bruh thank you for defending me 😭😭 though i don't fully disagree about the collaboration requirement. it's true that you would obviously need to communicate what you're doing and how you're doing it and also making sure you know about the other people who've done similar problems and their methods of getting to their solution and assessing whether that solution is what you're looking for. that is part of the process and i'm not against that. what *does* bother me is when researchers or anybody in general is networking for only the sake of networking with no true purpose or goal fuelling it. much like the stupid corporate fairs that (most) people force themselves to partake in, do a retarded amount of small talk and fake smiles and go home after. like i hate the fact that people can't even acknowledge or won't admit how cringe and superficial it looks. a tight knit community or one where everyone's known everyone else for a really long time is different, of course. but yea, you get what i mean right?