[d_burfoot]

It's a bad idea to phrase advice as "Don't Do X", for most values of X that are often undertaken:

- Don't move to Detroit

- Don't go into academia

- Don't use dating apps

- Don't buy Google stock

It's most obvious for the last one: you should buy Google (or any other) stock if you think it's underpriced and sell it if you think it's overpriced. But even for the other advice, a kind of Efficient Market Hypothesis holds. If there were a massive exodus of people from academia, causing universities to increase salaries and reduce administrative burdens, going into academia might be great for the right people. For many people Detroit is a terrible city, but I know a guy who worked for the Tigers, and bought a large house for a small amount of money, and did a lovely job renovating it, so Detroit worked well for him.

Life is all about finding underpriced value: options that you will appreciate more than others, for whatever reason.