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Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

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Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#81

Post by ChainOfFools »

whimsicalism wrote: post #51
ashtonkem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disagree with the podcast without attacking me.

I'm attacking myself as much as you, I have this problematic tendency to latch onto interesting sounding ideas.

universe is infinite, brains are finite. ergo, brains find compression irresistible, to the point of self-dosing reward juice when a delightful morsel of smartly collapsed reality is encountered.

even our signal processing wiring, with each lopsided neuron merging many inputs into a single output, is biased toward obligate compression.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#82

Post by billytetrud »

rootusrootus wrote: post #79
whimsicalism wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think randomization plus weighting for geographic distance could work. The issue with busing was never the actual busing, and there are plenty of places (like my hometown) where parents send their kids further out to ensure that they attend a school that is majority their race rather than the local neighborhood school. I lived in Cambridge, MA, and they have successfully desegregated their schools with a similar ap…

> there are plenty of places (like my hometown) where parents send their kids further out to ensure that they attend a school that is majority their race rather than the local neighborhood school. Ah, that is interesting. In my district (and state, AFAIK), school assignment is completely out of the hands of the parents, with some narrow exceptions. I fully admit to having a narrow view on this, my state is not especi…

We definitely need more choice in schools. Parents should be able to decide where there children go to school independently of where they live.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#83

Post by rednerrus »

greenail wrote: post #14

Maybe the incentives for universities are all wrong. In the early 1900's only 4% of the US went to university. There ended up being a big push to get more people into college with the assumption that it would benefit society. Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong? What if the incentives created lots o…

We should be pouring the money we pour into universities into high schools. We should set the bar higher for what we expect of high school students. We should create vocational programs so that kids come out of high school with skills that help to improve society. If you want to improve society, give kids a sense that they can make a difference and be functional members of society.

We should also be pouring money into early childhood development. We should setup community centers for expecting/new mothers. Women can go to these community centers for support, education, and to be with other mothers.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#84

Post by whimsicalism »

billytetrud wrote: post #82
rootusrootus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are plenty of places (like my hometown) where parents send their kids further out to ensure that they attend a school that is majority their race rather than the local neighborhood school. Ah, that is interesting. In my district (and state, AFAIK), school assignment is completely out of the hands of the parents, with some narrow exceptions. I fully admit to having a narrow view on this, my state is not especi…

We definitely need more choice in schools. Parents should be able to decide where there children go to school independently of where they live.

What do we do when choice conflicts? Say, if a black family wants to send their kid to local school in a predominately white neighborhood, and there is a limited capacity?

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#85

Post by billytetrud »

whimsicalism wrote: post #54
billytetrud wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elementary and middle school is far more important than high school. The earlier you go, the more important it is.

If we actually wanted to improve education in our schools, we would just finish desegregating them.

There's a difference between outlawing enforcement of segregation by law and enforcing laws requiring people to go to schools they may not want their kids to go to. I think calling the second "finishing" the first is misleading.

However, there is a huge problem in school funding. The fact that school funding is primarily local means that poor neighborhoods get bad schools. That is a huge problem. We definitely should make funding of schools more egalitarian. Eliminating local funding in favor of state funding would do a lot for the public school system I think. But I also think giving parents more choice in schooling would also be a big win.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#86

Post by whimsicalism »

billytetrud wrote: post #85
whimsicalism wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we actually wanted to improve education in our schools, we would just finish desegregating them.

There's a difference between outlawing enforcement of segregation by law and enforcing laws requiring people to go to schools they may not want their kids to go to. I think calling the second "finishing" the first is misleading. However, there is a huge problem in school funding. The fact that school funding is primarily local means that poor neighborhoods get bad schools. That is a huge problem. We definitely should…

> However, there is a huge problem in school funding.

School funding is actually not as inegalitarian as you might have been led to believe - federal & state funding usually makes up for the differences in property tax funding, we're often spending more $/kid at these bad schools.

> There's a difference between outlawing enforcement of segregation by law and enforcing laws requiring people to go to schools they may not want their kids to go to. I think calling the second "finishing" the first is misleading.

The distinction you're making is between de jure segregation and de facto segregation, both of which are constitutional violations.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#87

Post by BeFlatXIII »

paulpauper wrote: post #65
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A distinction should be drawn between “this entire field is useless” and “the current discussions in this field are wankery”. IMO, STEMlordery stems from students surmising—correctly or not—that their humanities professor’s publications are wankery and then falsely assuming that the entire field is hokey junk. Accrediting boards who demand proof that all departments produce relevant scholarly work are also to blame f…

I have observed that purported STEMlordery is more of myth than reality, or a caricature created by the media. I have found that on many stem-centric communities that people employed in STEM have great respect for the humanities, such as history, philosophy, or writing. Look at how many non-STEM articles get voted to the top of hacker news, such as articles about literature or philosophy.

Undergraduate underclassmen and high school students are where you find most real live STEM lords. STEM professionals may be ignorant of the humanities, but they are (for the vast majority) no longer condescendingly dismissive enough to be true STEM lords.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#88

Post by billytetrud »

whimsicalism wrote: post #84
billytetrud wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We definitely need more choice in schools. Parents should be able to decide where there children go to school independently of where they live.

What do we do when choice conflicts? Say, if a black family wants to send their kid to local school in a predominately white neighborhood, and there is a limited capacity?

Lottery

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#89

Post by grahamburger »

whimsicalism wrote: post #84
billytetrud wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We definitely need more choice in schools. Parents should be able to decide where there children go to school independently of where they live.

What do we do when choice conflicts? Say, if a black family wants to send their kid to local school in a predominately white neighborhood, and there is a limited capacity?

It seems like the solution most institutions land on for this kind of thing is just a first come first serve sign up list. Kids who attended the school the previous year, and kids who have siblings currently attending the school, get first priority for open slots. The rest of the slots are first come first serve. This is how my kid's school, a charter school, works.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#90

Post by whimsicalism »

billytetrud wrote: post #88
whimsicalism wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do we do when choice conflicts? Say, if a black family wants to send their kid to local school in a predominately white neighborhood, and there is a limited capacity?

Lottery

My guess is this approach would also be desegregating.
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