Because I don't think that this expectation really exists in the US. I have close friends who are pursuing PhDs in mathematics and literature and have consequently met a great many PhD candidates in both of those fields. Almost all of them, with few exceptions, expect that they will get a good post-doc position and, following that, will get a good tenure track position. They have no backup plans, they have no skills that could provide them a job in anything but academia, and it's not hiring.
But I think this criticism is the same that HN readers have, just better expressed. When I read these criticisms here, I don't take away a pervasive thought that people believe a literature PhD (for example) to be worthless on its own. Instead, I see a lot of criticism of the expectation that one would get a PhD and everything would simply work out.
I'm sure that there are some HN criticism that a literature PhD is inherently worthless. But I think (and hope) that this is the distinct minority. But I do see a lot of messages critical of the fact that one spent x years working on a PhD and has developed no skills beyond the ability to critically analyze Beowulf and has no backup plan if the job market for fine arts PhDs was poor (and it is). And while the tone may be exceptionally callous, this expectation and this behavior should be criticized.
When interviewing for engineering positions afterward, my interviewers would often try to put some spin on my MA, like:
"Well, I'll bet an intensive two-year study of film made you a better developer."
To which I'd reply, "No. No it didn't. It was fun though, and I learned a lot. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Not everything is about software, and not everything has to be. I didn't spend those years studying film as some oblique exercise in... well, in anything. And the value I gained from the experience can't be measured in dollars. (As cheesy as that sounds...)
To be fair we should note that Palantir is a CIA operation whose job is to help the US military destroy indigenous peoples world wide in prep for western corporations to come in and exploit local resources.
Pretty much everybody at Palantir (such as Mr. Miller) reads HN regularly though since they post here all the time to promote and justify their company's fine work in suppressing people. The German social philosophy angle fits right in there.
Love the work you guys do attacking journalists and threatening their families. Real classy.
He's a smart, good-looking guy who has a lot of powerful friends in multiple locations.
His knowledge of German philosophy isn't really relevant.
http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/6717
Prior to Palantir, Alex established the Caedmon Group in 2002. Based in New York and London, the Caedmon Group offers clients access to high-quality investment opportunities in the areas of hedge funds, venture capital, private equity, and intellectual property in the United States and Europe.
Alex earned his law degree at Stanford University and received his Ph.D. in neoclassical social theory at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. A U.S. citizen, Alex is bilingual in English and German and fluent in French.
Wow. Not judging, are we?
I was a liberal arts major the first time through the mill. I agree that the charlatanism tends to fail quicker in the scientific and technical fields--you need a Stalin behind you to get as far as Lysenko did, but fad upon fad in the humanities has a long run in the academy. That said, I don't know of anything more worth doing well than the humanities.
A problem that I see is that US academia had a long run as a successful pyramid scheme. All those undergraduates showing up during the GI Bill years and then the baby boom kept the colleges expanding. Somewhere after 1980 the rate of expansion slowed down, and the graduate students were scrambling for positions. But everyone's expectations had been set by the boom. The days of genteel academic poverty in the 1940s and before were forgotten. But if you look back at books about that time--Jacques Barzun's essays in Teacher in America, Ulam's memoirs, parts of Wallace Stegner's novel Crossing to Safety--you'll see that it wasn't an especially secure life, and not always a contented one.
I work as a programmer. I am not obsessed with money--a very easy thing to say if you've been comfortably solvent most of your life. But I do need to make a living. Academia was never really an option. I've enjoyed schools as a student, but found them to induce a bit of claustrophobia even when I knew that I was just passing through.
Humanities PhDs are fundamentally different from science PhDs, they set people up differently, teach different skills and have different requirements.
[1] http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/21/report-social-network-de...
Is it really that hard to admit that you did something expensive because it was kind of fun?
The irony burns like flames from hell.
But credit where credit is due: Academia, especially in the humanities, is everything but cosy. There is little money in it, there are few available positions.
However, being a slight bit along the same way as the author, I can only relay what I see around me every day. From the group of PhD students around me, how many hold any illusions as to what academia means? None that I have met. Out of a group of ~10 people, some almost finished, some at the beginning (this is not in the US, so everyone has done a masters or equivalent before), nobody wants to become a professor. One wants to become (and judging by how she's doing, she will be) a curator, I see people interested in broadcasting, teaching (as in: school), publishing and politics. It might be different in the US, I do not know. But here, it is painfully obvious to everyone I meet as to what the chances are to land a faculty position.
Do I care? To a degree (no pun intended). Would I like to go into academia? Yes. Do I know what that means? Yes. I write quickly, I enjoy a wide range of topics, I don't mind giving talks etc. I am flexible. Would I have to move if I wanted to go down that route? Yes. Does that bother me? No, it really doesn't. I will give it its fair shot, I will finish the PhD, and I will have a look around for post-doc positions. If it doesn't work? Fair enough, publishing or IT or something else it is.
I am not terribly bothered about money, not because I am somehow well off, but because I do not particularly care. I don't need that much to be happy. As long as I will be able to buy books and music here and there, go out every now and then and have a somewhat nice flat somewhere, I will be fine. I would like to be able to have dog, though.
I don't understand the vitriol on HN, I really don't. Everytime the humanities come up, there are the same type of comments, comparing software development entry salaries to professors, talking about student debt etc. Many here seem to be incapable (or unwilling) to even acknowledge that their own set of values is not universal, that not everybody wants to make it or even cares about making it.
In many ways, I qualify for things here, I dabble in programming, I use LaTeX/Emacs/org-mode for all my work, I use Linux permanently, write my own shell-scripts, report bugs etc. That does not mean I would necessarily like to be a programmer. HN is obsessed with making money and in doing so forgets that not everyone shares the same worldview.
I'm sure I will be fine. I do not have any student debt, I will start doing whatever it is I will be doing with a clean slate, I owe no money and I see my experiences as everything but lost time. I love what I am doing, and It would be a pity to give it up. If I have to, I will, but until then, I'll see where it'll take me.
P.S.: I'm doing German now (though I have done other European languages before). Just like the original author. Her choice of topic probably didn't help her overall feelings about her position, either. Kafka is one of those authors about whom so much has been done that it is hard to approach him without a huge amount of preconceptions.
e: syntax