Today I read Erik Hoel’s Academia is dangerously close to “network or perish”. Ultimately his point was that the people who make it to the most prestigious positions do not always write the best content. His main example was a short op-ed in TIME called “No, Today’s AI Isn’t Sentient.” This whole piece was inspired by a viral tweet about a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist about her distaste for the kinds of networking that were required to succeed in her position.
I thought his piece would deliver more than it did, but it did still make me think about the privilege of having a job as an academic to pursue the projects that I want. And I am grateful for that.