unclellama [none/use name]

"During the pandemic, he lost his tenants for a few months when they could no longer afford rent..." damn, hate it when people just get lost like that.

has to be chonky and with lots of garlic and lemon. in that case, YES

thanks! I expect moving to the US will help mold my politics and values, if nothing else. Life under capitalism in Denmark is 'ok-ish' if you ignore 1) the othering of immigrants and 2) the exploitation outside our borders. in Arizona i hope my lazy ass will be more motivated to get involved in grassroots stuff.

from what I've heard of phd life in the US, moving to the EU sounds like the correct move, heard so many stories about 'I work 80 hour weeks' macho posturing. No idea whether that is also expected for a postdoc, but in that case they can always just fire me again haha. Even pretending to work those kinds of hours seems really bad for everyone's mental health.

Also, I fucking love criticism / dunks of scientist celebrities, would read those with glee :) There are some very funny Trashfuture podcast episodes along those lines.

Hi, i just lurk here but this is something i was wondering about, so thought i'd chime in :) I live in denmark but am moving to arizona for two years to do a postdoc in astronomy (waiting on the visa now, not sure if it will go through). While i am really looking forward to the hot weather and the science, moving to the US from a much less hellish country right now is obviously kind of a dumb move, and I fully expect the universe to punish me in some way...

I guess for me, the worst thing about science is the careerist, 'be the best' bullshit, which I think ties in to a lot of the issues you mention. Even in socdem Denmark we are kind of encouraged to do our jobs and nothing else, although to be fair there is increasing support from senior staff these days if you say you just want to work 37 hours a week (the Danish full-time) and lead an ordinary life with kids and/or hobbies on the side. for myself, working more than that (apart from in short bursts up to deadlines) just makes me sad and irritable, so it's a no-go. In general, i'm skeptical that working more than full-time results in better science.

At least in astronomy, research is increasingly collaborative, working in large international teams. people skills and a realistic attitude towards workloads and schedules are probably more important than trying (and almost certainly failing) to live up to the 'lone genius' fantasy. I think this also ties in to a larger cultural/political debate about the way people lionize elon musk / atlas shrugged types. It would be really valuable to communicate how science actually tends to move forward, i.e. as a collaborative process where human interactions are really important for the quality and reliability of the results.

The hyper-competitive vibes that still exist in academia - being protective of your own ideas and jealous of others' - seem antithetical to the aim of doing good science. I feel there's a real tension between the structure of academia and the collaborative nature of research right now. I'm increasingly attracted to open science including open code, so that people don't waste time repeating my coding work when they want to either reproduce or further develop my methods. While you do get a little push-back on this from some senior people, at least in astronomy it looks like this is becoming the norm among younger researchers, which is really nice.

Also super interested in how to get PhD students to see themselves as a valuable workforce and do collective bargaining. There was basically none of that during my phd :(