Disciplined Minds
by Jeff Schmidt · first published 1999
72% recommend28% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A critical look at how professional training and workplaces select for conformity and ideological obedience, explaining hiring rituals, limited autonomy and groupthink. For engineers, academics and researchers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Jeff Schmidt's book "Disciplined Minds" is a great read about this kind of thing -- http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/ Here's some discussion from a review of Disciplined Minds by Brian Martin: > Jeff Schmidt provides an answer in his book…
on “Going to university does not broaden the mind” ↗In Disciplined Minds (a book certainly worth reading, but take with a heavy grain of salt), Jeff Schmidt made an observation about highly educated people and their political tendencies that made me stop and rethink my own…
on “Inequality and the Sergey Brin Effect” ↗There is a great book on this topic by Jeff Schmidt called Disciplined Minds: http://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Professiona... Here's a review: http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html
on “Why Your Professors Suck” ↗…plants or rocks. You just have to leave some urban center. Remote work is difficult to negotiate at times, but for some of us it is worth it. You might also like this book. A Review of Jeff Schmidt’s Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System That Shapes Their Lives http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/business-and-society-revi... http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
on “The Life of a Lichenologist” ↗This reminds me a lot of a book I read a while ago called "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt. It focuses on the sociological aspects of hiring practices & performance evaluation measures in the knowledge economy. It's a rather obscure book but I found it fascinating. Basically,…
on “Why You Need a Degree to Work for BigCo (2013)” ↗…primarily money-driven. It’s sufficient for the MBAs running the dean/provost/president offices to be primarily money driven, which they definitively are. I would recommend reading chapter 4 of the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt (a physics PhD). While I disagree with a large fraction of the book (in particular, I don't think the problem is inherently political), I think chapter 4 is mostly right and shows how…
on “Please Fund More Science” ↗…associate's degree or a high school certification. Those with a Ph.D. will look down upon those who don't and elevate those who do. I have both seen this and experienced it. A book that covers this is Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt.
on “A 28-year-old with no degree becomes a must read on the economy” ↗…little idiomatic phrases make sense, but it at least lends credence to the question that if they all use the same phrases, something very simple and harmless, how else are they "conditioned"? The book Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-battering System That Shapes Their Lives by Jeff Schmidt covers some of this. It all makes me wonder if someone like John Archibald Wheeler, a…
on “What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists (2016)” ↗I enjoyed Jeff Schmidt's book on this topic. Disciplined Minds: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds
on “A systems model of anxiety-driven procrastination” ↗…The variation in outcomes was absolutely zero. To anyone who wants to believe that bosses are fundamentally capable of tolerating independent thought among their underlings, I would recommend the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt [1]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Profession...
on “Vint Cerf’s Career Advice for Engineers” ↗…theoretical framework, such as Schrödinger’s equation in quantum mechanics, and derive logical consequences from it, without having to cite prior or related work. That is essentially what Schmidt has done in Disciplined Minds. The book’s analysis is quite rigorous in its own terms. Schmidt has set various challenging fundamental questions for himself, such as why theory is more prestigious than practical work, systematically…
on “Review of “Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals” (2001)” ↗…the time of exponential expansion, but will become increasingly dysfunctional in the difficult future we face. " About a book by Jeff Schmidt, a previous editor of Physics Today magazine: http://www.disciplined-minds.com/ "In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals…
on “Fund ideas, not pedigree, to find fresh insight” ↗…who writes on this topic at a more abstract societal level, like in his "Autonomous technology: technics-out-of-control as a theme in political thought". https://www.langdonwinner.com/ And see also "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt: http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/ "Who are you going to be? That is the question. In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace…
on “Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers” ↗…you be the judge. I do from time to time wonder if this makes me a crank, but my opinion is that you're not a crank until you're pleading with people to take you seriously. I highly recommend the book Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, which helped give me some perspective when I was making my decision.
on “Ask YC: How to survive grad school?” ↗I would give myself a copy of "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt. It explains so many things I didn't understand then. It is probably the most important book that I have read in the last five years.
on “Ask YC: What would you tell your younger self?” ↗