noisemaker so you don't have to hear the baby cry for a few minutes). Go somewhere else, listen to some music that you like, watch a dumb youtube video, take a quick shower, get yourself a small splash of scotch, take a few minutes to calm down, and then try again. The baby will be okay without you for a few minutes.
Every parent I have ever talked to has gone through this. They are often ashamed to admit it. You're not a bad person for feeling rage and anger at your child in those desperate moments at night. Sleep depravation and the crushing isolation of new parenthood (especially in modern culture!) is a hell of a combination. It happens to all of us. It's going to be okay. You're going to get through it, you'll get better, and if you have more than one kid (which I highly recommend!) by the time #3 rolls around you'll be an expert. You've got this. You're going to be a great dad. Being a parent is wonderful.
Just don't shake the baby.
ProfQuirrell
2mo ago
Part of the problem here is that modern parents absolutely suck at discipline. Most parents never learn or never feel empowered to tell their kid "Go play by yourself and if you interrupt me or pester me you will get a punishment." Modern parents are grudgingly allowed to punish kids for blatant infractions like hitting or stealing. But it has become unthinkable to punish kids for pestering or interrupting. This really needs to change. With proper discipline, most four year olds are perfectly capable of playing by themselves and not interrupting for an hour.
I just want to underscore this -- this is absolutely correct. Modern parenting (or "gentle" parenting, as the meme goes) makes life SO much harder than it needs to be. Kids do not need their parents (or a screen) to be entertained and you are a fool if you cater to their whims in this way.
I'd also gesture at the great work Jonathan Haidt has been doing calling attention to the dual problem of social media + complete lack of independence and freedom in childhood, but that's a whole other (huge) topic.
ProfQuirrell
2mo ago
That's a good read. It's a pretty nifty bit of persuasive writing and a good perspective for men to be thinking about, especially if they haven't seen pregnancy and childbirth firsthand.
Much of the suffering involved in pregnancy / childbirth was known to me already as I "coached" (or whatever the term is) my wife through three deliveries with no painkillers (she wanted a natural birth and got one) and then two more with epidurals ... the latter were strange experiences; going from relaxedly playing a board game to pushing within the span of thirty minutes is a trip.
I've written about parenthood before (1, 2, 3, 4) and about my experience raising a special needs child on DSL so I think I have some credibility on this topic.
The Princess Bride has a great related quote:
Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
Pregnancy is hard. Childbirth is hard, occasionally horrifically so (in a previous century my wife might have bled to death after our second child -- modern medicine is a wonderful thing). Parenting is hard and cramps your style in a major way. Marriage is hard.
But ... damn it, you have to do hard things in life. Living an authentically good and virtuous life requires sacrifice of yourself in the service of greater things. We used to understand this. Hedonism and the pursuit of pleasure and utility above all else are absolutely toxic to the project of building a family, building a community, and building a country.
I realize this is a controversial claim, but I think the "fertility crisis" is ultimately a crisis of spirit. I fully acknowledge that the modern world makes the project of having and raising children difficult in important ways including but not limited to:
- The wasteland of modern dating and dating apps
- The tremendous increase of housing / education / healthcare / childcare costs relative to inflation and income
- Cultures as a whole not conferring status upon mothers and fathers and institutions seemingly going out of their way to discourage parenthood
However, I increasingly feel like the ultimate failure is one of selfishness. Raising a family requires tremendous sacrifice from both mother and father (although as a father of five I will readily admit my wife has it "worse" in many ways and I think as a good husband one of my primary duties is to support and offer assistance in recognition of that fact).
I really think the fundamental problem is that people are increasingly uninterested in anything that requires them to make sacrifices. Shying away from having and raising kids is just one example of this.
ProfQuirrell
2mo ago
Father of five, one of whom has significant special needs. I wrote about him here on DSL) and I think I touch on a number of your questions in that post.
