this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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So how does theoretical physics "work" exactly? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 days ago by ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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To explain, I'm just a big old ignorant layman, but with other scientific fields I at least CONCEPTUALLY understand how they came to their findings.

Like if a Geologist tells me something about rocks I'm like: "Okay, idk how geology works, but I assume you did some kind of experiments involving rocks so you probably know what you're talking about."

Or if a neurologist tells me something about the human brain: "Okay, idk shit about neurology, but I assume you did some kind of brain scan or took some brain samples or did some kind of scientific experiment thingy to know this stuff about brains. I don't know the exact details but I can at least abstractly understand the process by which you learned this thing you're telling me now."

Then I'll see some news report about some finding a theoretical physicists made and it'll be like: "The Universe is made of strings! And also the sun is a black hole! The universe is shaped like a doughnut!"

And my honky ass is just like: "How the fuck do you know that shit? What are you looking at? How did you figure that crap out?"

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[–] Civility@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Jobs program

petit bourgeois

thonk

Academics are workers.

They are paid a wage by universities to teach courses, which are the product the university sells, and write papers, which attract further funding and builds the university's prestige, attracting more students (customers). The university pockets the (often OOM greater than their wages) surplus value produced by these academics and fires them if they are no longer producing surplus value. There are conversations to be had about the often exploitative and prone to abuse nature of the relationship between established academics and the graduate students and postgraduate researchers they supervise, and the role of first world academics can have (esp. in business & law, humanities, engineering) in maintaining capitalism and imperialism but it's not disputable that (almost all) academics are workers.

[–] xijinpingist@hexbear.net 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Graduate students are basically slaves. Underpaid and abused. Total bourgeois behavior.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

Aside from the fact that many professors are increasingly also treated like shit (look up "adjunctification"), do you think the professors are employing the grad students or decide how much they get paid? Also, many, many professors don't have teaching assistants at all.