ok, to clarify: I was talking about academia as a job, not as a PhD student. Also, I think your points were interesting and I didn't disagree with a lot of them, but I'd like to add a little more, don't know if this helps at all...

> I've found it to be quite stressful, unrewarding, and intellectually smothering. Reasons include overlong hours, jerks and bullies in positions of power, territorial battles, arrogance and shortsightedness.

I know plenty of PhD students who struggle to cope with the stress. Not so many academics, to be honest. The academics who complain about stress would also likely struggle in industry.

Also, I did say less stressful than industry. I can assure you my industrial job was a lot more stressful - if only because I had responsibility for major systems that affected 10000s of people directly. Basically, being terrified of messing things up or trying to fire fight when things went wrong. Overlong hours are rife in the tech industry, and you won't find the other complaints to be any different, I'm afraid. So, it's a relative decision. Most jobs carry some stress. But for me, the wins of academia far outweigh the downsides. It's not for everyone, but I felt it important to point out that the academia-backlash we're seeing at the moment is not necessarily an objective viewpoint.

> Others are also really smart, but don't care (deeply about what they do).

That is far more common in industry, because people turn up for the pay cheque more than anything else. I know few academics with this attitude.

> Most are pretty smart, but not very interested in anything outside of an extremely narrow focus. Since most people have no interest in or knowledge of what others do, or desire to learn, I find it decidedly un-stimulating.

I guess this depends on the institution you're at. The two I've worked in within the UK are quite highly regarded. Colleagues tend to love learning.

> As a young and enthusiastic student bringing new ideas to the table, I'm on the other end of this. Ideas are met with resistance, mockery, endless rounds of meetings and debates, and intellectual laziness (i.e. "I could spend some time thinking about this idea and give meaningful feedback, but instead I'll just axe it"). It's incredibly demotivating.

This just sounds like bad supervision. A lot of PhD students complaining on the web seem to have had poor supervision. It's not uncommon either, and something I think academia really needs to work on. FWIW, the people I work closely with dedicate a huge amount of time to their PhD students and the feedback we get from them is overwhelmingly positive. It does take a lot of time though, and we do go above-and-beyond somewhat.

> However, I haven't really gotten much benefit from being
physically near to experts. Perhaps that's my fault.

Could it be the stage in your career? Have you never walked into a seminar on something completely different? Or sat down with a colleague over coffee and had them explain (say) the current state of cancer research, amidst their cutting-edge discoveries? Those opportunities are priceless.

> This has not been true in my experience. We're forced to focus on what is publishable (often, in the short term).

This is true, to some extent. But you can spend significant time looking further ahead, that's the difference. And what may be regarded as "short-term publishable" doesn't have to be something you can deploy in a product. It could be something insightful and far-reaching, but ready for publication. Or just a great idea. Or something that inspires people. Most companies are not going to say "that's a great idea that will never make us money, do some more of that!"

> Also, negative results (i.e. disproving a hypothesis, or showing that there's no link between two variables) -- which can be significant, applicable data -- aren't publishable.

They're actually less publishable, rather than unpublishable, and there's plenty of research on the relative publishability (to coin an unwanted phrase). See "Bad Science" for a summary.

> We're also forced to focus on what is likely to bring in grant money.

This is true to some extent. But really, you have to find a balance. The greatest, supersmart researchers I've met have to follow the money too -- to an extent. But they get a balance, do their bit, contribute some money that often supports PhD students through their study (as someone once pointed out to me when I made the same complaint as a PhD student!), and then get back to working on their research.

> Wouldn't know. My work has been crap-covered crap, with a side-helping of crap. I feel that the current trend to focus only on extraordinarily meaningful results has actually made it tougher for people to make real contributions -- because if you don't sell it (in the sense of over-hyping it), even if it's going to make a real difference, it'll be tough to publish in a decent journal, or to get grant money.

Selling is indeed part of the job -- it also has been. Communication is really important in academia. Collaboration and dissemination are key.

I'm sorry you don't feel that your work has been great :-/. Sometimes this can be a problem of judging your own position; it's really hard to see the big picture wrt your work. You may be your own worst critic. I don't know your situation, but I've seen others students feel the same and it wasn't true in those cases...

> I don't want to be part of a machine that has generated enormous progress, if 1) it's not currently generating enormous progress, or 2) I'm not helping it to generate enormous progress.

ok, (1) is clearly false, if you're objective.

(2) is more difficult. I don't think you can expect to see how your contribution fits in without looking back over a long period. And much of research is about 10 people trying something and one person's idea comes off - the kind of reason why industry doesn't do the work we do. I still think the other 9 people made a worthwhile contribution. Also, you don't have to change the world to help. If you're involved in teaching; if you're part of the wider academic environment; if you contribute a tool that helps others; there are many ways to contribute to the overall, phenomenal, progress that academia has provided. And it takes time to learn how to do important work. It's not as straightforward as it sounds!

One problem PhD students often have is that they don't realise that the purpose of their PhD is research training. Most of the real research contributions come from postdocs, at least in the UK. Lecturers and Professors are busy and mostly act as supervisors/managers. PhD students are very much learning their craft, and as my assessor said to me "you can forget about your PhD work now -- the best things you do will be in another 10 years and you'll have forgotten what your thesis was about by then" ;-). She was being facetious, but there's a grain of truth there.

> Agreed. Conferences are awesome.

:-) I would add perhaps that "some conferences are awesome"! btw, I find conferences to be a larger and more specialised example of the environment of academic life in general -- so maybe you have been a bit unlucky with your environment, if you haven't found the same experience at your uni.

> How, where, with whom -- I have little control over these.

If you're a student, I could imagine this may be the case.

> This has been somewhat true for me. However, doesn't really matter how flexible the hours are, if they're way too much (and they are).

Again, compare to working for Google and the like...

> I expect that it would be extremely tough to afford a family.

The average household income in the UK is £40k, where two people work. A senior lecturer or a professor is going to be earning more than that on their own, and it is not uncommon for professors in particular to earn much, much more than that. I don't think academic wages reflect the sacrifices we make, particularly the time and money sacrificed during a PhD; however, I love what I do and I feel I'm contributing to society in a way that my previous work in industry didn't allow.