@naraburns nailed it, in particular the discussion of how parenthood is transformative. Those of us on one side of the transition really can't explain it. I will note that it is very easy to imagine all of the ways in which being a parent is a drag and a bore and very difficult to picture how it will radically transform your life for the better.
To your points:
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Our respective families are similarly about 1,000 miles (or 1,400 miles) away. It's definitely hard and we treasure time with family as a result. Invest in babysitting early and often.
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This doesn't matter at all. People used to raise families in single-room cabins. Our first apartment (while I was doing graduate school and my wife was doing nursing school) was 640 sq. ft. Finances matter much, much less than people think. All of the horrifying news articles you see about how expensive it is to raise a family are fundamentally flawed. The financial hit is less important than radical shifts in the way you have to live your life ... which naraburns already spoke eloquently about. I've opined on this topic before.
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Your independence and free time will assuredly be sacrificed as a parent, but you'll be a better person after the tradeoff, I promise.
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Well, you have some influence in whether or not this happens -- Bryan Caplan says (correctly) in Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids that your children are pretty likely to turn out like you and your spouse, so if you want more people like you in the world ....
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See my link above. It is a tremendous ordeal. I cannot overstate how much of an ordeal it is. But it is also a tremendous opportunity to grow in virtue and, dare I say, a blessing and a gift ... although it took me many years to understand why.
I have no regrets. Have kids. Be a parent. The world needs good parents and good families. It's the greatest and most fulfilling adventure you can imagine (with the possible exception of marriage).
ProfQuirrell
2mo ago
I'm not trying to do anything of the kind, I'm well aware of issues with academia.
I have some experience with local politics and I'm telling you one of the biggest challenges is getting good people to run. Anyone who is remotely sane or competent wants nothing to do with politics.
ProfQuirrell
2mo ago
We already have a problem with smart, sane people staying the hell away from politics -- this would make it worse.
ProfQuirrell
2mo ago
But it would be good to hear from people who are satisfied with their romantic life for a change. Are there any Mottezians with happy love lives who want to share their experience?
Catholic, married twelve years, five kids (one of whom has significant special needs, I typed up a long post about him on DSL). I don't know what experiences you'd want to hear about, but the most useful approach I've learned over the years is this: you need to re-frame every problem as something external to the relationship and view your spouse as a teammate in fixing the problem. Do this even if the problem seems to be your spouse.
On a related note, at a certain point the relationship needs to become more important than your individual success or happiness. This works great in a Catholic marriage where divorce is explicitly off the table; not nearly as actionable in other contexts.
Make sacrifices, and make them generously.
ProfQuirrell
4mo ago
Right, so the expression comes from that fact -- the mutually agreed upon statement points in two directions. One person can say "Aha, so we know that B is true." and the other person can say "Aha, so we know that A is false."
Let's say you have a statement:
If A, then B.
There are two syllogisms that can be derived from this statement, one of which is referred to as Modus Ponens and the other of which is Modus Tollens.
Modus Ponens:
- If A, then B
- A
- Therefore, B
Modus Tollens:
- If A, then B
- Not B
- Therefore, not A
Where the statement / joke comes in is when you start making an actual argument where the two people agree on the conditional, but one is arguing that A is true and the other is arguing that B is false. Let's say something like:
If morality is objective, there is a God.
The first person takes the objectivity of morality as proof that God exists, but the second person takes the non-existence of God as proof that morality can't be objective. Despite both parties accepting the conditional, they still believe different things.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
Only the heir to the kingdom of idiots fights a war on 13 fronts.
Great reference.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
As one of the (mostly) silent majority who got a few ACQs back when we were on Reddit, you summed it up well.
I also share your frustration that media seems completely uninterested in citing any primary source, particularly court documents. It's not hard at all to find the .pdfs, so I can only assume they don't want readers to come to their own conclusions; just trust whatever we tell you!
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
Test passed, no doubt.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
Epistemic status: Uncertain
My lifting plan is centered around barbell work with some dumbbell accessory movements. I don't use machines at all. The reason to use free weights rather than machines is that you activate all kinds of smaller stabilizing muscles that aren't hit when using a machine because the machine guides the path of the weight for you. The advantage to using a machine would be to target your larger muscles in a very specific way.
