Have you seen A Master-Slave Model of Human Preferences? To summarize, I think every human is trying to optimize for status, consciously or subconsciously, including those who otherwise fit your description of idealized platonic researcher. For example, I’m someone who has (apparently) “chosen ultimate (intellectual) freedom over all else”, having done all of my research outside of academia or any formal organizations, but on reflection I think I was striving for status (prestige) as much as anyone, it was just that my subconscious picked a different strategy than most (which eventually proved quite successful).
at the end of the day, what’s even the point of all this?
I think it’s probably a result of most humans not being very strategic, or their subconscious strategizers not being very competent. Or zooming out, it’s also a consequence of academia being suboptimal as an institution for leveraging humans’ status and other motivations to produce valuable research. That in turn is a consequence of our blind spot for recognizing status as an important motivation/influence for every human behavior, which itself is because not explicitly recognizing status motivation is usually better for one’s status.
Have you seen A Master-Slave Model of Human Preferences? To summarize, I think every human is trying to optimize for status, consciously or subconsciously, including those who otherwise fit your description of idealized platonic researcher. For example, I’m someone who has (apparently) “chosen ultimate (intellectual) freedom over all else”, having done all of my research outside of academia or any formal organizations, but on reflection I think I was striving for status (prestige) as much as anyone, it was just that my subconscious picked a different strategy than most (which eventually proved quite successful).
I think it’s probably a result of most humans not being very strategic, or their subconscious strategizers not being very competent. Or zooming out, it’s also a consequence of academia being suboptimal as an institution for leveraging humans’ status and other motivations to produce valuable research. That in turn is a consequence of our blind spot for recognizing status as an important motivation/influence for every human behavior, which itself is because not explicitly recognizing status motivation is usually better for one’s status.