Why I left academic philosophy

Great article highlighting many of the reason I dropped out of graduate school to get a good paying job helping people. Some excerpts with which I particularly resonate.

"Have you ever spent two years pouring your heart and soul into a project that only three people will ever see? In academia, we call that your 'dissertation.' [...] Nobody reads this stuff because most of the journals are behind paywalls so expensive that only large libraries at academic institutions can afford to access them."

"But I think the ultimate sin is that academic philosophy is filled with people — mostly men — who spend a lot of time talking about things that are almost entirely abstracted from the pragmatic realities of human existence. [...] How could I justify this exuberance of abstraction when there were so many real-world problems that needed the minds of intelligent people?"

"I don’t need academic philosophy to do philosophy. Blogging over the past ten years, I’ve reached a larger audience than I could have ever hoped to find through the traditional academic journal system. And that’s ultimately why I dropped out: it was holding me back."