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No one cared about my spreadsheets

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Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#351

Post by [deleted] »

zaarn wrote: post #328
regularfry wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and the same argument applies again. It doesn't matter how effective they are, the same logic applies: money you spend on thing A cannot then be used on thing B. That is a choice. I should add that changing things to make them more effective also costs money.

But can you then spend anything? Because spending anything is also a decision on what is more important? By the argument you propose, spending money seems immoral. But spending money on education and homelessness isn't immoral in most moral frameworks, hence the argument must be faulty. Something must be spend and that means allocating how much to spend on what. Preventing future harm on countless people is morally b…

[deleted]

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#352

Post by tgv »

edanm wrote: post #232
tgv wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussion might have been a bit easier if he'd just listed the assumptions and the model underlying the calculations. But the Amazon blurb of the book shows that the author isn't really interested in that > Learn why students hunt for easy As and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam We know why, ok? And focusing on "the primary function of education" is like focusing on the primary function o…

> Discussion might have been a bit easier if he'd just listed the assumptions and the model underlying the calculations. But the Amazon blurb of the book shows that the author isn't really interested in that He wrote a whole book about this. A very detailed book.

If it's all in there, what's the point of discussing the spreadsheets? You won't care about that unless you disagree with the author yet make the exact same assumptions. So it's almost 100% certain you'd argue assumptions and modeling before the actual calculations. Doesn't seem very rocket-science-y to me.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#353

Post by datavirtue »

caffeine wrote: post #341
periheli0n wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has worked pretty well for the last 2,500 years with voters possessing extremely questionable education. Early democracies often restricted the right to vote to specific parts of the population. Also if anything has become clear in the last 5 years it’s that educated people are much less likely to be deceived by false populist promises.

> Also if anything has become clear in the last 5 years it’s that educated people are much less likely to be deceived by false populist promises. Agree with the basic premise that the main political division is not between “right” and “left” but “educated people” (ie progressive college-educated) vs “uneducated people” (the working classes.) Disagree that it’s clear who is right. We will have to wait 20-30 years to s…

In political matters the ones with the guns are "right."

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#355

Post by fastaguy88 »

I have not read the book, nor looked at the spreadsheets. But as someone who knows a bit about argumentation, I have to point out that, often, if you are forced to argue about the specific data, you have already lost the argument. Data (and quantitative arguments) are appealing because they appear to be "un-biased", but the person picking the numbers has already set the terms of the debate. Someone else might point out that a set of numbers measure some things accurately, but not everything. One might point out that averages (perhaps, on average, many college students learn little more than they learned in high school) obscure the extremes (for some groups, particularly poor people with poorly educated parents, high school and college are far more efficient paths for improving quality of life than any alternative).

It sounds good to say that you can't argue with the data, but you can certainly argue with how the data was picked.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#356

Post by mst »

cycomanic wrote: post #347
saint_fiasco wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The usual argument when a correlation goes against your theory is to say "aha! but what if the causation goes the other way?" and that's pretty much what the author does. He sees higher education as a luxury good. Something that rich societies do when they become rich, because they are rich. If you look at some of the top comments in this thread you might see some evidence in favor of his position. Most people are no…

The problem with the argument of turning around the causality is that there are several examples of countries to have spend significantly on education to then move out of poverty, i.e. where the poverty only reduced after the focus on education. I think you need to come up with some convincing cases that show why the causality should be reversed. Regarding education being a luxury good, I agree you could argue that s…

It seems quite plausible to me that both of these can be true at the same time:

- A certain baseline level of education will make a massive difference, especially e.g. literacy education in a society where parents are almost all illiterate so organic transfer of literacy skills across generations isn't really a thing.

- Much current education spending in first world countries is providing a truly terrible return on investment.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#357

Post by Fomite »

lucb1e wrote: post #62
Fomite wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, as a researcher in another field who on occasion gets asked to "audit" people's thoughts, it's a return on investment problem. Doing something carefully enough to actually be worthwhile is (especially for someone's wall of madness spreadsheet) many hours of work. There's no real outcome where it's helpful for the auditor. They don't get paid. No one got tenure checking over someone's Rogue Outsider Spreadsh…

> People doing economic analysis should understand incentives. For all we know it's just game theory. By doing X (pretending to be surprised, posting about how nobody cares about the math), the other party might do Y in response (someone is triggered enough and does go through the work). It might not add up economically, but that might be lost from sight. Or maybe it does add up now that publicity is in the mix. (I d…

"I did not realize it matters whether you're "in the field" or not, thinking that good contributions are welcomed equally as being good contributions."

It's not necessarily 'in the field' - I, for example, happily review things from economists, ecologists, epidemiologists, computer scientists, or mathematicians.

It's more "Here's my massive, probably undocumented spreadsheet - thoughts?" has a very low Bayesian prior for "Worth my time".

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#358

Post by datavirtue »

zaarn wrote: post #291
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…

Paying a lot of money into education prevents homelessness! Educated people are more likely to find an income than people who have less knowledge of the world. And it's not only purely educating people, it's also about providing supportive services, such as job finding programs, mental health counseling, etc etc. By spending more on education you may spend less on homeless right now but you can prevent people from be…

I have the same theory about healthcare. If you put the cost burden 100% on companies (copays, drugs, everything) they will lobby for sensible changes to the system. Sidestepping the glacial pace of reform we find ourselves in now where normal people are picked off one by one.

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#359

Post by czbond »

nickff wrote: post #42
Hermitian909 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, in part, Caplan has made a fairly classic error in attempting to figure out the optimal strategy for an individual within an existing system, where small numbers of individuals deviating generally doesn't matter, and then using those results to make a policy recommendation about how to change the system en masse in a way that will radically change the system. His spreadsheets don't answer many questions I mi…

> " His spreadsheets don't answer many questions I might have about such systemic changes, for example, would the reduction in college graduates reduce our nation's economic competitiveness? If it did, how would that effect overall quality of life for average Americans? I don't find compelling answers to these questions in his spreadsheets." His book talked about those things; the spreadsheets are just him 'showing h…

Because a majority of people are "feelers" (by nature) - they feel first, then run it through reasoning. An immature person of this nature would feel first, and then never proceed to use logic.

In the same manner that a mature thinker uses logic first, then feels. An immature one may think, yet never also run the thoughts through the "feels department".

Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets

#360

Post by czbond »

datavirtue wrote: post #358
zaarn wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying a lot of money into education prevents homelessness! Educated people are more likely to find an income than people who have less knowledge of the world. And it's not only purely educating people, it's also about providing supportive services, such as job finding programs, mental health counseling, etc etc. By spending more on education you may spend less on homeless right now but you can prevent people from be…

I have the same theory about healthcare. If you put the cost burden 100% on companies (copays, drugs, everything) they will lobby for sensible changes to the system. Sidestepping the glacial pace of reform we find ourselves in now where normal people are picked off one by one.

I believe the same way about taxes. As long as over 50% of the population makes low contribution to actual federal budget, they don't care much about how the money is spent unless it impacts an ideology - which allows forevermore government spending.
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