Why I left my PhD in Neuroscience

How Academia Vampirizes the Talent of the Youth

On May 21, 2022, I was invited to speak at the Better Way Conference in Bath, UK as a part of the World Council for Health. The purpose of the conference was to unite those who are working to advocate for medical freedom in the world. I was asked to speak about how young people can be more engaged with medical activism. I reflected on the question for a while until my friend, Dr. Crystal Luchkiw, told me to think about how I personally got involved in all these projects that were endeavouring to restore Canadians with their basic right to informed consent in medical procedures.

How did I end up in the position I was in rather than one of the denizens of the state peddling the vaccine, or one of those unemployed people languishing in the sidelines about how I’d lost my job? I had somehow managed to find the perfect job with the people who believed in the same mission as I did.

So I told my story. It turned out to be a huge success at the conference and I got a lot of hugs from a lot of people who told me that it was inspiring to hear my story. A lot has changed in my life over the last two years and I am so thankful for these changes. In this article, I have transcribed the speech that I gave there for my readers and for posterity (yes, it is secretly an art lesson lol).

Grad Students on the Volga

Today we will begin with some art. This is a painting by Ilya Repin called Barge Haulers on the Volga, painted in 1872. A barge is a type of flat bottomed cargo ship that must be dragged to shore by horses, oxen...or unfortunate peasants. 

The physicality of this painting is its most provocative message, which only Ilya Repin, master of contradictions, could execute so magnificently. The sand is painted to look so wet and loose, it would be impossible to walk on it. And the barge haulers look so sun burnt and exhausted, it is clear that theirs is an unmeasurable burden. Yet, if the straps tying them to their Sisyphean labour were to be cut, they would fall flat on their faces. Their inhumane servitude is also the counter balance that supports them.

The barge, you see, is Academia. And the barge haulers, its unfortunate graduate students. 

I was once one of these graduate student barge haulers, who believed that if I was not tied to Academia, I would waste my potential. What is the meaning of this word “potential”? And what does it mean to waste it? To waste your potential is to not work toward excellence in your vocation. To not produce anything meaningful with one’s skill. 

Many young people today enter the University and later Academia because they believe the organised institution is the only guarantee they will not “waste their potential”. They believe Academia allows them to pursue excellence and productivity without taking any risks. Of course, safety always demands a price. The safety of Academia today exacts a price from its young, intelligent and driven students by condemning them to expend their youth on often unproductive work, that will disappear like cotton candy in water. As the barge haulers expend their lives pulling a barge, but not moving forward in wet sand, so the grad students expend their youths on experiments and projects that are ultimately useless for enhancing man’s understanding of the world. 

There is no such thing as excellence and the pursuit of truth without risk. And those who turn to Academia today, will ironically waste their potential, writing their legacies in water.

Last year, my University did me a huge favour. It cut me loose from the barge, and I fell flat on my face in the sand, as the barge-haulers in this painting would. With the onset of the Covid-19 mass hysteria, I recognised my duty as a member of the scientific community, doing a PhD in neuroscience, to stay informed about the topic. I created a substack and began publishing my findings. I revealed that lockdowns do not work, emergency rooms are no more overwhelmed than in other non-covid years, and the mortality rate from flus in 2020 are indistinguishable from non-covid years.

When I discovered that my PhD supervisor had found out about these blogs, for a split second, I wondered if he would be proud of me fo taking the initiative to do this research. Instead, I was deemed mentally unstable and it was recommended that I receive psychiatric help. Needless to say, I left my PhD program instead.

This was clearly not a place of learning, as I had once naively believed it to be.

Unvaccinated and deprived of reference letters from my program or anyone else who would attest to my eight years of research and study, it was uncertain how I would find employment. With working class parents and no connections, I thought that I would have to give up my intellectual pursuits forever. It was my twitter account of all things that connected me to a lawyer from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. The same viewpoints that had led me to destitution, were the ones that found me work that not only adds to society, but enhances our understanding of human rights and the law. I was helping to translate science to law in order to find justice for those doctors and scientists who, like me, had been rejected by their institutions for daring to think critically.

I felt relieved to no longer be contributing to the onanistic machinations of academics who only care about getting their citations or their next grant. I was now working with REAL scientists and truth seekers.

My love for science, that academia had soured, now came alive again because I was seeking the truth of the matter...rather than attempting to justify meaningless experiments like a used car salesman.

Young people have an incredible important energy, drive and motivation that, when channeled properly, can and does change the world. Recall that Alexander the Great was only 23 when he conquered half the world and Napoleon only 24 when he captured Marseille, a victory that was decisive in the success of the French Revolution. Indeed, young people are usually at the forefront of revolutionary movements in history, and yet, look around you, there are very few of them here. The young people are indeed a few miles away in London at a conference justifying why studying the minutiae of fruit-fly copulation is so crucial to curing cancer.

The only way to channel the energy of young people once again toward activism is to free them from the shackles of academia and to show them that although they will fall on their faces, they will survive and they will excel anyway. Young people have the greatest vested interest in activism because they will spend the most time in the societies we are building. We only need to dispel the fear that grips their hearts, and make them believe they are incapable of making a difference.

You can see at the exact centre of Repin’s masterpiece is a younger barge hauler who is not hunched over in exhaustion but rather standing upright and proud. His gaze is fixed not on the ground but ahead, into the distance. His hands are already pulling the straps from the barge off of his body. Over his heart is a cross, a symbol of his faith that supports him. This is why he does not need to rely on the perverted support of the barge to stand up.

There are ways that both organisations and young people can help to engage the youth in meaningful activism. 

1. They must provide external symbols of the legitimacy and importance of their work. Please try to remember how important it was when you were younger, to signal to your parents that you’re not a bum. 

2. Mentorship from someone they can look up to. 

3. Financial grants that can support them for the time and energy required to do their work. 

Graduate programs employ all of these strategies to attract young people. Many of them use it to nefarious ends, to vampirize the energy of the youth rather than support and mentor them toward achieving excellence or doing meaningful work. 

Young people, ultimately, have the most difficult and crucial task of all: to take the Kirkegaardian leap of faith and believe in themselves. There are a few things they can do get a softer landing from letting go of the poisonous establishment, or at least not be at the mercy of its caprice.

1. Make a social media with their real name and face. Learn to stand behind their honest thoughts and observations. 

2. Write everyday in order to both learn how to think better and to find like-minded individuals. 

3. Learn entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy so they are not beholden to any corrupt institution for food and shelter. 

There is a revolution happening and the youth must be a part of it. I was inculcated serendipitously, but let us optimise and replicate this process. Let’s get more young people cancelled and freed to do the important work that must be done.