Messages - vDiplomacy

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18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1901: Hello again VanZ
18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1901: Hi, how are you doing?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1901: Well I have to write my bachelors thesis but I don't want to because it's complicated and annoying so that stresses me in real life. How are you?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1902: And then you’ll end up like me solving complicated puzzles. :P What are you studying?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1902: Mathematics. My thesis is about some new keynesian economics modwl but I don't believe in that stuff.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1902: Then why make a thesis about it? Or are you trying to prove Keynes wrong?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1902: No, but I have to write a thesis and I know how to work with this kind of stuff. I am supposed to replicate the results of a certain paper and compare it to another paper. "My" paper says a 4% inflation target is bad, which I would agree on, but for stupid reasons (baisically because a model says so). The other paper says a 4% inflation target is good because a different model says so.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1902: I also dislike the real Keynes, but at least he tried to make logical arguments. But those new Keynesians, the so called experts, only do some mathematical tricks on a made up model and think they have gained knowledge about the real world.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1903: Then why not write a thesis about the real world?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1903: It's not done in academia. Maybe I will do that for my masters, but nowadays academics don't like to see stuff that is not within their managerial framework.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1904: You don’t have the freedom to pursue your own research questions?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1904: Not really. For a bachelor or masters thesis you need a supervising professor and they won't just let you do anything, especially in the bachelors where you don't have to do your own new research but show that you are capable of "scientific" methods and understanding it. In the masters thesis one should do something new, I have some ideas for that, I will probably wirte it next year.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1904: This is in Rome right? I’m not sure if I remember it correctly.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1904: No, I live and study in Vienna
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1904: But it's pretty much the same everywhere
18 Feb 22 UTC	Autumn, 1904: Even reading those papers the "professionals" wrote I can feel the spirit of managerialism and midwittery. Todays scientists have nothing in common with the brilliant minds of the past, same for economics. It has become a sort of system that, on the one hand, tries to sustain itself and get more funds, on the other hand fulfill political requests. Back in the days, science was something interesting, scientists were finding out new things, it was experimental, but nowadays it's becoming more and more buerocratic. A scientist today publishes "papers" in some journals, if one wants to have a good job and be famous they have to publish many papers in presitge journals, so they just do something to publish (while scientist a few hundred years ago just did what they were interested in, maybe many years have passed without any publications). The publications are quite ritualistic, there is a strict fromate one has tl adhere to, there are rules for quoting etc.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1905: In Amsterdam I did my own research both for my BSc and MSc.
18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1905: What do want to do then? Data Science?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1905: Yes, I understand you have to prove that you have it in you to finish a couple of years of education. It doesn’t prove anything about your actual skills. But I love to crack complex puzzles and still do this at work. What’s your fascination with maths?
18 Feb 22 UTC	Spring, 1905: Wow, what did you do your thesis on?