No Way to Grow Up • Hacker News Board

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#401

Post by SuoDuanDao » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:08 AM UTC

rdtwo wrote: post #271

tschwimmer wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some bad news for you: if your child is college bound then they are about to go into another environment that has been profoundly damaged by the pandemic: a college campus. Students at my university are angry and depressed about the fact that they're paying thousands of dollars for glorified university of Phoenix. The college social scene is also obviously heavily disrupted, which is probably an underappreciat…

You but how long… gap year seemed like a good move at pandemic start but is been 2 years now with no End in sight

I took four, most of that doing manual labour. Gave me lots of time to think about what I wanted my major to be, a decision I had no answer to at nineteen but had a good idea of at twenty-three. Definitely don't regret that delay.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#402

Post by adam_arthur » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:09 AM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #280

ianbicking wrote: post #239

I'd love to see an emotionless cost-benefit analysis of different approaches to handling schools in the pandemic. I suspect the cost of closed schools far exceeds what we intuitively think, since it's not just the educational loss now, it's the cost of future mitigations due to the problems we're causing, and a large cost of lost productivity by parents. How many person-hours of lost productivity is there for each da…

> How many person-hours of lost productivity is there for each day a classroom is closed? At least a hundred per classroom, more than a thousand for each day a school is closed. I think I must have missed the point at which classrooms took on a responsibility for parental productivity? If so, does parental productivity also fall drastically during summer when schools have holidays? Stresses by the pandemic itself hav…

In a market based economy, wage is determined by supply and demand. Then, high wages incentivize new people to enter the high wage field, and low wages disincentivize new entrants.

This is a societally productive outcome, because labor gets allocated to the most economically beneficial sectors naturally through fluctuations in wages. If we had 10x the number of engineers, wages would drop significantly. Imagine, for example, that the US allowed unlimited migration from China, India etc for engineer positions... wage situation would be much different. But also likely more societally beneficial due to lowering cost to provide software (which in a competitive market, will get passed down to consumers).

A big problem we have though is lack of education/direction given to college students so many of them aren't even really aware of wages of various fields and choose based on likability of the role rather than considering both likability and economics.

Unfortunately many people choose to be teachers regardless of low pay. Given that teachers are primarily government paid, we could elect to simply pay them more to attract higher caliber talent. But most fields aren't government employed, so not feasible for other roles.

Doctors in particular are problematic, because as I understand it the AMA limits number of new doctors creating an artificial shortage. That should be fixed/regulated against... it's pretty much monopoly power of labor to be able to decide number of doctors. Monopoly power on either the corporate or labor sides pretty much always leads to worse societal outcomes.

But yeah, generally in a free market wages will be set "fairly". You're free as a student to choose a career path that pays better. I'm hugely in favor of reducing barriers to role switching and doing away with the traditional 4 year college program. Could open up lots of doors for people.

Whole conversation around free college is starting from the wrong premise (that 4 year college should even be the baseline). College is largely just a signaling tool, and the long duration and requirement makes switching career paths very costly, and pretty much impossible for people who aren't in their 20s. Even if it were made free

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#403

Post by geoduck14 » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:09 AM UTC

ilteris wrote: post #367

I don't give a shit what the article says or specifically points to but I can tell you this much. I am a dad of a 6 year old. My kid goes to public school in NYC and last year was bad... They did a test at the beginning of this year before the start of the first grade and her results were awful. This is an unprecedented event and everyone is clueless including in education. I don't make a big deal about the test resu…

My 7 yo tested positive yesterday, so we kept her and her 5 yo sister home today to "learn from home".

I had forgotten how bad learning from home was. My wife stayed home to help them - she spent most of the day trying to get them connected to the various videos to listen to stuff and very little time actually learning

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#404

Post by robotburrito » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:12 AM UTC

honkycat wrote: post #399

And what is going to happen? Pass a bill to provide additional support to schools? Hell, Anything? No. Nothing is ever done. Nothing ever happens except decay. The United States is spinning down its governmental duties. The pendulum will swing right again, and that will be the death blow. They will continue to gut public and infrastructure programs. All 3 branches will finally truly be a jobs program for the upper cl…

It's a broken clock hanging on a moldy wall where the pendulum swings all the way right, stops in the center, back to the right.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#405

Post by geoduck14 » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

honkycat wrote: post #399

And what is going to happen? Pass a bill to provide additional support to schools? Hell, Anything? No. Nothing is ever done. Nothing ever happens except decay. The United States is spinning down its governmental duties. The pendulum will swing right again, and that will be the death blow. They will continue to gut public and infrastructure programs. All 3 branches will finally truly be a jobs program for the upper cl…

>And what is going to happen? Pass a bill to provide additional support to schools?