My guess would be that gym owners invest in machines because:
- They are safer; you can seriously hurt yourself on a bench press if you don't have a spotter and don't have safety rails set up. You can't hurt yourself with a chest press machine.
- They're more user friendly; any schmuck can walk into a gym and immediately start using a machine rather than having to futz around with getting the settings right on a power rack and making sure they have good form etc.
- They're more sexy; newbies love using machines
But no, you don't actually need them and in my opinion you're better off not using them ... but really as long as you're getting in the gym consistently and pushing yourself hard you will progress (especially at first); the specifics aren't really that important.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
She was mostly determined to take posed photos of the kids, culminating a very staged attempt at getting a video of her reading a book to all the kids, keeping two of them up past their bed times. I don't think she learned anything from the experience, though the video is hard to watch with all the crying from the younger two.
As someone with five kids (one special needs) and a mother in law who is similarly useless / kind of narcissistic, I was filled with second-hand rage reading this. Hang in there, that's really hard.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
I do a fitness test with my students where I can crank out a little over 20 in a row. The thing that helped me the most was adding weight for training using a dip belt. I mixed pullups into my normal lifting routine with two variations depending on what else I was doing:
Pullups at 3x6 with a low amount of additional weight (normally I do this with about 25 lbs, but start lower)
Pullups at 5x3 with a high amount of additional weight (now it's something like 80 lbs, but start lower)
Do linear progression for the above.
Throw in some 3x8 or 3x10 normal pullups or chinups from time to time too.
I think just additional volume on the same motion won't really help you; the big thing is to make it harder. So add weight, same as you do for any other lift!
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
He hides it pretty well, but this is the first Econtalk I've ever heard (and I've been listening for 6+ years) where Russ doesn't give the guest the last word and instead just ends it himself.
Please don't take this as a personal criticism.
A few threads back I said the following:
My wife and I got married right after undergrad and had three kids while I was doing a PhD and she was in nursing school. We had help from the grandparents to pay the rent, but no childcare -- nearest grandparents were 1,000 miles away. It can be done, but it requires real work and real sacrifice and I don't think anyone in #currentyear really wants that -- it doesn't maximize utility, or something.
I got some good pushback on that post, but ... here you are making my point for me. Having kids is an imposition on the way you want to live your life. Raising children requires putting the good of others above your own in a way that requires serious effort and self-sacrifice and that doesn't sound so appealing to the folk who inhabit modern times.
I suspect the data above about women who want to have kids but aren't is falling prey to known issues with polling -- women say they want to have kids, revealed preference says they actually don't. My own guess is that having kids maybe seems like a nice idea and it costs nothing to say you want them, but by and large at any given moment it's too daunting and difficult and hard. People don't want to do hard things anymore without obvious benefit to them.
What more is there to say, really?
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
Would it be fair for your father's generation to scold you for not having kids until all the way at the end of your extended academic life?
In my particular case, it wouldn't be fair because it wouldn't be true. We got married after undergraduate and started having kids right away and we had three children while I was doing my PhD and my wife was doing nursing school. I'm not sure what the grandparents would have thought if we had waited; I think my folks would have been sad but understanding and supportive and I think my wife's parents would have been relieved -- they were convinced I was ruining their daughter's life by marrying her young and having kids right away, but they ended up liking being grandparents a lot more than they thought and now they make jokes about how they're they only people in their friend circle who even have grandkids. My wife's brothers are firmly in the "never going to get married or have kids because I'm having too much fun doing my own stuff" camp and they have committed girlfriends who broadly feel the same way as best I can tell.
By the by, I'm not sure how old you thought I am, but I'm 32. We got married at age 21 and you are completely, totally right about the landscape changing, trying to date nowadays with dating apps seems like a complete nightmare.
