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.