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The academic ponzi scheme thing is overplayed. I'm a Phd Research Scientist at a good school. I'm not faculty, but I have a lot of freedom and I get to do research that is fulfilling. Yes, it's a pyramid (aren't all org charts?) and I'm not at the top, but I'm happy.

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...also, in a ponzi scheme there is no product. I aim to produce useful, generalizable knowledge. That's what the NIH is paying for. A valuable product.

The unspoken aspect of the pyramid scheme theory is that academia is great for the top one percent of Einsteins, and bearable for the top one percent of the most tenacious.

I'm interested to see what the future of the Research Scientist role is. It's basically a place for people who didn't do a post-doc and aren't bad-ass enough to not need one. And, one could argue, people who just don't want to play the faculty game. I hope we see that space grow in academia. I think we will.

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