This is a pretty uncharitable reading ... you don't need to sneer at us to contribute
Upvoted for correctly calling me out on the snark. I appreciate the rest of your post, and I wrote my response quickly and without having read the rest of the thread in detail, so let me try this again:
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The initial, top-level post was made in the larger context of how to fix declining TFR. My own perception is that the vast majority of responses center on changing incentives for women and critiquing their behavior and I don't see the top-level post in this thread as deviating much from that.
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@FarNearEverywhere wrote a snippy (and, apparently, reported) response saying that it's very silly to complain about changing women's incentives and their role in the problem when it takes two to tango and you could just as easily complain about men's incentives and their role in the problem. I agree with other posters that there are some legitimate asymmetries here, but I am in complete agreement with FarNearEverywhere's sentiment because as best I can tell, modern men aren't exactly lining up to be husbands and fathers either. The post ended with a call-out saying if you aren't the married father of 3+ kids, you shouldn't be whining about women because you aren't pulling your weight either. I read that and thought I should reply at some point.
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As the discussion developed, a few posters (you and someone else below) chimed in with their own situations of intending to have kids in a stable marriage, but wanting to wait out a particularly challenging time in someone's career / school. This is where I was the most sarcastic, so let me try to say this more clearly and with more charity:
My sense is that one reason TFR is low is because the culture writ large doesn't prioritize, reward, or glorify parenthood. I think this is true across both sexes. It takes a lot of hard work and a total mindset change and devotion to the your spouse and the family to be a good father or mother and it increasingly seems to me that modern men and women just aren't interested in that. The idea that you should make sacrifices generously of yourself in service of the larger goal of your family just ... isn't an idea out there, at the moment.
I think there's always going to be a sense in which kids are scary. There's always going to be some financial insecurity or relationship concern or thing you enjoy doing that you'd have to give up; you can always justify why it would be better to hold off for just a little bit longer. However, it was wrong of me to throw shade at your specific situation. We've had times of avoiding pregnancy and we've had times where we're actively trying to have another kid. Far be it from me to judge you without knowing the specifics and I'm sorry for doing that.
I think the broader point I'd try to make is that at the end of the day, if parenthood is something our culture wants to value, there has to be an overriding attitude of "Just have the kids anyway, it will be okay" because raising a family is a good valued above economic security or self-actualization or maximizing utility or what have you.
But right now, I don't think the culture or most individuals value raising a family in that way, men and women alike.
(posting without editing, because I gotta run and teach)
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
Father here, don't have a ton of time to respond -- I need to think more about what I'd want to say here, but I think @FarNearEverywhere's rant is basically right. Putting together a family with lots of kids is a lot of work and requires a total mindset change and buy-in from both spouses. It's not fair to blame it on women in #currentyear when, as best I can tell, young men aren't remotely interested in the hard work it takes to be a good husband or father -- too easy to play vidya and watch porn and bang whoever swipes the right direction on Tinder (swipes left? I actually don't know).
Or ... as we've seen in at least two responses below, too easy to say "Oh we're gonna have a family for sure, just not yet because we're waiting on the right economic conditions / career to come along / degree to finish." etc. My wife and I got married right after undergrad and had three kids while I was doing a PhD and she was in nursing school. We had help from the grandparents to pay the rent, but no childcare -- nearest grandparents were 1,000 miles away. It can be done, but it requires real work and real sacrifice and I don't think anyone in #currentyear really wants that -- it doesn't maximize utility, or something.
Until you change the culture such that the sacrifice and hard work it takes to make a family actually seems worth it, you won't get buy-in from anyone ... men or women.
We have five kids now and one of them is special needs, low-functioning autistic. It's a lot of work, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
Interesting; I'd be curious to hear more about what spirits you're playing as well as what difficulty you're playing at. My guess is either you are wildly more experienced than the rest of your group, or your entire group is inexperienced -- or you're just a lot smarter than I am!
