[eli_gottlieb]

>We hate the way academia is structured. It's just that no one can figure out anything better and the benefits for enough people are important enough that swaying them is incredibly difficult.

It's also that everyone who wants to do science is held hostage to this system. There is no other institution focused on original research, beyond shipping a product within three to five years.

Academia sucks. There are no full-time research positions for good researchers anymore; grant funding has gotten as selective as the startup lottery. Even the people who "make it" have to work horrendous hours and spend all their time marketing themselves.

Even from the very outset, you're forced to put your heart on the line, declare science your calling and your passion, and then just suck it up when you can't find a tenure-track job.

Some fields don't have an "Exit" option that makes anything better, just a "Voice" option or bust. Besides which, every "Exit" is a betrayal of the social contract, a tiny declaration that society would rather rot and burn than fix problems like mature adults.