Comment by PaulDavisThe1st
3 years ago
> In an academic setting the person with the strongest argument generally has a long term advantage.
This is a remarkably naive view of how contemporary (and likely, any) academic institution or academia as a whole operates. Do you actually believe this?
You don't have to look very far to discover that they aren't perfect. I do suspect that as the academic tradition will fail as the bar to getting a degree lowers. Something like half the population the population of the US is getting a degree? Some of those students must be pretty average. Pretty challenging to build an exceptional cultural pocket out of average people.
Nevertheless they are much closer to the ideal than pretty much any community you can name. Especially on the scale the academy operates at in both time, space and social influence.