Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world • Hacker News Board

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#111

Post by throw_away_777 » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #76

throw_away_777 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of some very smart KFC workers doesn't mean that on average McDonald's workers are as intelligent as professors.

Well, you seem to subscribe to the mindset that says - as long as you're very intelligent and highly educated, you're probably right on any arbitrary topic, and your opinions trump those of less intelligent and/or less educated people regardless of the relative degrees of experience involved on that topic. Particularly if combined with a narrow range of life experiences, or a young age, or both, it's a difficult view…

For an argument that is espousing the benefits of empathy, your condescending tone is very off-putting. You also use a straw-man argument - there is a difference between trusting professors more than lay people and believing that scholarly education grants you "the Always Right card". I also don't believe that "as long as you're very intelligent and highly educated, you're probably right on any arbitrary topic, and your opinions trump those of less intelligent and/or less educated people regardless of the relative degrees of experience involved on that topic". That is an obvious straw man. At the same time, I don't think working at Wendy's somehow constitutes the necessary experience to understand humanity that working as a professor doesn't provide. Would a Wendy's employee be better able to cook a hamburger? Yes, but if I want economic advice on how to improve the lives of poor people I'm still going to trust an economist who studies the issues over a Wendy's employee. Would working a year as a Wendy's employee really help the economist better understand the economy?

The fundamental point of the article - that scientists don't understand society because they are somehow different and privileged - is wrong at best and dangerously anti-intellectual at worst.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#112

Post by robocat » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

hahooooo wrote: post #81

yarrel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you regard UBI as foolish given that real-world context? I'm interested as opinions for and against it do tend to be from 30,000 feet.

The danger I see with UBI, is (in addition to possible inflation, etc.) is that commentators on HN tend to be of higher education, curious, and simply "hackers". Most people here would love to be payed money so they could sit and program some cool OSS, start a new company or simply change the world. For them, UBI is fantastic. How many more Googles/GNUs/Apples would there be if engineers could quit existing companies…

People over a certain age get a UBI (in many countries).

Maybe extrapolate from what they do...

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#113

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #112

hahooooo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The danger I see with UBI, is (in addition to possible inflation, etc.) is that commentators on HN tend to be of higher education, curious, and simply "hackers". Most people here would love to be payed money so they could sit and program some cool OSS, start a new company or simply change the world. For them, UBI is fantastic. How many more Googles/GNUs/Apples would there be if engineers could quit existing companies…

People over a certain age get a UBI (in many countries). Maybe extrapolate from what they do...

> People over a certain age get a UBI (in many countries).

> Maybe extrapolate from what they do...

People over the age for drawing public pensions (whether or not those are UBI-like; most I'm familiar with are not) are probably not representative of the broader population in their decisions with regard to engagement in the labor market, entrepreneurship, etc., and how those decisions are impacted by changes in available resources.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#114

Post by astazangasta » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:07 PM UTC

mbostleman wrote: post #108

idrios wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially since we've largely abandoned previous institutions True, though I think new institutions will come back. Things like Meetup groups seem to be gaining more traction--The groups are just slow to adoption because they're so new that nobody can be grandfathered in yet by friends or family who have been long-term members. > Unions are overall good ideas -- Maybe. Depends. I see unions as just another corpora…

Unions are monopolies by their nature - it's not something they become. They only exist due to a statutory exemption of anti-trust law. I personally have not been able find a justification for a monopoly of any kind in a free society.

This is what unions are now, because the NLRB institutionalized them, and Taft-Hartley defanged them, and they became another kind of entrenched power. This is not what they were, when they served as a democratic organ, a way for workers to make collective decisions outside of government.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#115

Post by dbsjkdn » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 1:17 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #88

justinpombrio wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translation: Currently, many social benefit programs give people less money the more they work. If a person is eligible for enough of these programs, they can even make less money by working than they would by not working. UBI (universal basic income) doesn't have this problem because it pays people the same amount regardless of weather they work. Thus, it is arguably more in line with "working class wants to work" t…

That's not a precisely accurate translation, as there are plenty of social benefit programs that are not means tested beyond perhaps treating some of the benefit as normal income (e.g., Social Security), and my post was not making the "most social benefit programs" claim, only comparing UBI to those programs which are means tested (and which therefore are obvious candidates to replace with a UBI, given the usual argu…

