Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

online.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 103 posts

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#71

Post by saraid216 »

javert wrote: post #70
saraid216 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be. > it doesn't square with the things I've observed in my own life. > To do that, we have to look at adults - lots of them, ranging from bums to billionaires, across time and professions, on and on. Then at young adults, then at small children (to fully see the contrast with adults). I like that you've indicat…

He's actually doing it the right way: looking at lots of empirical evidence and forming the right abstractions from it. That's how science is done, and it's how philosophy should be done. You are free to present contradictory evidence and conclusions if you think he's made a mistake. He's not talking about evidence limited to his personal, one-on-one interactions. He's talking about all the evidence available to us,…

Yes, he agrees with you. I got that.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#72

Post by gems »

maxharris wrote: post #50
enraged_camel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Where you start in life doesn't matter, but how big a jump you make in improving your lot does, and that's something that's entirely up to you. How big a jump you can make in improving your lot is a function of where you start in life. It is significantly more difficult for someone born into a poor, single-parent household to bootstrap and "choose to make something of themselves" compared to someone who is born int…

"How big a jump you can make in improving your lot is a function of where you start in life." Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me. "It is significantly more difficult" So? Why does that matter? None of us are equal in any way, and none of us ever will be. You might as well decry the fact that some people are taller, or have an eye color that you prefer, or keep a head full of hair in…

"Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me."

Your experience is dependent on several factors including how willing you are to listen to and engage people with different lives than your own. I can close my eyes and shout that there are no colors, but that doesn't invalidate everyone else's experience. Don't pretend like you have an authoritative background to make general conclusions.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#73

Post by javert »

gems wrote: post #66
maxharris wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be. Where you start in life doesn't matter, but how big a jump you make in improving your lot does, and that's something that's entirely up to you. Please lay off the Rawlsian stuff - it doesn't square with the things I've observed in my own life. Nor does it square with the experiences of many of my friends that…

"Where you start in life doesn't matter" How can you possibly say that?

I'm not the guy you're asking, but I'll weight in. I think happiness is much more related to self-esteem and self-efficacy than it is to how much money you have.

For this reason, I think it's common for people born at any station in life who are successful relative to that starting point, to be happier than people born at a higher station that are not successful or are motivated by the wrong things.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#74

Post by maxharris »

gems wrote: post #72
maxharris wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How big a jump you can make in improving your lot is a function of where you start in life." Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me. "It is significantly more difficult" So? Why does that matter? None of us are equal in any way, and none of us ever will be. You might as well decry the fact that some people are taller, or have an eye color that you prefer, or keep a head full of hair in…

"Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me." Your experience is dependent on several factors including how willing you are to listen to and engage people with different lives than your own. I can close my eyes and shout that there are no colors, but that doesn't invalidate everyone else's experience. Don't pretend like you have an authoritative background to make general conclusions.

I'm not invalidating anything you've observed - I'm just challenging your conclusions.

One of my friends left home (when he was ~19) with little more than the shirt on his back, a pickup truck, and ruined credit. He managed to rebuild his life, and he did it all on his own. This was ~15 years ago. Great guy!

I don't want to get too autobiographical on you, but I didn't have the smoothest time myself: I bombed out of college before my first semester was up. I spent years working (and not on anything that you could call high-paying). I went back to school as an adult, graduated with distinction, and got a better job. I'm 32 now, and I've met enough people to know what I'm talking about.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#75

Post by gems »

maxharris wrote: post #74
gems wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me." Your experience is dependent on several factors including how willing you are to listen to and engage people with different lives than your own. I can close my eyes and shout that there are no colors, but that doesn't invalidate everyone else's experience. Don't pretend like you have an authoritative background to make general conclusions.

I'm not invalidating anything you've observed - I'm just challenging your conclusions. One of my friends left home (when he was ~19) with little more than the shirt on his back, a pickup truck, and ruined credit. He managed to rebuild his life, and he did it all on his own. This was ~15 years ago. Great guy! I don't want to get too autobiographical on you, but I didn't have the smoothest time myself: I bombed out of…

That's your evidence against the statement made by enraged_camel. Does that mean that the statement is false? No.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#76

Post by saraid216 »

javert wrote: post #70
saraid216 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be. > it doesn't square with the things I've observed in my own life. > To do that, we have to look at adults - lots of them, ranging from bums to billionaires, across time and professions, on and on. Then at young adults, then at small children (to fully see the contrast with adults). I like that you've indicat…

He's actually doing it the right way: looking at lots of empirical evidence and forming the right abstractions from it. That's how science is done, and it's how philosophy should be done. You are free to present contradictory evidence and conclusions if you think he's made a mistake. He's not talking about evidence limited to his personal, one-on-one interactions. He's talking about all the evidence available to us,…

It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be.

