Regardless of what the truth is, it seems like working hard is the best way forward, rather than getting lazy or seeking side-hustles.
Is it possible for you to willingly choose to believe something if you don’t actually think it’s true? To what extent? I don’t think it’s a yes or no question.
Related to that, are there any downsides of anxiety? Ie. if you go down the path of believing something that isn’t true (or is stretching what is true), will you have a nagging feeling in the back of your mind that produces anxiety?
What are the downstream impacts of deviating from truth? Imagine the following scenario: reality is that your work doesn’t matter much; you choose to believe that it is for instrumental reasons; down the line there is a ton of evidence that your work matters very little but since you took the blue pill you aren’t able to process this evidence and update your beliefs. It seems to me that in order to justify deviating from truth, you have to be pretty confident that it’s the right choice because you give up some future flexibility.
I’m glad you’re asking this. I this idea of instrumental truth often times gets dismissed too quickly and I think it’s something that is worth talking about.
Regardless of what the truth is, it seems like working hard is the best way forward, rather than getting lazy or seeking side-hustles.
This isn’t obvious to me. If you are in, say, the bottom 90% and have no chance of getting an academic job no matter how hard you work, knowing as soon as possible and making exit plans seems like the best thing.
Hm, I was imagining it as a given that the chance of getting a job in academia is high enough for it to be worth continuing, and that from there the question is whether marginal effort on work is worth it. In that case where it’s a given that you’re continuing, it seems worth working hard on your research regardless of whether it’ll help much with job prospects.
To make this more concrete, imagine that we assume there’s a 70% chance of getting a job if you continue and do a normal amount of work. From there there’s the question of whether working extra hard bumps you up to 90 or 95%, or whether it only has a small impact like getting you to 75%. I see that as a separate (but related) question from the question of whether the baseline probability is high enough to continue with the degree.
I agree the post strongly frames things as for potential winners who aren’t considering other options, but I think that’s a mistake for this exact reason. Even if a set that benefits from self-deceit exists, you can’t know if you’re in it while you’re self-deceiving.
What if the self-deceit is limited to a given area? Eg. in this case, if the student is honest about what the baseline likelihood of getting a job is (eg. 70%), makes the decision to continue with the program based on that, and then introduces self-deceit specifically for the question of whether working extra hard will do a lot to improve his chances. Isn’t it possible to self-deceive on the latter question without it spilling over into the former question?
I can’t say it’s impossible, but you would have to constantly go back and forth whenever you got new information, while hiding from yourself that you were doing so, and at a certain point it becomes psychologically easier to work hard despite a lack of guaranteed success.
I’m not sure if I’m interpreting what you mean by going back and forth correctly, but I think this will clarify.
If you’re going to self-deceive on eg. the former question of what the baseline likelihood of getting a job is, there is a large downside that you won’t be able to update (well) on new information. Eg. in the scenario where new information arises showing that you should actually quit the grad program, you wouldn’t be able to update on it and would end up making the wrong choice. So it’d only be appropriate to self-deceive in limited situations. Eg. if you’re highly, highly confident that the baseline likelihood of getting a job is large enough that you feel comfortable moving forward with the decision to continue with the program.
As to the question of how psychologically easy it is to self-deceive and successfully compartmentalize new information, I agree that it seems difficult, but I’m not sure. Perhaps it depends on your personality.
If you think the baseline chance of getting a job in your field* is 70%, you’re either extraordinarily talented or a fairly delusional. I don’t know you, but I know how I’d bet it. Long story short—the market is absurdly competitive and you probably shouldn’t get a PhD at all. If you do try for it, you should realize that excessive work doesn’t guarantee success but failing to work excessively basically guarantees failure.
P.S. I have an Ivy League STEM PhD and am working as an accountant in the public sector (in other words, the higher end of working class or lower middle class). I’m not the only STEM PhD in my bureau.
My point wasn’t really about making a statement about what the baseline likelihood is, just that baseline likelihood vs benefit of marginal work are two separate questions, and more generally that the question of self-deceit is one that applies to many different sub-problems (self-deceive here but not there).
But yeah, I don’t doubt that you’re right about what the true baseline is. And in general the market sounds quite inefficient. I myself am going through that now as a programmer with six years of experience struggling to find a job.
Fair enough. I’ve never understood how “self-deceit” was supposed to work, though. Self—delusion is simple enough—you believe something that isn’t true. That’s probably universal. But self-deceit seems to require you to believe something that you don’t believe, and I don’t understand why you expect yourself to fall for it.
I certainly believe its possible. I have lots of objective measures of progress and ability I can compare to produce an outside estimate. The post doesn’t discuss this because I’ve already built mechanisms to prevent self-deception on the former question.
That’s true. I believe in solving this by writing clear conditions for withdrawing from the cult beforehand. Pull parachute rope if
No publications of note by fourth year
Can’t find editing-commenting exchanges in 3rd year
Have not picked a topic by end of third year
Have not finished thesis 6th year
I also picked a university in a high-employment city in my field to avoid being murder-pilled by the academic cult. I didn’t include these adaptations in the post to keep the focus on dark-side rationality.
Some thoughts:
Regardless of what the truth is, it seems like working hard is the best way forward, rather than getting lazy or seeking side-hustles.
