Just once, I’d like to write a paper that communicated its results clearly, without all sorts of excess fluff. Literally every time I write a paper, the nonsense I need to put into it thanks to the way the system is arranged both depresses and infuriates me. Surrounding a pure idea with meaningless words is like using mud to frost a delicious cake.
But then it would be one or two pages long, would have very few references (why people think it’s a good practice to acknowledge papers you’ve never even read or used, I’ll never know), and would be immediately rejected by peer reviewers. (Thanks, oh faithful Gatekeepers of Truth, for making it impossible to effectively communicate ideas). The skill most people call technical writing seems to be primarily in convincing people that what you’re writing is not actually filler. I think I’ve become very good at it by now because I’m getting a lot of things published by this point, but it’s not that the ideas are any different from before – I just frosted them with more mud.
Getting a Ph. D. is exhibiting mastery of this skill, by writing 150+ pages of material to present the same one page of results that I’m currently devoting 10 pages to this time around. I actually did that first, but copying and pasting from my dissertation is considered “autoplagiarism” (Plagiarism = taking credit for the ideas of another. Therefore, autoplagiarism = taking credit for your own ideas), so I can’t even use the material I’ve previously written on the same topic.
The long list of publications people show off in order to cudgel their way into academic positions tends to be composed of at most 3 or 4 ideas, rehashed in different ways, with minor variations on the details, but very little true originality. And it works because no one has the time to read the majority of an applicant’s papers! The best people have managed to do is include an “acceptance ratio”, or measure of how selective the conferences and journals submitted to were, as if peer endorsement guarantees that the idea within is good.
It’s all so fake, just like society in general. And when true authenticity occasionally rears its head (as it must, because civilization still exists), it’s immediately bludgeoned and violently suppressed.
I must say, an agrarian lifestyle seems more appealing with each passing day. Nature alone rewards honesty. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.