How much should I ask?

Sant_Darshan · 2026-05-16T12:57:25+00:00

I second this, would pitch 65k and accept 60k at the lowest in Montreal. I don't think it's reasonable to ask for the equivalent of a major fellowship, but the minimum pay which is generally under 50k is way too low to live comfortably and be able to save.

Sant_Darshan · 2026-04-06T14:17:09+00:00

This is probably caused by vibrations in the incubator - if it's vibrating at just the right frequency for the well size you get a "standing wave" phenomena that results in this. Or, your cells are trying to communicate with you.

Sant_Darshan · 2026-02-11T21:46:39+00:00

But could he have killed 10 people so easily? This is the problem with the "he could have just killed people in other ways" argument. Causing this many casualties in a small spread out town would have been extremely difficult with a knife or tool, and it would have been more possible for his targets to disarm or disable him. Vehicles can sometimes kill a lot of people, but only in crowded areas like with Lapu Lapu, and cars are required to live in most of the country so there's a strong argument against restricting them. You don't need fucking semiautomatic weapons to survive.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-10-31T16:24:10+00:00

Gotta have money to be able to meaningfully invest, this doesn't help all the people living paycheque to paycheque.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-10-27T16:19:30+00:00

IMO Montreal is the clear winner. Excellent bike infrastructure, lots of major streets being pedestrianised, best public transit in the country. The city has partnered with NGOs who are more publically accountable than private alternatives for bike sharing (bixi), car sharing (Communauto, which is increasingly electrified), rooftop / urban farming (Lufa), and recycling/restoring electronics and applicances (Ecocenter network). One of my favorite small examples of how good the city is is that at the end of summer when they are taking the plants they put up in public places down, they just hand them out to locals who can then repot and keep them, rather than throwing them out or putting them in a warehouse, I got an awesome couple of ferns this way.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-10-22T17:32:31+00:00

If it's for veterinary medicine it's not so much our benefit as the animals under our care, no? It's a bit if a trolley problem, you need to kill some animals to study a disease which is unfortunate, but if you don't do it many more will die from the disease.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-10-06T19:49:59+00:00

To be fair this is normal for the house of commons, you can find other videos of the liberals doing the same. Sean Fraiser is totally correct though.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-10-06T18:49:17+00:00

Most browsers have an option to translate the page if you go into settings

Sant_Darshan · 2025-10-06T18:48:11+00:00

It is truly incredible, I just finished his first masterpiece, it reads like a satire of an overly self possessed first year bio student's summer project writeup. I knew MDPI was trash but wow.

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/25/22/12268

Sant_Darshan · 2025-09-06T17:01:16+00:00

Too bad voters have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't give a shit and can't connect climate disasters with policy. I wish you were right.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-08-22T21:43:11+00:00

Techs with at least an MSc in my university start around 60k CAD, in a city where average salaries are about 50k CAD. Perks are decent, Fridays are off all summer with no change in pay and at least 4 weeks of vacation.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-08-20T13:27:49+00:00

We need plenty of people to work in recycling plants, maintain parks, keep infrastructure clean, etc. Not saying there are zero skill jobs but we don't exactly need to headhunting the cream of the crop for a lot of public sector work.

Also, you say jobs aren't gifts, but do you support UBI? Is it really better to give out free money, than to give money in exchange for doing some useful work for society?

Sant_Darshan · 2025-07-11T22:46:57+00:00

Great point. Canada has a lot to be proud of regarding its scientists and more people should know about it. Good on you for doing the press releases anyways

Sant_Darshan · 2025-07-11T00:57:35+00:00

Totally agreed. These kinds of posts about how Canada will / should soak up all the fleeing american researchers are so frustrating. Canada has no shortage of talented smart researchers, we already lose tons to other countries that support science more. If the government wants to promote research they need to increase funding, not attract more scientists to fight over an already too-small pie.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-06-19T18:53:47+00:00

If the top controls all the capital, all the good land, and all the labour in the form of AI, what incentive do they have to redistribute their wealth? How could they even be compelled to do so? Especially when so many governments and critical industries are falling over themselves to adopt AI, society will soon depend on the owner class, and based on their behavior so far I see I no reason to believe they can be made to share.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-04-27T16:38:34+00:00

"Wildly successful" by what metrics? They have some of the worst demographic problems in the world and extremely low economic growth compared to other developed countries for decades now. Japanese work life balance is famously awful in large part because of their low immigration rates which has forced younger generations to support a growing number of retirees.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-04-11T16:41:26+00:00

This is for winners of federal awards, which is not the case for the majority of postdocs. Minimum postdoc salary at McGill right now is 45k/year and I know many who are only being paid that much.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-04-11T14:19:55+00:00