My reason for saying Spirit Island is largely immune to quarterbacking is twofold. First, the Spirits play very, very differently. If you're playing Pandemic, everyone has the same basic actions available to them -- move, cure disease, discover a cure, etc. Each "role" really is tantamount to a very minor buff (usually to one action) and rules change. It is therefore fast and easy for someone with good game knowledge to scan the basic problem on the board and tell the next player the ideal solution.
But in Spirit Island, while the underlying mechanics are the same (everyone does Growth, gains Energy, and plays their cards), each Spirit has a very different play pattern and flow. You have to think about which growth option to take, which tracks to open up in which order, which cards to play in order to hit which innates ... in order to quarterback a new player piloting, say, Spread of Rampant Green, I'd have to have a very deep understanding of how to play the Spirit efficiently, such that I could play it with my eyes closed. I'd have to have all its starting cards plus their elements plus their tracks and growth options memorized or discernable at a glance, more or less, and that isn't even taking into account whatever powers they have drafted since the game started.
I'm not saying it's impossible to get to this point -- now that I've played hundreds and hundreds of games, some of the spirits with easy play patterns (River Surges in Sunlight, for example) I could probably quarterback if I wanted to, but if I'm playing with a new player it's actually both easier (for me) and more fun (for everyone) for me to grab one of their lands, drop a reminder token on it, and tell them "I'll handle this ravage for you, nbd". I could tell them "OK, this turn you need to pick your second growth option, both from cardplays, and, uh, what minor did you draft last turn again? Let me just see your hand real quick." Like I said, though, it's actually easier for me to just handle one of their lands and let them worry about the rest of it. I don't think quarterbacking is actually optimal even if you're trying to help out a less experienced player.
The other reason I'm skeptical that quarterbacking really works in practice is my own experience with two-handed play. I play a lot of solo games -- true solo, where I'm piloting one Spirit. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm extremely good at Spirit Island. I can win against any Level 6 adversary with a near-100% win rate and when I'm interested in a challenge, I'm playing double adversaries around Difficulty 13-14. I have beaten 6/6 Adversaries before (albeit with very specific matchups). However, when I try to double-hand Spirits (even two Spirits I know well!), it is dramatically more difficult to actually play the game! It's really hard for me to keep track of everything that's going on if I'm playing two Spirits at once; I get confused about my game flow for each Spirit, make a lot more minor tactical mistakes, and the game gets bogged down as I try (and largely fail) to stay organized. It's difficult for me to imagine someone piloting a Spirit and then wanting to control the second one for a new player. I just haven't seen it happen. Maybe you're smart and fast enough that you can play your Spirit quickly and then jump over to another player and be able to tell them what to do, but if so you're a lot faster at board games than I am.
So to conclude a long-winded response, I think Spirit Island largely dodges the problem of quarterbacking because:
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Each Spirit plays sufficiently differently that it's quite difficult to tell at a glance the correct set of moves for someone else.
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Even if you are sufficiently experienced to do so, it's still easier and more fun for you to just handle a few more lands than literally try to play a second spirit.
The only place I've even been tempted to quarterback is when playing a Difficulty 0 game with new players and they're piloting an easy spirit that I know quite well -- but again, it's still both easier and more fun for me to help out with their lands and drop Gift cards on them every turn I can.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
What kind of game are you interested in?
I'll plug Spirit Island as far and away the best board game I've played this decade. It's a complex cooperative game where you play as natural spirits of a lush island with the game automating a joint enemy, the Invaders who try to explore the island, build their towns and cities on it, and than ravage it for its natural resources, causing blight and slowly killing the island, the native people, and the spirits. Your goal as a team is to scare them away, or get rid of them, or just flat-out kill them as the case may be.
I will write a multi paragraph review of this game given the slightest provocation, so I will merely say that it is unique among cooperative games by scaling incredibly gracefully with player count (you can play this game solo and it is in fact consistently the #1 solo board game on BGG) and being near immune to quarterbacking (which constantly plagues games like Pandemic). The theme is incredible, the gameplay is incredible, the spirits are fun and evocative ... this game is an 11 / 10 for me. My brothers and I have played literally over a thousand games between the three of us.
