Or you could read it as critical of capitalism.
“motivation, purpose, social skills, creativity” arguably all valued more under socialism/communism (admittedly there’s a lot of semantics going on under the hood here). Which is why so much tallent goes to waste as grist in the capitalist mill.
The huge difference with the professions you mention is that in all of them successful participants don’t wed themselves to any premise. They can allow for the possibility of two competing premises, or even usefully imagine a world with a counterfactual premise, and accurately communicate the uncertainty or incongruence of their views (it is technically possible for political science to work this way too, but rare to find someone who hasn’t picked a “team” outside of academia).
The irrationality and intellectual danger lies not in adopting hypothesis but in granting them the status of dogma.
I would also argue that the potential for real world harm of adopting a wrong premise is way less for a cosmologist or mathematician than for a religious leader or politician. Relevant SMBC: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/purity-3
They were wrong about that too
Oh no we all think everest ascent is stupid too. Absolutely it’s in poor taste. Is this your first time on the Internet?
People died because of their hubristic and needlessly extravagant hobby: visiting the wreck of a vessel that famously killed people because of hubris and needless extravagance. Sure I’m not laughing out loud or celebrating their death, but you must admit there’s at least a wry irony here.
Lived in NY for a while (manhattan) and travelled to a lot of other states. The comparison rings true for me, NY has it’s own culture for sure.