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No one cared about my spreadsheets

econlib.org

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Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#121

Post by chasil »

chasil wrote: post #102
taeric wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure what you are suggesting, to be honest. My point was that if you want scores to improve, you will have to pay more. Pretty much period. You don't get improvement, at any level, for free. Certainly not by cutting funding. Keeping the same level of funding will at best tread water. Likely, the area will fall, though. And I certainly wouldn't be comfortable pushing that outcome.

Management talent makes more happen for less. That's what we expect, as industrial management moved our industry offshore. Education has no right of excusal. Perform.

The best management hires the right people for the job to be done, and retains them.

More importantly it fosters them, and gives them the spaces that they need for this to happen.

The best management overlooks the things that do not infringe on the job to be done.

The best management negotiates rather than imposes terms, on all subjects outside of the task.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#122

Post by ekianjo »

civilized wrote: post #6

Just my dumb opinion here, but... there's something extremely implausible on its face about the idea that a sufficiently complex spreadsheet could calculate the difference in value generated from kids going to school versus kids not going to school. If people could be convinced that this was something more than a castle in the sky, maybe it would get more attention. I imagine a bunch of academics put their fingers to…

You are representing exactly the point that Caplan is making.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#123

Post by xyzzyz »

henrikschroder wrote: post #120
nickff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Probably because any attempt to even reduce the topic to a spreadsheet is a case of "not even wrong"." But he didn't reduce it to a spreadsheet, he wrote a very thorough book. > "When someone says that they proved that say, studying art doesn't matter, with math, you don't bother arguing with their math." I am not sure what you think Caplan says. His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of…

> His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of education. The vast majority of post-secondary students say they attend post-secondary education in order to increase their future earnings So what about the partying, making friends for life, and learning to be an adult? What about care-free student life as a carrot to incentivise young adults to go into careers that might not be good for them per…

If you read his book, like it was already suggested to you a couple of times, you'd know what he says about "care-free student life". This way, you would be able to address his actual positions, instead of arguing against a version of Caplan you've conjured in your mind, based on a single blog post and a few HN comments.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#125

Post by tryptophan »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #77

In another HN post recently a commenter said something about the stock market, and they invoked an image of people collecting money from Brownian movement. It struck me that comment was excellent and insightful, and was only possible because both the commenter and myself were once taught something that neither of us uses in our day jobs, and may never have learned through any normal self-driven persuit. The more I he…

That comparison doesnt even make any sense. Brownian motion is fully random and doesn't have an underlying direction like the stock markets do(up).

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#126

Post by ekianjo »

henrikschroder wrote: post #120
nickff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Probably because any attempt to even reduce the topic to a spreadsheet is a case of "not even wrong"." But he didn't reduce it to a spreadsheet, he wrote a very thorough book. > "When someone says that they proved that say, studying art doesn't matter, with math, you don't bother arguing with their math." I am not sure what you think Caplan says. His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of…

> His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of education. The vast majority of post-secondary students say they attend post-secondary education in order to increase their future earnings So what about the partying, making friends for life, and learning to be an adult? What about care-free student life as a carrot to incentivise young adults to go into careers that might not be good for them per…

If Caplan is right it should be a personal choice not subsidized by government

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#129

Post by thekashifmalik »

This particular excerpt resonated with me:

> It’s hard to avoid a disheartening conclusion: Quantitative social science is barely relevant in the real world – and almost every social scientist covertly agrees. The complex math that researchers use is disposable. You deploy it to get a publication, then move on with your career. When it comes time to give policy advice, the math is AWOL. If you’re lucky, researchers default to common sense. Otherwise, they go with their ideology and status-quo bias, using the latest prestigious papers as fig leaves. Empirical social science teaches us far more about the world than pure theory. Yet in practice, even empirical researchers barely care what empirical social science really has to teach.

It rings true with me even in casual discussions with peers when talking about social issues.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#130

Post by beambot »

Legion wrote: post #23

This reminds me of people online who construct gigantic walls of bad faith argument text and insist that it's up to everyone else to "debate them" and spend hours deconstructing their argument. Just possibly, dude, your argument isn't worth anyone else's time to debunk.

Another example: arxiv.org proofs of P != NP, FTL, perpetual motion, grand unified theory, etc. The signal-to-noise ratio of crackpots to experts is just too darn high.

This is one example where academia & credentialing serves an important purpose, even if academia can be pedantic & insular at times.

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