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Stetson's avatar

Nice piece! Lots of insights I agree with here. I've always viewed the brutal grad school culture (especially online) as a primarily function of the "elite overproduction" (Peter Turchin's thesis). The fight for scarce prestige/elite status devolves into factionalism, aggression, and deception (material concerns are important but as a secondary factor that exacerbate status anxieties when relative comparisons are unfavorable).

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jseliger's avatar

The biggest problem today may be the low stakes (combined with high debt), given what's happened and happening to literary culture overall: https://jakeseliger.com/2021/09/30/the-death-of-literary-culture/

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