Great post; reported as a quality contribution.
I think this is an intriguing framing and I have some very similar habits. I play Breaking Benjamin at loud volumes while working out, listen to speed metal or rap while grading quickly, and will frequently handle all the childcare / cooking / cleaning in the evening (sending my wife upstairs to play violin, drink wine, and relax) ... but only after cracking open a beer (or pouring a glass of scotch) and playing what my kids call "Dad Music". My wife is often flabbergasted at how much I get done and I always maintain that the music / alcohol are key components of productivity.
Your comparison to the Penfield Mood Cabinet recalls some short stories my brother wrote in college with a very similar theme; in his setting there were various drinks called Brews that contained chemical mixtures you could imbibe that would generate emotions (Bliss / Melancholy / etc.). In fact, one of his stories had two characters notice the exact comparison you drew. One of them, Sebastian, argues that the end goal is exactly the same -- creation of a certain mood or emotional connection with what's around you. He feels that the drinks are faster, more reliable, and skip the tedious part where you try to find the perfect song / book / etc.; you can just buy the emotion from a bottle, easy.
At the risk of doxxing, I'll quote the reply of the second character as he's taken the first out on a hike in the Colorado wilderness for a taste of real life:
I brought the subject up again after we had finished eating. We were enjoying hot chocolate in the cool air. The stream was whispering behind us, and we could see our frosty breath by the light of the moon.
"How was your dinner?" I asked.
"Magnificent," Sebastian said. "Better than I've had in days."
I didn't doubt it. Food always helped with my Brew withdrawal, back what seemed like a lifetime ago. "My grandfather used to say that the point of hiking was to have lunch," I said. "He always found that food tastes immeasurably better out here."
Sebastian looked at me.
"He was being a little facetious."
"Clearly," Sebastian said.
"That's not my reason," I said, "But I think my grandfather grasped something important. He also said that the hiker climbs great lumps of rock over long periods of time, not to get anywhere, but to get back to where he started."
"We're not going anywhere?" Sebastian said.
"Don't be silly," I said. I pointed to Eolus, its dramatic face rising above us in the moonlight. "That's where were going tomorrow. I was just thinking about what you said. About why I don't just drink a Brew and become happy that way. There are a lot of reasons why I don't think that's a good idea. The first is that of value. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. How much does someone who buys those Brews value happiness? At around ten dollars and fifty cents. That's pretty cheap for an hour of Bliss, I suppose. When I become happy thanks to something like this, it's something special. It's something... not rare, but out of the ordinary and memorable. I suspect that people who drink those Brews too often not only stop being able to feel things normally, but the Brews themselves will stop working. They will get bored after the overdose of emotions. They will need more and more chemicals in their brain in order to get the same amount of pleasure, and eventually the brain just won't be able to take it. Eventually, the sheer amount of chemicals it would take to produce this amount of happiness," I raised my arms to encircle the situation, "would kill them."
"I don't think the brain works that way," Sebastian said.
"That's not my only point. My second point, the more important one, goes back to what you said in the car. I don't do this purely for an emotional response. I don't read books and watch movies just to feel a certain thing. I do it to learn something about the world, or in this case, something about myself. That's what my grandfather was trying to say, I think. The hiker, when he gets back to where he started, doesn't just go in a circle. He becomes a different person, somehow, thanks to that hike. It's a spiral. He returns to where he was, but on a higher plane. He's wiser, stronger, and more determined. A good hike can, and should, teach you something. It should change you. And if you feel happy along the way, that's an added bonus. But it's not a necessary condition. And I don't think that those Brews can teach you anything that's not already inside yourself. When you drink one and get your emotional rush, in the end, you're the same person. Those Brews primarily look inward, and are self-centered." I gestured to the mountains above us. "This... this looks outward."
