The Measure of a Good Academic Discipline

Or, how to downsize a field in a world that values growth over everything

Ever notice how all the greatest achievements of some academic fields tend to have happened a long time ago?

Some fields are only maintained nowadays for the purpose of having real and experienced people teach students material which was discovered and settled upon several decades ago. Those students then go on to graduate, and those graduates go on to just barely grab either, one, a private sector job which…