[cyrksoft]

> Number of papers published or number of citations isn't a measure of the value of someone's research. This over-reliance on metrics is a big part of what's going wrong with academia. A hundred years ago people published when they had something to say, and authors of journals had to literally beg people for submissions.

It is the universal measure of how useful your research is. How do you measure it otherwise? Research is useful if somebody else uses it. Most research in humanities has no use. I'm not against humanities per se, the same could be said about biology, for example. I'm against forcing people to pay very high wages for doing nothing of value. Because, let's face it, academics actually make very decent wages for the zero-risk job they have.

> So is education. All developed countries spend public money on education.

I don't see university-level education as a fundamental aspect of government spending, at least not in its current form. Also, the fact that everybody does it means nothing.

> In the UK? In the UK a minimum wage worker pays hardly any tax, so they don't subsidise much of anything. If the question is why society should subsidise that, my answer would be that it should do so if it values historical knowledge (assuming that we're still talking about history PhDs). If you are just saying "history sucks, so let's not spend money training people to be historians", then sure, that is a coherent position.

'Hardly any tax' is quite a bold statement. You are clearly not on minimum wage. Try living in London on £1,300 a month. Even if they 'only' pay 20%, there is also a 20% VAT on everything they spend.

[foldr]

You can’t measure how useful someone’s research is. That’s what drives business school graduates nuts about academics :) Research isn’t a product, and researchers can’t be managed like assembly line workers.

The fact that almost all governments of developed countries subsidize their university sectors means that the burden of argument lies squarely on those who think that they should not. I understand that you’re one of those people. However, I disagree, and you’ve given no argument in support of that aspect of your position.

[cyrksoft]

I've given you my arguments, but you don't like them. And all your arguments are 'things have been done this way for centuries, let's keep the status quo as it is' and 'you cannot measure what I do'. Governments don't subsidise sectors, tax payers do. And you are saying we should keep giving money to those producing nothing, or something so valuable that can't be measured, because that is how we've been doing things so far. You should tell me why we should keep giving people money, not the other way around. Specially in the current situation where lots of people are really struggling.

[foldr]

It’s difficult to have a sensible argument when there’s a fundamental difference in values. As far as I can see, you think education should ‘produce’ something of monetary value or it is worthless. Historically, universities have operated under very different assumptions.

Take the example of historical research. Either you want a society which knows its own history of you don’t. You can’t put a price on that. To try to reduce the value of such research to citation numbers or some kind of financial measure is just nonsense.

[cyrksoft]

I never said all education should produce something of monetary value. There are many non-monetary value things that can nonetheless be measured.

You keep talking about how things have been historically. Things can change, and historically not everything was done correctly.

> Either you want a society which knows its own history of you don’t.

You don't need hundreds or thousand of History PhDs for that.

There is no point on people studying things nobody cares and nobody will ever care about. If your work never gets used, why force a subsidy on it? Do it with your own means if you like. Or accept the fact that you will have to do it for a very low wage no matter how many PhDs you have.

You seem unable to defend your position other that 'historically it's been this way' and 'unmeasurable value'. There is no point in keeping going with this discussion.