No one cared about my spreadsheets • Hacker News Board

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#301

Post by themacguffinman » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:38 AM UTC

bigDinosaur wrote: post #283

themacguffinman wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha you're so right, I can't think of anything at all. * closes Chrome tab on my Android phone, opens another website hosted on Google Cloud Platform *

You're already down all three, because Chrome was first released in 2008, and Android was also released in 2008, and GCP was apparently released in 2008 as well. Who knew?

lol so true

*taps terminal with a Pixel phone using Google Pay, uploads selfie to Google Photos, plans a trip in Google Flights and saves the itinerary in Google Drive*

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#302

Post by regularfry » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:39 AM UTC

randomsilence wrote: post #275

periheli0n wrote: post #244

Isn't the real problem the economisation of education? The desire to express the value of education in monetary terms is really only useful for those running education businesses, like e.g. many of today's universities in the US ans UK. One side effect of the economisation of education is the desire to quantify and standardise "academic quality". For example, setting minimum pass rates for modules, which ultimately l…

>Isn't the real problem the economisation of education? The desire to express the value of education in monetary terms is really only useful for those running education businesses, like e.g. many of today's universities in the US ans UK. The monetary value itself is useful to everybody who makes a decision. A student at least invests their own time into that education. Shouldn't they know how valuable that education…

> Shouldn't they know how valuable that education is to decide if it's worth their time?

It would be nice if that was the case, but we don't expose the value to them. We expose a cost to them, with a profit margin included, completely detached from any value that might possibly accrue years down the line. And we expose it in the form of a never-ending debt. That is a specific choice that society has made, and not the only one available.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#303

Post by periheli0n » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:39 AM UTC

randomsilence wrote: post #297

periheli0n wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The monetary value itself is useful to everybody who makes a decision. But I think the real value of education can't be expressed in monetary terms alone. Educated people tend to live longer and healthier. They tend to make more rational financial decisions and plan their lives with more foresight. In a democracy it is essential that the voting population is educated and able of processing complex information, othe…

Of course you need educated people for a democracy. That's why the old generation dedicates enough funds to educate the next generation. Regarding the value of education. If it has a value, why can't it have a monetary value? At one point in your life, you have shifted the majority of your time from learning to making money. You can only make that decision rationally if you have put a monetary value on your education…

My point is that the monetary value one could put on education is bound to neglect the real value of education.

How do you express the value of education for a functioning democracy in monetary terms for an individual?

How to express the monetary benefit of being able to make better life choices as a result of education?

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#304

Post by blitzar » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:39 AM UTC

edanm wrote: post #281

kwhitefoot wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when education is subsidized, you're implicitly making the decision that it's more important to pay for that education than to pay for e.g. more help for the homeless, Not everywhere. Next to no homeless people here in Scandinavia yet education is universally available at almost no cost to the student. The US is richer both in absolute terms and per capita so lack of money is presumably not the reason for the diffe…

I wasn't saying that it's either education or specifically helping the homeless. I'm saying it's a tradeoff between spending on education, vs. spending on other things. If homelessness isn't a problem, great! There are still other ways to spend the money. Maybe raise the standard of living of the poorest 10% by giving them a UBI. Maybe build nicer gardens. Maybe just have lower taxes! It's totally possible that educa…

As far as I can tell scandinava has all the alternate uses you mention and more, plus the education.

But, your point still stands; what they dont have is an ability to push a button and wipe out the human race within 15 minutes, and fleets of stealth bombers flying low over every sporting event (support the troops you commie). All while the population struggles to figure out how many points their team will have if they score a field goal to add to the 7 points they scored in the first half.

For the most part governement spending is finite and there is only so much total money that can be dished out. Exepct for in crisis (Covid / War / Great Recession / Election time) of course and then the magic money tree is found in the back yard.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#305

Post by IshKebab » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:40 AM UTC

tylermenezes wrote: post #230

I have read his spreadsheets, so here's my critique. (And I will say that, throwing all the spreadsheets out the window, I still agree broadly with many points to some extent.) The input numbers (in meta.xlsx) come from imperfect samples of the real world with non-zero error -- often quite a bit higher than 0 -- which is compounded pretty far in some cases. I don't think any person actually can actually evaluate thes…

Yeah I wouldn't look at his numbers for the simple reason that it's a predictive model that's presumably chock full of fudge factors and educated guesses. It's pretty trivial to tweak it (he even admits he did that) to get the result you want. And he clearly has a result that he wants.

