Say goodbye to a doctorate by Wang Yu

Say goodbye to the doctor's degree

By Wang Yin

After careful deliberation, I decided to "abandon" my doctorate again. This is the third time I have decided to leave my doctorate, and it should be the last time. This should not be surprising news, because I have been a doctor for 10 years, but my goal has never been a doctoral degree. I'm looking for something more important, and that thing has been found by me. So my "doctoral career" actually completed its mission, which basically can be successfully concluded.

If you have judged from my previous post that I am living in an environment that I aspire to, then you are mistaken. Although I learned what I wanted, I found that academia is no longer the place I aspire to. On the contrary, it hinders my progress and makes me unhappy. It is clear that the doctoral degree has been used by schools and academics as an "invisible chain" of cheap labor. You want the title of "Doctor", then it is cheap to work for us, can be out of the paper on the paper, can write code to write code. This wishful thinking is like selling stars in the sky. Give me 100,000 bucks, and I'll send you a certificate proving that you own the asteroid number N of a certain galaxy. What's the difference between a PhD certificate and a title Certificate for the asteroid?

Unfortunately, I do not need the title of "Doctor" to show their value, so I abandoned the degree, leaving school, leaving academia, is not a heartache.

Thought of the prison

If you think that academia means the liberation of ideas and the sharing of knowledge, then you are wrong. People who are not deep in the language often have a good illusion, that teachers are in the selfless transfer of knowledge, and students are free to discuss. But when you reach a certain level, you will find that very few people are selfless about knowledge, even the world's top scientists are no exception. What they "share" to you is often a bunch of elusive symbols and formulas that they present in a bunch of horrible terms. What they tell you is the "result" of thinking, not the "method" of thinking (the so-called "intuition"). When you get the same thing through your own independent thinking, you find that these masters have always hidden their intuition in a deep place, deliberately letting you know about it, but not knowing why. They may even denigrate the value of intuition itself, trying to convince you that they haven't come up with those formulas by using intuition, trying to convince you that only scary formulas, theorems and proofs are reliable, and intuition is unreliable. But the real intuition is very powerful, as long as you get it, you can fully understand the formulas, and will know how they come, and even find the problems inside, and then come up with new formulas.

Then you will suddenly discover that what you once thought of as "the Heaven of Thought" is actually "the prison of thought". You will find that many of your masters are not really scientists, but political masters. You will find that many people around you are actually deliberately mentioning some terminology in front of you to show your "deep". When you speak out of the secret behind these things, they don't talk, and then they have a grudge against you, hoping you'll disappear sooner. When you email a few of these terms and try to verify the intuition behind them, they will quickly stop replying to your email. When you try to get this intuition from the professors, they will be impatient to say to you: "You ask this question what is the point?" That's what this is about! "What does that mean?" It means they are afraid. They fear that their position is under threat, and they fear that once the intuition is mastered by most people, they will no longer be "academic authority" on the high. People would say, "That thing is really just ..."

That's what I've been through all these years. None of my colleagues really knew that the seemingly advanced theories of the masters they admired were already dead in my mind. For me, they're just using a bunch of scary math formulas, tossing and turning about things that can be said in a few words, and they're much more than just something that's simpler. So one of the things that the Masters often do is recruit "disciples", so long as someone is willing to be their successor and "based on" their theory, the complex and empty concepts they put forward can survive and they can maintain their position. So you find some ridiculous phenomenon, originally a new concept is not related to an old concept, but is dragged together. Originally a concept can be understood independently, but is involved in a bunch of other concepts, is complicated.

That's why I've mentioned that I used to "extinguish" a study in some areas for 20 years in a two-week period. This does not mean that I am a genius, but just a lot of people playing with academic tricks. Seeing through these tricks does not bring tangible benefits, but it allows me to save myself time to solve really important problems. But I do not see any hope of improvement in academia in this regard. So, for the freedom of thought, I cannot live in academia.

The game of the paper

I used to think that my major (program language) was the least water in computer science, but it wasn't. The only difference between a program language professional paper and other majors is that people in this field are playing tricks more skillfully. These papers touch the concept of Church, Turing and so on, so that even if there are no new content in it, you are already intimidated, don't mention the tricks. But because I see through some of the core concepts of the nature, so often browse some papers have found that there is actually no new things. Last semester I read more than 400 papers, and finally found that actually did not learn a lot of things. Some of these papers are even from some of the most well-known "superstars" in the field. Because of their illustrious status, I will not be offended by the name here.

A common routine is to make some very simple "programs" with a bunch of "mathematical symbols" that are called "logic" or "type systems." People worship mathematical logic because they don't understand the bunch of symbols and rules of reasoning. But through my own efforts, I have seen a lot of logic home tricks. I can also play this trick and design new logic, but I also know that we don't need that logic. However, the "procedural logic" of the paper, still frequently appear at the highest level of academic meetings. From the beginning can guess the end, a little suspense is not, let me feel very bored.

Last semester, I did a semester of research with the tutor about "type System". Said to be "with the mentor", but in fact he only played a stumbling block role. Not only did he not really participate in the discussion, but it was clearly against my deep findings, and he kept hitting me. The energy I use to "persuade" him is several times greater than the energy I used to study. In the end I found that he did not listen to what I said! I've always found some complex types of systems that are either completely impractical or can be implemented in an existing simple way. So these discoveries are actually "killing" several areas that have developed for decades, merging them into the same very simple thing. But he always said to me, "What do you think is the use of these ideas?" "Under his shock, I didn't have the heart to write a paper at the end. Then I realized that what he wanted was not a deep, simple understanding, but something else. It is clear that the tutors are simply the students who may bring him papers and funds. They prefer students who have no idea of the nature of things and who are dancing with the "new concept". Because these students can quickly create more complex new concepts, write seemingly advanced papers, and then from the NSF and other research institutions to money.