Is it possible for you to willingly choose to believe something if you don’t actually think it’s true? To what extent? I don’t think it’s a yes or no question.
Related to that, are there any downsides of anxiety? Ie. if you go down the path of believing something that isn’t true (or is stretching what is true), will you have a nagging feeling in the back of your mind that produces anxiety?
What are the downstream impacts of deviating from truth? Imagine the following scenario: reality is that your work doesn’t matter much; you choose to believe that it is for instrumental reasons; down the line there is a ton of evidence that your work matters very little but since you took the blue pill you aren’t able to process this evidence and update your beliefs. It seems to me that in order to justify deviating from truth, you have to be pretty confident that it’s the right choice because you give up some future flexibility.
I’m glad you’re asking this. I this idea of instrumental truth often times gets dismissed too quickly and I think it’s something that is worth talking about.
This isn’t obvious to me. If you are in, say, the bottom 90% and have no chance of getting an academic job no matter how hard you work, knowing as soon as possible and making exit plans seems like the best thing.
Hm, I was imagining it as a given that the chance of getting a job in academia is high enough for it to be worth continuing, and that from there the question is whether marginal effort on work is worth it. In that case where it’s a given that you’re continuing, it seems worth working hard on your research regardless of whether it’ll help much with job prospects.
To make this more concrete, imagine that we assume there’s a 70% chance of getting a job if you continue and do a normal amount of work. From there there’s the question of whether working extra hard bumps you up to 90 or 95%, or whether it only has a small impact like getting you to 75%. I see that as a separate (but related) question from the question of whether the baseline probability is high enough to continue with the degree.
It seems unlikely that a person who holds confused beliefs about the likelihood of getting a professorship is capable of making that judgement.
I agree the post strongly frames things as for potential winners who aren’t considering other options, but I think that’s a mistake for this exact reason. Even if a set that benefits from self-deceit exists, you can’t know if you’re in it while you’re self-deceiving.
What if the self-deceit is limited to a given area? Eg. in this case, if the student is honest about what the baseline likelihood of getting a job is (eg. 70%), makes the decision to continue with the program based on that, and then introduces self-deceit specifically for the question of whether working extra hard will do a lot to improve his chances. Isn’t it possible to self-deceive on the latter question without it spilling over into the former question?
I can’t say it’s impossible, but you would have to constantly go back and forth whenever you got new information, while hiding from yourself that you were doing so, and at a certain point it becomes psychologically easier to work hard despite a lack of guaranteed success.
I’m not sure if I’m interpreting what you mean by going back and forth correctly, but I think this will clarify.
If you’re going to self-deceive on eg. the former question of what the baseline likelihood of getting a job is, there is a large downside that you won’t be able to update (well) on new information. Eg. in the scenario where new information arises showing that you should actually quit the grad program, you wouldn’t be able to update on it and would end up making the wrong choice. So it’d only be appropriate to self-deceive in limited situations. Eg. if you’re highly, highly confident that the baseline likelihood of getting a job is large enough that you feel comfortable moving forward with the decision to continue with the program.
As to the question of how psychologically easy it is to self-deceive and successfully compartmentalize new information, I agree that it seems difficult, but I’m not sure. Perhaps it depends on your personality.
In my experience having different parts of oneself believe different things is not good for motivation.
I agree in general, but I can imagine exceptions to that rule.
If you think the baseline chance of getting a job in your field* is 70%, you’re either extraordinarily talented or a fairly delusional. I don’t know you, but I know how I’d bet it. Long story short—the market is absurdly competitive and you probably shouldn’t get a PhD at all. If you do try for it, you should realize that excessive work doesn’t guarantee success but failing to work excessively basically guarantees failure.
P.S. I have an Ivy League STEM PhD and am working as an accountant in the public sector (in other words, the higher end of working class or lower middle class). I’m not the only STEM PhD in my bureau.
*excluding adjunct positions paying sub-minimum wage.
My point wasn’t really about making a statement about what the baseline likelihood is, just that baseline likelihood vs benefit of marginal work are two separate questions, and more generally that the question of self-deceit is one that applies to many different sub-problems (self-deceive here but not there).
But yeah, I don’t doubt that you’re right about what the true baseline is. And in general the market sounds quite inefficient. I myself am going through that now as a programmer with six years of experience struggling to find a job.
Fair enough. I’ve never understood how “self-deceit” was supposed to work, though. Self—delusion is simple enough—you believe something that isn’t true. That’s probably universal. But self-deceit seems to require you to believe something that you don’t believe, and I don’t understand why you expect yourself to fall for it.
I certainly believe its possible. I have lots of objective measures of progress and ability I can compare to produce an outside estimate. The post doesn’t discuss this because I’ve already built mechanisms to prevent self-deception on the former question.
That’s true. I believe in solving this by writing clear conditions for withdrawing from the cult beforehand. Pull parachute rope if
No publications of note by fourth year
Can’t find editing-commenting exchanges in 3rd year
Have not picked a topic by end of third year
Have not finished thesis 6th year
I also picked a university in a high-employment city in my field to avoid being murder-pilled by the academic cult. I didn’t include these adaptations in the post to keep the focus on dark-side rationality.