This is a bit off the normal beaten path of Naked Bible, but this essay (courtesy of Alexandre Afonso’s blog and a James McGrath tweet) is too good to pass by — and all too true: “How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang.”
The article is about how the economics and job prospects of PhDs bears a striking resemblance to the economic structure of drug gangs. It’s not satire. Personally, my own search for a job within academia was the most de-humanizing experience of my life. The business world is so much more sensible.
A very enlightening article, Dr. Heiser. It seems that PhDs desire to get their work noticed while businesses desire to make money. I work for the government (DOD) where we desire to take advantage of the work certain PhDs produce and give money to businesses via acquisition of capabilities. From my perspective as a government insider of many long years, it seems to be almost (not quite) a self licking ice cream cone. Hence my desire to escape and focus on applying myself to the study and pursuit of God’s word.
Understood.
Hello Dr. Heiser,
I had asked you about your eschatology ppt slides from your church presentation earlier. You graciously sent something over to Grace Bellingham. I have not recieved anything yet and thought I would try through here again. Not to be a pain, but my small group starts this Monday and would like to know if I need to start from scratch. Thank you for any assistance.
grace and peace
Send me an email directly and I’ll reply with the attachments.
Interesting but is this not what Milton Friedman,Thomas Sowall and Adam Smith before them have been saying for years ? The drug gang structure is basically the communist structure with overbearing government intervention stifling and free trade to the point of extinction, just like the drug gangs do, so in the end all you can do is work for them on their terms and become a cog in the machine as the alternative have been regulated out of bussiness or kneecapped in the drug gang analogy. This is comparable to acting and Hollywood with thousands of actors scrapping a living, but there is such a thing as a bad actor and a good actor and the good ones should get the job the problem is it is not about the acting capabilities anymore, it’s increasingly more about ideology and if you dont follow our ideology you dont get to act in our movie, same in academia. Drug gangs are small fry compared to governments with a particular ideology.
p.s miss the blog where you commented on politics and stuff
Had to chuckle at the last line. And the other analogy is well taken.