A few months ago I read a blogpost about, 'How academia resembles a drug gang'
Linky
It was this authors take on Freakonomics. There is a chapter in that book called, “Why drug dealers still live with their moms”. The chapter is based based on the findings that in street gangs income is skewed in favour of the kingpins, while the gang members on the corners selling the drugs earn very little (even less than their peers in legitimate low-skilled employment) and have all the risk.
The author of the blogpost had drawn a parallel between people starting out in academia (like me - I'm a post doc) and those low level drug dealers. One thing we both have in common, he claims is that,
''the prospect of future wealth, rather than current income and working conditions, is the main driver for people to stay in the business: low-level drug sellers forgo current income for (uncertain) future wealth'.
It was an interesting viewpoint and that one I could see quite a bit of truth in. But more importantly, when I was scratching my head trying to think of a suitable blog name, it was one that seemed better than some others I came up with. The url of this blog is the initials for the chapter in Freakonomics. Although it's probably not the best title for a blog if I am hoping for random internet traffic, Blogger is telling me I have already racked up 25 hits in the 5 minutes since I set the page up - all from America. Post Docs must really have to work those corners to get that paper in the US.
Edit: Changed the name August 2016 to "Contour Lines", Con referring to Conor - Contour Lines referring to mapping and Lines also referring writing. But you know what they say - if you have to explain it then it ain't funny.
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