this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The entire country has incentivized its top minds to developing ad tech bullshit. Like literally our astrophysicists are working at Stitch Fix instead of doing astrophysics.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I help setup ad placement TVs for resort style businesses.

Studied theoretical astrophysics and astro xenobiology as a double advanced major...

My boss used to brag he managed to get the astronaut in his team so, I am useful for facts and puzzles.

God I hate my existence.

[–] fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry chief I hate those TVs.

I'm sure you're great and everyone needs a little sugar in their bowl or whatever but... IDK. I hope you find a more fulfilling job soon.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 1 points 5 months ago

LOL I hate those TVs too but don't mind when I get to install like just a good menu or informational directory. Key word good. But I'm just supposed to make a thing that works and looks good for the 11 seconds of your attention we expect to have of you.

The worst part is that I don't even make good money really. Just slightly more than a regular office job and I got here from doing my passion at the time of advanced robotic screens. But they are all hyper niches that are like impossible to move around or within.

But yeah gotta figure out what fulfilling means these days.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Like literally our astrophysicists are working at Stitch Fix instead of doing astrophysics.

I'm honestly here wondering if this is some guerilla marketing for Stitch Fix or if there's some more story to this.

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh, no. They're fast fashion, right? That can't be great for the environment.

Article is here, kinda interesting in a depressing sort of way: https://archive.is/E0NWk

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 9 points 5 months ago

Thanks for sharing.

Four years later, Moody works for Stitch Fix too. He belongs to a growing group of astrophysicist deserters, who have stopped researching the cosmos to start building recommendation algorithms and data models for the tech industry. They make up the data science teams at companies like Netflix and Spotify and Google.

[...] The decision to leave academia came down to a few factors: The pay was certainly better, and the jobs were more plentiful. “There’s a bottleneck of getting into tenure-track positions,” he says. And being in the Bay Area meant he and his wife—who is also an astrophysicist—would never have to worry about both finding jobs. But the real surprise, he says, was that the work in tech companies was actually interesting. At Beats, he says, he found “like-minded people who were working on problems that didn’t take away the intellectual high.” Same math, different application.

If that's not an alarm that screams for science funding, I don't know what is.