Well, that and the idea that education is just to make money... I'm sure there are dozens of beneficial returns he left out, like more educated people voting for parties that are less likely to screw them over.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#306

Post by Brian_K_White » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:41 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #82

Brian_K_White wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it would be. I don't find it at all silly to guess that if a critical percentage of everyone were made to confront more ideas and and generally be made more aware and thoughtful, that the eventual result is more civilized behavior between members. I certainly don't think it helps the situation to use the historical and current state of thimgs as some excuse not to bother trying. You can't create better civili…

Fascinating that Colorado right now is Finland.

No one said that, or anything remotely like that or that implies that.

I guess you have a PhD and embody the "exhibit A" counter example eh? Educated yet no better than the uneducated at communication and comprehension.

Or let me guess, you only took technical classes. As close to 100% stem as the system would let you.

I don't really want to make personal attacks like that but this kind of comment is exactly an example of the topic. What field on what spreadsheet gets what number increased or decreased by one to quantify the cost of this sort of lack of understanding?

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#307

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:41 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #268

> Almost none of it, however, was quantitative. Of course not, almost none of the significant disagreement in the broad public debate on policy is about details of quantitative analysis, it's about value propositions that frame (among other questions) what quantitative analysis is even relevant. If you publish an academic paper with quantitative analysis, academics will tear into the details of analysis (maybe, if th…

I will build on that.

"They tweak standard return calculations to get another publication – then move on with their lives."

I will go even as far as to say that the quantitative does not matter. Or more specifically, it is there only to provide an excuse for promoting a specific agenda. It is depressing, but this is where we are.

I saw few exceptions to that rule.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#308

Post by edanm » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:43 AM UTC

periheli0n wrote: post #293

edanm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the real problem the economisation of education? The desire to express the value of education in monetary terms is really only useful for those running education businesses, like e.g. many of today's universities in the US ans UK. I'm a big fan of education. However, when education is subsidized, you're implicitly making the decision that it's more important to pay for that education than to pay for e.g. more…

> There is no way around the idea that education, like everything else, costs resources, time and money, that can be spent on other things. It's a totally valid thing to wonder whether it's the best use of that money there is. Judging the benefit of education only on the financial bottomline is bound to underestimate its real value. For example, a democracy can only function if citizens are able to process complex in…

> But none of this is expressed in the calculation that measures the "value" of education by the personal financial gain an individual can achieve. Therefore I argue that this measure is not suitable to measure the value of education.

I agree, that would be a very short-sighted calculation. Luckily, that's not even close to the calculation that Bryan Caplan did and is talking about.

I'm not sure if we're actually disagreeing or arguing past each other. Bryan Caplan wrote a book about whether education is "worth it", in many senses - both the personal "is it worth it for me" aspect, but also the "is it worth it for society" aspect. He delved into multiple different topics as part of this question - including, I believe, questions like the ones you raise. (It's been a while since I read his book).

You are not fundamentally disagreeing with the notion of calculating the value of education. You're disagreeing with a specific calculation that you think I (or someone else) did, but which isn't the actual calculation done by anyone.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#309

Post by blitzar » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:43 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #254

periheli0n wrote: post #244

Isn't the real problem the economisation of education? The desire to express the value of education in monetary terms is really only useful for those running education businesses, like e.g. many of today's universities in the US ans UK. One side effect of the economisation of education is the desire to quantify and standardise "academic quality". For example, setting minimum pass rates for modules, which ultimately l…

> Students who graduated from such universities often are more capable of independent thinking in my experience. Germany: 111 Nobel Laureates University of Columbia: 83 Nobel Laureates The whole country struggled to produce just a little more than one American university. They may think more independently, but it seems that it was so independent as to fail to advance human knowledge much more than a single American u…

Germany: 0 World Series Championships

New York Yankees: 27 World Series Championships.

Really makes you think.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#310

Post by sjy » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:44 AM UTC

periheli0n wrote: post #293

edanm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the real problem the economisation of education? The desire to express the value of education in monetary terms is really only useful for those running education businesses, like e.g. many of today's universities in the US ans UK. I'm a big fan of education. However, when education is subsidized, you're implicitly making the decision that it's more important to pay for that education than to pay for e.g. more…

> There is no way around the idea that education, like everything else, costs resources, time and money, that can be spent on other things. It's a totally valid thing to wonder whether it's the best use of that money there is. Judging the benefit of education only on the financial bottomline is bound to underestimate its real value. For example, a democracy can only function if citizens are able to process complex in…

The effects of education on democratic participation, workforce participation and public health are all explicitly assessed in Caplan’s book, particularly chapter 6. This comment tends to prove the point he makes in the article: “Quantitative social science is barely relevant in the real world … 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.”