I think there are other factors at play, too. E.g., top-down power structures and rigid paths for students. A friend's advisor was bonkers: unhelpful and mean in person when my friend could find the advisor, but generally the prof couldn't be found. To the extent that the prof would hide in their office and pretend to not be there.

My friend of course eventually let other profs and the department head know, but nobody was willing to actually do anything, so she limped along like this for years with other profs quietly helping on the side. She eventually graduated with her PhD, so by the stats the system worked, but it was miserable.

For all tech's flaws, nobody expects you to put up with a miserable asshole boss for 6 years just to be allowed to stay in the industry. And unlike my academic pals, whose options at any point were generally ~0 and would sometimes spike up to 2-3, there are just an ocean of tech jobs. I'm about to start hiring again and competition is fierce.

I was writing an empirical analysis system for one of the two national experts on benthic infauna (critters that live in mud) in a specific body of water. Project meetings would often devolve into an hour long lecture from the PHD on why the other guy's taxonomy was wrong and how some bug should be correctly classified.

I've heard this before but never understood the rationale. It's because they have nothing better to argue about? Because winning trivial arguments is all they have?

The stakes are low, so they have little to lose.