No. Ponzi schemes are zero-sum; that's why they're doomed to failure when they promise above-unity average returns. Academia discovers knowledge; once the knowledge is discovered, everyone everywhere benefits from it, but especially in academia. It's as far from zero-sum as you can get!

The "leverage" of N Ph.D. students per [insert desired definition of success] position amplifies the effectiveness of academia considerably, but academia would still work more or less the same way without it.

(I am not now and have never been an academic, although I've spent a fair bit of time with academics. Consequently I am both reasonably-well-informed and minimally biased.)

I upvoted you, but one thing: if you wanna be unbiased, show not tell it! Saying you're not biased isn't much good at all. Just say stuff that isn't biased.

For most things I agree that showing is better than telling, but bias is different. If someone is in a position to judge whether my point of view is biased, then they already have a clearer idea of the truth than I do, so they don't benefit from reading my expression of that point of view. It's the people who don't already know what I have to say (or don't already know that it's false, if I am in error) who need to know how biased I am.

So I gave some information about my background, which I hope will give readers a better chance of forming an accurate idea of my state of objectivity and ignorance.

This one is sadly true

This thread seems like a big ponzi scheme.

don't forget about amateur athletics -- just look at brandon jennings going to europe. how can society criticize h.s. stars and their families for thinking about making some money (i.e. "recouping") when the coaches and everyone else around them (broadcasters, writers, etc.) are making millions?

I think you can say it for any self-replicating profession.

As long as there are people paying for the services a given profession provides, it will continue to exist. Now, it might be the case in e.g. academia that the profs will have to do the tedious work that grad students used to do, or come up with other ways of compensation, but the point still stands.

It gets murky when the positions are subsidized by the government or otherwise.

Scientific knowledge is a public good. That's exactly the kind of thing government should be subsidizing.

That's a strawman argument. Not all the subsidized positions have to do with science anyways.

Not sure it's a straw man argument, but your right. Many academic areas produce mostly papers & graduates. The Graduates pay to be produced.

I think it is. No one said anything for or against scientific knowledge then all of a sudden WHOOSH.

i don't think going WHOOSH as he hit send qualifies it argument as a straw man. Irrelevant at worst. Tangent at best.

What if he had just decided to call you an old bag. Would that be a strawman? It's not implying that you presented not being a bag as an argument.

Haha, that'd just be hilarious.

Anyone with any knowledge of our monetary systems will readily acknowledge that it works like a big ponzi scheme.

This is really the only way to manage a monetary system so it allows for economic growth.

We could say. "Let's go back to the Gold or Silver standard" but they have their own problems. United States was on a gold standard in the 1980s and I don't think we want to go there.

Anyone who has studied the history of Andrew Jackson should recall that the ongoing conflict between himself and Henry Clay during his three terms as president was about "Money Supply".

Neither Andrew Jackson nor anyone else had more than two terms as president except FDR, who took the US off the gold standard by stealing everyone's gold in 1933. (That's where the gold in Fort Knox came from.)

Besides, the US used a gold (and sometimes silver) standard most of the time before 1913, and in that time grew from thirteen largely agrarian colonies to the largest industrial economy in the world, so I can't understand why you say that "a big Ponzi scheme" is "really the only way to manage a monetary system so it allows for economic growth."

>...who took the US off the gold standard by stealing everyone's gold in 1933.

Yeah, right...(command-k Fort Knox)...Holy shit, you're right. He took everyone's gold and payed $20.67 an ounce, then printed dollars until gold cost 35 bucks an ounce. I'm dumbstruck...so blatant.

dgordon. When you grow from nothing to something 13 times doesn't mean too much. That argument is totally irrelevant.

There is no way we could have had the kind of growth we experienced post WWII if we had stayed on the gold or silver standard. The monetary system we use now is not perfect, it's just the best we have available.

But it's definitely broken. We need to fire some of the people who should have warned us about the crisis we are now in but didn't and then move on.

I feel very badly for those who have suffered unfairly, and this includes millions of innocents, but these things happen.

Growing all the way to the largest economy in the world is irrelevant? I don't follow. Nor did I say anything grew "thirteen times."

"There is no way we could have had the kind of growth we experienced post WWII if we had stayed on the gold or silver standard."

What's your evidence?

"The monetary system we use now is not perfect, it's just the best we have available."

Again, what's your evidence? Why is this system better than systems based on precious metals (the choice of most civilizations to use money) or systems that, while they use fiat currency, do not allow (in theory...) arbitrary creation of such currency?

"I feel very badly for those who have suffered unfairly, and this includes millions of innocents, but these things happen."

These things happen because the economic decisions of those who govern guarantee they will happen.

The US actually adopted fiat currency and abandoned the gold standard in 1913.