Therefore, in-depth understanding of the essence, in fact, in academia is not respected. Because in-depth understanding is often very simple. Such a simple thing, it seems that everyone can do, and how to get funding?

The flood of politics

It is generally thought that the school is a simple place to do academic work, and a learned person can always speak, but it is not like this in graduate school. As long as you can play games, you will find "patron", you may be "ahead".

I can not be modest to say that I am the best student here. The same professional classmates around me, no one can go beyond what I can do. And there's nothing that I can't do that they can do. In Dan Friedman's two highly difficult program language theory courses (B521, B621) were given a +, in the R Kent Dybvig Scheme Compiler course (P523) got a A +, and to some extent surpassed them. Within two weeks, I wrote the correct CPS transformation (more than 10 years of research) and the ANF transformation (the most important result of my mentor), entirely on my own. Several more than 20 years of research in some areas were "extinguished" within two weeks. Have their own insight into a lot of things. On the project, the Google project, and some of my own projects, were done independently by myself. When I get the problem, the first thing I think about is to solve it by my own strength, rather than to apply the existing answers and theories, so I often have an unusually simple solution to the problem.

But none of this has allowed me to be respected by my peers. On the contrary, because I like to tell the truth, they hate me and fear me. They are afraid to discuss their research with me, because I can always see the nature of them very quickly, so I always feel a layer of something in my mouth. Those who are adept at playing politics are clearly more appreciated. I did not want to put these "performance" out, in fact, I have been very modest, have not mentioned these things in front of people. But obviously in the United States, modesty is a serious mistake, because in the course of Friedman and Dybvig struggling classmates, because at some meetings, a little article, is now very high-toed, everyone said where he published the paper. They like to say a few words that I've seen long ago, and the voices are chattering. However, these tricks are actually very effective, they have been professors as a "good student", than I can speak a lot.

But they also lost a lot of it. I could have helped them, but because of their selfishness and arrogance, they lost the chance to get my help. The content of their papers (and even doctoral theses) is actually better than the results I got a few years ago, but I was too lazy to write papers for these trivial things, and I could have given them to them for free as papers. Remember Friedman's most difficult program language theory course (B629) at the end of the semester, several students in the class wanted to do a summer program to try to improve the efficiency of Minikanren (Dan Friedman's logical language design). I had already re-implemented my Minikanren in the B521 of the previous semester and had added some extended functions (such as constraint logic programming), so I told them as soon as I heard the plan that Minikanren used The substitution data structure is association list, the lookup time is linear, obviously the efficiency is very low. Using another "functional data structure", such as a functional balance tree, is much better. But when they heard this, they kept a terrible silence, as if I didn't exist in front of them! After more than a year of tossing and writing, they published a paper in which the basic content is what I told them. Signature and "Thank You" are none of me. I don't care about such a small idea because I can say it clearly in a word. But they did not express a bit of gratitude, but in front of me to show off, really very silent. If they are willing to ask me for advice, I am afraid that the time it takes to publish the paper is not a year, but one months.

There were several similar cases, and I didn't want to say anything. Later, I got some real information from a classmate's mouth. Some people, he says, like to be deliberately struck or indifferent when they hear good ideas from others. When people lose interest in their own ideas, they take the idea out of their own name and publish it. This kind of thing happened to him once. His mentor has been hitting him so much that his paper has not been published for two years. When he decided to leave, he found that his ideas had been published by his mentor and another person. His name was not on the office.

That's why I don't like to talk to people more and more, because a lot of people get the idea, they want to get it for themselves, to be famous for it, and not even say a word of thanks. This furtive phenomenon not only exists in my side, but also exists in the whole academia. Often feel the communication with some people, the information is there is no out, even the professors of the elite schools are no exception. For example, I once communicated with a "bull professor," who said he was interested in my idea, and when I told him, I never received a reply. This may be the inevitable result of academic industrialization. Academics do not sell products, they have to take "ideas" to sell. But the idea that this thing is so strange, once you tell others, others have this idea, how do you prove that the idea is yours? So the result of academic industrialization is a world without the exchange of ideas. I try to communicate and share with others again and again, but I was fooled and disappointed.

With such politics and intrigue, what is the point of me staying here? I am here, so that the whole academic community, in fact, there is no one worthy of cooperation. And I have realized that my thoughts have gone far beyond the professors of many famous universities, so I don't really need to communicate with them anymore.

Future plans

Because of the strange behavior of the previous tutor, I changed my tutor this semester, so I stayed at school for the time being. But I'm completely disappointed in academia, so my current plan is to get a job and leave school.

Obviously, the knowledge I learned can easily bring me a high-paying job. But I also know, in fact, the programming language is the few tricks in the final analysis. So I am more willing to explore the wider world, learn new things, find the real worthy of cooperation, create real value. In addition, I will gradually take these "tricks" I know to the public in an intuitive and easy-to-understand way, so that the mysterious veil of authority disappears.

This article is posted at Yinwang ' s Sina blog,
On 2012-09-09.
Though it ' s not available on the blog now.

(turn) Say goodbye to the doctor's degree by Wang Yu