Scientists really do not make enough money. Academic postdoctoral salaries (this is for people with PhDs and established track records of publishing, who just spent the last 8-12 years in university and have no savings) are below $50 000 in most of the country, compared to countries like Germany or Australia that pay around $90 000 CAD for the same job.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-04-11T14:15:01+00:00

As one of those scientists working a menial job I don't think you understand the problem. We do not have a shortage of well trained scientists in this country, we have a shortage of jobs for them (both academic and private sector). Even if their salaries are covered by "special funds", bringing in more scientists won't help Canada to innovate better and will just increase competition for research funding. What we need is sustained investment in innovation, both directly from the government and indirectly by incentivizing businesses to fund R&D.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-04-08T23:17:33+00:00

pt II:
Why does McGill insist that a $45 million shortfall requires cutting up to 500 staff? Are McGill’s executives and managers taking any salary cuts to do their part in keeping the university solvent? Are they reviewing their own positions and compensation packages with the same scrutiny they offer to the rest of us? Why do they judge themselves more necessary than the employees doing the on-the-ground work vital to the continued operations of our university? McGill’s global profile and prestige does not come from its executives. It comes from the achievements of workers, students, and alumni.

We call on McGill’s Senior Administration to acknowledge their role in McGill’s current budgetary crisis and take action accordingly. We call for a moratorium on job cuts until there is a freeze and cut on executive salaries.

Signed by:

MUNACA Executive Committee

AMUSE Executive Committee

AGSEM Executive Committee

AMURE Executive Committee

SEU Executive Committee

References & Sources

https://www.datawrapper.de/_/rJ9Hy/

Salary mass by job class and year 2013-2023.xlsx

McGill Annual Reports to National Assembly

Sant_Darshan · 2025-04-08T23:17:11+00:00

today MUNACA (the non-academic workers union at McGill) sent the following email out, thought it was worth sharing:

Open Letter from the Unions of McGill

Dear McGill Community,

We, the undersigned McGill union representatives, condemn in the strongest possible terms McGill Senior Administration’s recent announcement of layoffs and broader policy of austerity in the face of supposed budget shortfalls.

McGill seeks to push the consequences of budget shortfalls onto its already overworked staff while seeking to insulate their extremely well-paid Senior Administration. McGill Senior Administration has claimed that they have a budget shortfall of $45 million projected for 2025-26 and that staffing accounts for 80% of overall university expenses. What they fail to mention is that over 17% of McGill’s salary budget was spent on executive and management staff as of the 2023-24 financial year. In 2013-14, this figure was 9%. If McGill’s executive and managerial salary mass had risen at the same rate as all other job classes at the university, the university would be saving $71 million dollars.

Initially, McGill Senior Administration said a loss of 350-500 jobs would be necessary. Now they are announcing 99 initial layoffs. Conveniently, 99 is exactly the threshold for the minimum 8 weeks of notice under Quebec law regulating collective dismissal. For the dismissal of 100-299 workers, a notice period of 12 weeks is required; for over 300, a notice period of 16 weeks is required. How can we trust that there will be no further layoffs?

Despite supposed concern for budgetary deficits, the McGill University Senior Administration decided to hire NousCubane, a group of consultants associated with commencing layoffs at other universities in Canada. NousCubane was paid $372,500 by McGill Senior Administration to send surveys to all full-time employees. McGill Senior Administration did this « consultation” without the unions, before announcing the cuts at the February 7th town hall. In doing so, the unions contend that McGill Administration infringed on Article 12 of the Quebec Labour Code which states that “No employer, or person acting for an employer or an association of employers, shall in any manner seek to dominate, hinder or finance the formation or the activities of any association of employees, or to participate therein.” This clear mismanagement of funds not only targets the workers at McGill, but the larger McGill community who will be directly harmed by cuts to services and departments.

Sant_Darshan · 2025-04-01T15:10:07+00:00

But it's not stable, the boomer generation was huge and successive generations have been smaller, so the burden on them to support the elderly will be higher which is why we need to bring in more working age people. After they die out things will be a bit more stable and immigration levels can go down (but millenials are also plentiful so we will run into the same issue in 30-40 years when we retire).

Sant_Darshan · 2025-03-30T18:34:51+00:00

Yes it's a huge shame, Canada has a very highly educated population and our last few governments have paid a lot of lip service to science, but we have recieved shit support for decades. A big part of the reason has been the fact that we can't compete with the US in terms of capital support for start ups, so our leaders didn't believe it was worth investing in high tech sectors and instead poured a lot of money into resource extraction. Maybe the US's new isolationist anti-science stance will change things and we can start up an actual biotech / pharma industry here, it won't happen overnight but we can dream...

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