>(e.g., Social Security),

Maybe true for the standard retired beneficiary, but not for everyone. A friend of mine is on SS disability. His condition changes over time and has improved some in recent years. When he can work, he has to make sure he doesn't work too much, or his benefits go away.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#116

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 3:34 AM UTC

mbostleman wrote: post #108

idrios wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially since we've largely abandoned previous institutions True, though I think new institutions will come back. Things like Meetup groups seem to be gaining more traction--The groups are just slow to adoption because they're so new that nobody can be grandfathered in yet by friends or family who have been long-term members. > Unions are overall good ideas -- Maybe. Depends. I see unions as just another corpora…

Unions are monopolies by their nature - it's not something they become. They only exist due to a statutory exemption of anti-trust law. I personally have not been able find a justification for a monopoly of any kind in a free society.

If a union was not a monopoly, they would lose all the power they have - the power to withhold labor from an employer. How would a non-monopoly union work?

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#117

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 3:43 AM UTC

petra wrote: post #106

endzone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i can't think of any reason why basic economic principles wouldn't apply.

Say you have a small factory ,employing 50 older welders doing a risky job at relatively little pay. Say you need 10 more welders - but those guys really don't like risk so they would need a big increase in the salary, maybe 50%-100%. But you know that than the word will get out and the older workers will demand similar salaries. So it's a big jump in total labor-costs per work-unit. And let's not forget - revenue pe…

But demand doesn't come from a single factory... Why isn't another factory poaching those older workers for more pay?

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#118

Post by roel_v » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 3:45 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #64

throw_away_777 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? It is undeniable that by any objective measure professors are smarter (in the sense of being better able to tackle intellectual problems) than the average population. Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? I urge you to actually have a conversation with such a person.

> Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? Because the professor works at a university, having first attended the university and then graduate school, whereas the person working at Burger King most likely never graduated college, and works at Burger King rather than as a professor at a university . Those seem to me to be rather different "ranges of first-hand experience". I don't see how…

The range might still be the same. Heck, the professor might still have worked a retail job in undergrad.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#119

Post by Falkon1313 » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 3:57 AM UTC

To put it in perspective, a recent research study[1] conducted by a team of elite PhD economics researchers discovered the astonishing fact that people who face a sudden unexpected financial crisis (such as medical bills, car breakdown, job loss) are surprisingly less likely to become homeless if they can pay their rent/mortgage, while those who cannot pay for their home are more likely to become homeless.

(In truth, they went in-depth in calculating percentages and timelines and cost-benefits, etc. That summary trivializes their work.) But the basics of this discovery made by this elite team of academic researchers is something that every single working-class person in the country, even high school dropouts, knows as a simple basic fact of everyday daily life.

The idea that you would need to educate and train several people for many years, to the level of being professors at top colleges, then assemble a team and give them a grant to do a study to discover such a common part of daily life seems a bit ridiculous to non-academics.

[1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6300/694

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#120

Post by rbanffy » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:01 AM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #103

sillyarg wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just sucks that the HN mods think it's fine for dishonest ideological warriors like Jerf to casually conflate modern academia and Stalin, just because he did so without using profanity. It's such an intense and personal attack; and it's so wildly dishonest... It completely eliminates all possibility of a useful conversation in a single sentence. It's poo.

I think you're taking something personally that isn't at all intended that way, and I think that's making it difficult for you to appreciate the nuance in the statement to which you've responded. I understand why and I don't blame you for it, but I hope you're able to take a step back from the passion of the moment and reconsider; on the one hand, I think there's useful insight here, and on the other, I know it's not…

> he cited Soviet central economic planning as an extreme example of the sort of danger to which he refers.

Any intellectualism that's divorced from reality and impervious to critique and verification does not deserve to be called intellectualism. It's ideology. There's nothing preventing you from making 5 year plans, as long as you adjust them continuously enough. The word to best describe the Soviet "intellectuals" you mentioned would be "ideologue". A less polite way would be "a sold-out who sells credibility to a government that pays for it".