Game Theory

'I wonder whether a yet further mechanism might not be doing most of the damage. Philosophy and economics are both distinguished from similar disciplines by a marked tendency towards scholasticism. Much work in both subjects focuses on technical minutiae whose relevance to larger issues even the experts are hard pressed to explain. Of course, serious academic work need not always be transparent to the general public, but much in philosophy and economics isn’t even of interest to those in adjacent sub-disciplines. One doesn’t have to be an enthusiast for “impact” to suspect that the main point of much of this technical work is to enable young scholars to display the kind of super-smartness that their elders so prize. Placing a premium on brilliance creates a pressure to work in a style that requires it.

This may turn women away from the brilliance-prizing disciplines, not because they can’t play the game, but because they won’t. Most young people come into philosophy and economics because they want to address important issues, not to make the next move in a technical exercise. When they discover that they need to dance on the head of a pin to get a job, women and men are likely to react differently. Where many men will relish the competitive challenge and enjoy the game for its own sake, many women will see it as the intellectual equivalent of putting balls in pockets with pointed sticks, and conclude that they could be doing something better with their lives.'

--TLS.

Human beings: the animal that specializes in the pointless.All one great diversion, really. Exploration to the furthest reaches of outer space-because inner space is, well, so 19th century. What are the spin-offs except, perhaps, better non-stick pans.Found Pluto- but no-one's heart is really in it any more.It's too late..never really in the game. It's status has been downgraded anyway and we now finally realize that like some god-damned immigrant it doesn't really belong here..was just on our trajectory, in one of our loops, like so much other rubble. Caught our fancy for a while, this dark unknown star but there's so much else out there and life is short...