we are going to force you to drink Coke or Pepsi with a feeding tube until you die. it is going to kill you, because you have diabetes and it is toxic.

now tell us which one you want more: Coke or Pepsi. if you don't choose one and tell us you want it, you're a childish loser asshole who is threatening democracy.

can't wait to see these boys get pissy at each other over some perceived slight.

it's gonna be the cattiest, messiest shit ever.

yeah, one of the other drawbacks of the PhD that is rarely discussed is that people who get one enter a national/international job market for applicants that are generally prepared to completely relocate almost anywhere. especially young/new phds.

and some of those positions, at least in my field or potential path can be in places I do not want to build a life, making the configuration of right job + right place super rare/competitive.

like yeah, maybe I could make phat stacks in a role I would find pleasant and valuable.... but it would be in like Lubbock or Modesto. my MSc, on the other hands, has let me target a broader range of decent roles and seems to have rewarded me with more agency in what sort of career path I want to take, and where I want to take it.

"only" having an MSc in the academy definitely relegated myself and other "professional staff" into this twilight world of no institutional power/weirdly toxic codependence on senior faculty patronage, relatively low pay:effort ratio compared to faculty.

I also had a front row seat to witnessing the hollowing out of education/research/service missions in favor of being turned into an amusement park for the fail progeny of the wealthy and a debt peon factory for the brightest offspring of the working class. just endless emails of lib platitudes from people who are making 7 figures a year to dismantle DEI offices and crack down on BLM and anti-genocidr protests while casting themselves as the guardians of intellectual inquiry.

in the end, after nearly a decade, it became too much. I no longer wanted my earnest efforts to do right by the public be used to launder the reputation of an organization that is actively selling out the public to juice its bond rating.

sorry, of unmonitored, I will rant about the failed promise of the academy literally forever.

i would say go for it. one of the more fortunate ways a working person can exist anymore is to be somewhat materially secure, not mind doing your job, and, critically, to not be looking for your job to provide long term fulfillment and satisfaction with your life.... to mentally have a foot out the door.

to have an OK situation and know that you could conceive of walking away from it in a year or so if you found something better is close to perfect, because it means you can periodically look around, day dream, and make calculated/strategic moves towards something without feeling pressured or rushed.

also, there's a sweet spot of being someone who has lots of experiences across a range of sectors, and no employer looks down on NGO work, nor do they ask or expect someone to do it for their entire career due to burnout / funding idiosyncrasies. in my experience, leaving a state job or a private for-profit sector role is usually treated as though there's some specific reason behind it, but leaving an NGO people can just say, "it was time" or something super vague and nobody pushes back.

also, i would only go for a phd at this point to use it to emigrate out or to dig deeper in and get some federal job. trying to inhabit the academy is fucked, imo. people claim to make it work, but i am deeply suspicious of how fucked their personal lives are at this stage of the managerial/neoliberal university and austerity. or the peace they've made with careerism and workplace toxicity.

i got a line on some 100% vidalia that will put you off your face. right off the fuckin' truck.

people rent out rooms/reaudences all the time there. yes there are landlords in Cuba, but as no person can own more than one residences, that means the most wealthy, hustlegrind one is someone who is married and lives with their spouse in one unit and rents out the other. and there are controls on what they can charge, and the government takes like 33% of it.

one of my top 3 dream jobs would be to sit in a room with these assholes and riff headlines.

like no other responsibilities or whatever, just some shitty conference room, unlimited diet soda, tons of take out options. a nerf ball to toss around.

fucking bullseye.

NYP headline editorial room, you have done it again.

knew a guy who lived there for a decade. loved it. you can live in Cuba pretty openly, but you won't have legal status as a national unless you marry somebody.

that basically means you can't own a home or be majority owner of a business and you can only be listed on a joint bank account with an actual national.

so if you meet someone you can trust with everything, you can totally do it. otherwise, you'll be kinda marginal status. but the guy was like that and loved it.

**EDIT: dude was a US citizen, from NY. I spent about 2 weeks down there and there doesn't seem to be much popular or institutional distrust of regular ass Americans. people were all pretty jazzed I was from the states, because most honky visitors are from like Europe or Canada. all the fear and aggression is coming from the US.

having seen shit go down, a lot of people wildly misunderstood what tenure is it what it does to protect the individual, full professor at a university. in truth, it is a feather in the cap for careerists and allows them to Lord over younger faculty. it is granted by the institution to people who bring in a lot of money to the institution, in other words, people who are good at navigating the political economy of funding institutions.

if you go against the president of a university publicly, it will be stripped from you and you will be shit canned. if you make yourself an enemy of administration or, in the instance if publicly supported institutions, get in the radar of a politician holding ourselves strings in a negative way, or if you jeopardize the reputation of the institution, it will be stripped from you. if you don't basically keep doing what you've been doing and bringing $ in, you can lose it too.

it basically only protects you if you're the sort of senior faculty who doesn't really need or deserve any protection.

look, tankie. if you don't vote for hitler, you will get turbo hitler. it's all just hitlers and you have to vote for whichever of the hitlers we tell you, because that's democracy.

if you don't use your symbolic power to keep this going, there will be consequences... we have hitlers you cannot imagine in the pipeline.

"What is this a follow up to the--oh, this is a different, new derailed train loaded with toxic waste." - Your brain, engaging with America