Do you work for free?

1) “money does not exist. it’s made up”. nonsense. language is made up, and it works (some of the time) because people are in agreement (more or less) about some basic definitions. enough that you and I can write these comments, at least, and can express our disagreement. your imagination consists of stuff you make up, too. but your imagination exists. money is just another made up thing, and people agree on it, so you can buy food with it.

2) unpaid internships. overall I agree with sentiments here. but there are grey areas. I’ve had students volunteer as “researchers” in my lab and I knew that they don’t yet have the background (i.e. experience/skills/etc) to do anything truly “productive” (from a research point of view) in one summer: instead, i knew that at best they will spend their time learning, and being part of the research group. after the summer, sometimes that would be it (ie nothing produced, not much learned, nothing paid), and sometimes there would be a lot learned and they would continue to work for me (for pay, once it seems they may be able to accomplish stuff), or I’d write them a great letter of reference for a job, etc. If someone is volunteering in my lab, then I don’t expect any “commitment” from them of course, and I also don’t expect that they will produce much. They volunteer their time doing work, and I volunteer my time supervising (i.e. teaching) them (remember that during the school year, students pay tuition to be in a class, but as research volunteers, they can get individual mentorship as part of a “barter”, essentially). No favours, just clear understanding of short-term and long-term potential costs and benefits.