Actually, a pediatric emergency was just declared [0]. And both Republicans and Democrats passed a $250 Million bill to provide rapid support for children's mental health. A Dr friend described it as "if I'm seeing a child and I'm concerned he/she is suffering from depression, I can be on the phone with one of the top 5 experts in the country in 30 minutes".

I'm aware, "mental health" for kids isn't the same as "education for kids" - but this is a big step in the right direction

[0]https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/zLatest_News/Pediatricians_CAPs_...

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#406

Post by steve76 » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

[dead]

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#407

Post by philosopher1234 » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:19 AM UTC

honkycat wrote: post #399

And what is going to happen? Pass a bill to provide additional support to schools? Hell, Anything? No. Nothing is ever done. Nothing ever happens except decay. The United States is spinning down its governmental duties. The pendulum will swing right again, and that will be the death blow. They will continue to gut public and infrastructure programs. All 3 branches will finally truly be a jobs program for the upper cl…

A lot of people on this website, in my experience, do not take this seriously enough, preferring to put on blinders or tell stories about how it’s all for the better we just can’t tell why (thanks invisible hand of the market!).

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#408

Post by tylerhou » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:19 AM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #402

quadrifoliate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many person-hours of lost productivity is there for each day a classroom is closed? At least a hundred per classroom, more than a thousand for each day a school is closed. I think I must have missed the point at which classrooms took on a responsibility for parental productivity? If so, does parental productivity also fall drastically during summer when schools have holidays? Stresses by the pandemic itself hav…

In a market based economy, wage is determined by supply and demand. Then, high wages incentivize new people to enter the high wage field, and low wages disincentivize new entrants. This is a societally productive outcome, because labor gets allocated to the most economically beneficial sectors naturally through fluctuations in wages. If we had 10x the number of engineers, wages would drop significantly. Imagine, for…

> because labor gets allocated to the most economically beneficial sectors naturally through fluctuations in wages.

In a perfect market economy, yes. In an imperfect economy, where the value of each teacher is hard to measure, and where teachers cannot capture the full value of their work (e.g. a lifechanging middle school teacher can't charge much more than a normal teacher) this isn't true.

> Imagine, for example, that the US allowed unlimited migration from China, India etc for engineer positions... wage situation would be much different.

This is really not clear. First of all, as software engineering can be done remotely, there is already a fair level of global competition. Second, migration doesn't always decrease wages (see Mariel boatlift for a counterexample). And even with open borders I don't think the current top 10pct of SWEs would be paid more than 20% less.

> But yeah, generally in a free market wages will be set "fairly".

Again, assuming that the market is efficient, which it probably isn't.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#409

Post by earthboundkid » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC

buscoquadnary wrote: post #145

throwaway75787 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing the lower face is important to reading emotion. The masks muffle speech as well. I wonder if children, especially in that critical 2-4 year-old period, will have stunted language and interpersonal skills. It's not right.

So personal anecdote our two year old is behind on speech, we had someone come in to evaluate him and he mentioned that he has been seeing it a lot, citing that because so many people are wearing masks, and the kids weren't spending more time around other people it had created a trend he had noticed.

Why is your two year old seeing a lot of people with masks? Kids aren't expected to wear masks until they turn two, and for under twos, most people I know just have nannies or relatives take care of them, maskless of course. I guess you could do center based care instead because it's sometimes cheaper, but even then the other under 2s will be maskless. My 1 yo doesn't like when I wear a mask, because it is an unusual thing to him. To be clear, where I am I wear masks indoors all the time, but I typically don't take the kids indoors with me, so he only sees it when I run into a cafe or something.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#410

Post by quadrifoliate » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #402

quadrifoliate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many person-hours of lost productivity is there for each day a classroom is closed? At least a hundred per classroom, more than a thousand for each day a school is closed. I think I must have missed the point at which classrooms took on a responsibility for parental productivity? If so, does parental productivity also fall drastically during summer when schools have holidays? Stresses by the pandemic itself hav…

In a market based economy, wage is determined by supply and demand. Then, high wages incentivize new people to enter the high wage field, and low wages disincentivize new entrants. This is a societally productive outcome, because labor gets allocated to the most economically beneficial sectors naturally through fluctuations in wages. If we had 10x the number of engineers, wages would drop significantly. Imagine, for…

You don't have to explain to me how demand and supply works, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

> Unfortunately many people choose to be teachers regardless of low pay.

I don't think this statement is true any more. At least in the state where I live, teachers were quitting in large numbers before the pandemic, and the situation is far worse after. This is one factor that's not touched on in the article at all, and IMO is mainly responsible for why schools haven't returned "to normal".