My reply is the same. If you dial up an emotion in a Mood Cabinet or by drinking a Brew, it's self-stimulation of a masturbatory and perverse fashion. It doesn't grow you as a person, you don't learn anything, you remain unchanged. I would put use of drugs and abuse of alcohol in this category as well, although I would greatly struggle to explain why I feel like mild use of alcohol is OK and use of drugs at all is problematic.
If you craft an emotion by listening to music, created by other people and selected and enjoyed by you, or by reading a specific book, or drinking a wine you like ... you're engaging with the world around you in a way that develops your taste and personality.
To answer your last point briefly, I think ideally the methods you use to help step into the role of the moment would help you grow in virtue as well, developing you towards your aspirations and the kind of person you think you ought to become next. I shouldn't medicate or dial in emotions to work me in the direction of a drunkard, but a glass of scotch that helps me step into the role of better husband and father is worth it.
(some edits to add a few points in)
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
"Part-time work" here means 20 hours per week.
There's a lot that could be said about how exactly the graduate school ecosystem works, but I'll quickly note a few things that you may not know if you've never been a STEM graduate student that may change your read on the situation (I don't have time to offer anything more substantial):
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The 20 hour a week contract you sign is a complete fiction and joke. If you are operating as a teaching assistant in grad school, that will take up at least twenty hours a week in-between classtime, grading, office hours, etc. and more realistically closer to thirty hours. This is on top of all of the research you are already doing; my organic lab had a minimum of 55 hours of research a week as the expectation and other synthetic labs I knew were worse. This is on top of any coursework you may also be taking, which will require you to go to classes and read papers and do homework and prepare for cumes and ... I had many, many weeks in graduate school of working 80+ hours where I'd get in close to 7 AM, go home for dinner and to see my kids, and then go back into the lab and work until 11 PM. The 20 hour a week contract is a complete lie. No graduate student I know in STEM worked anywhere near that.
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The tuition waiver seems like a useful benefit to also consider as compensation (a decade or so back I remember congress was contemplating taxing it like other employer benefits), but it's similarly fictitious. It's not at all clear what you would be paying tuition for. After your first year, you aren't taking classes (you might be teaching them). You're doing research. Research space is not paid for by the university, neither is research equipment, neither is chemical inventory ... you pay for all of that using grant money! Graduate students shouldn't be charged tuition at all in my mind; they're operating much more as employees for the university rather than educational charges. Even your stipend, largely, is being paid for with grant money. I haven't the faintest idea what on earth the tuition is for ... except no, wait, I do, it's so the university can pocket a few extra thousand dollars of grant money from each lab every semester.
Graduate students in STEM are hilariously overworked and underpaid. I guess you get an (increasingly worthless) degree at the end and a job market flooded with competitors from all the other idiots who listened to college counsellors?
Don't go to grad school, kids.
ProfQuirrell
1yr ago
Wikipedia and memory tell me that Scott Alexander and Eliezer Yudkowsky were favored by the rich and by other entertainers. This suggests something more nepotistic than pure meritocracy.
As someone who has lurked and been around since 2011, this is so out of touch as to be hilarious. Scott / Eliezer are reasonably well read and well known now because they have produced a prodigious amount of writing that is both intelligent and enjoyable to read. They have done so consistently for years.
I assure you in the early 2010s they were neither popular nor well-known, they got there because of the quality of their work.
I like this quote. I'm a (very minor) elected official myself, and I treated the campaign almost like a job interview. I was entirely honest about my opinions under the theory that I was going to be elected to lead and make decisions and the public should know what decisions I was likely to make. If I won the election, that meant that the public wanted people with my specific ideas in the office.
I am intensely frustrated by my fellow representatives who constantly want to circle back to public opinion when deciding issues -- they elected YOU, right? So what the public WANTS is you to make a decision in accordance with the values you ran on. If we're just going to punt on decisions every time then we're just stuffed shirts; there's no need for elected representatives at all, we'll just run Twitter polls every week and we can stay home.
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