Where you start in life matters. It squares with the things I've observed in my own life; hardworking people who spend every waking hour working for the betterment of their friends and family are nevertheless constantly battered by mischance and bad fortune. I've learned to differentiate the good luck that I possess in my own life from the bad luck that others have. Despite my continued work in supporting them with financial aid, useful contacts, and marketable skills, they are still forced by circumstance to end up destitute.

At this point, some might say, "you didn't earn your brain/parent's money/etc." I say that's nonsense, because the entire idea of "earn" arises in order to distinguish real people who choose to act toward a goal from those that choose not to. And of course, that is the point. None of these things were earned. This is a basic framing problem[1], and the entire basis of chaos theory[2]. Initial conditions matter. A proper scientific experiment includes a control group measured against an experimental group, and both of these groups are impossible to meaningfully distinguish at the beginning of the observation. If this is not the case, say because one group is more intelligent by some accepted measure of intelligent, then the measurement of a variable, say the application of choice to arrive at earnings, becomes utterly nonsensical. The causative agent could be either the initial difference or the experimental variable.

Using simplistic philosophical bases for one's beliefs is tantamount to unexamined religious dogma and in no way demonstrates any kind of empirical basis. Furthermore, claiming to have surveyed "bums to billionaires" without proof is merely, in the sophistic style of javert, a logical fallacy.

But it's cute you two believe you have any grasp of epistemology, rhetoric, or logic.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)#Exper...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#77

Post by krichman »

javert wrote: post #56
krichman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having education available to everyone is a net gain for society, like having public roads. Also, the "lazy poors" "stealing" your money to educate their children have snatched up the slightest fraction of what the wealthy extract from the economy, so I don't see why that's the problem to focus on if your concern is "entitlements". > Were it not for government control of education, education would have already underg…

> Having education available to everyone is a net gain for society, like having public roads. I completely agree. A better example is food, clothing and shelter. Those are available to most people without government coercion. We could easily handle the remainder with charity, if it weren't for government programs that breed endemic poverty. > Also, the "lazy poors" "stealing" your money I did not say any of that, and…

I misunderstood you, sorry.

I disagree that the problem is the government exactly. The problem tends to be administration is allowed to capture a great deal of government spending. That's the reason the free market does better in certain cases, it doesn't tolerate middlemen with no significant function (or overpriced function).

I'd like to have education be free for anyone that wants it well into the university level, but it's probably correct that having the government pass out checks isn't the right way to do it. But allowing it to be free market seems like it would exclude poor people from good opportunities, sacrificing them to improve it for the middle class.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#78

Post by [deleted] »

javert wrote: post #62
chrisrhoden wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really, really wish all objectivists had been born (actually) underprivileged.

I'm calling you out. Attacking the arguer instead of the argument is a logical fallacy. What you're actually implying, which wouldn't be a logical fallacy, is that my view is subjective, because of the circumstances of my (middle class) upbringing. I don't think that argument holds water. The subjectivity or not of things is probably too big of a discussion to really tackle on hacker news, though.

[deleted]

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#79

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #78
javert wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm calling you out. Attacking the arguer instead of the argument is a logical fallacy. What you're actually implying, which wouldn't be a logical fallacy, is that my view is subjective, because of the circumstances of my (middle class) upbringing. I don't think that argument holds water. The subjectivity or not of things is probably too big of a discussion to really tackle on hacker news, though.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#80

Post by gems »

maxharris wrote: post #74
gems wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me." Your experience is dependent on several factors including how willing you are to listen to and engage people with different lives than your own. I can close my eyes and shout that there are no colors, but that doesn't invalidate everyone else's experience. Don't pretend like you have an authoritative background to make general conclusions.

I'm not invalidating anything you've observed - I'm just challenging your conclusions. One of my friends left home (when he was ~19) with little more than the shirt on his back, a pickup truck, and ruined credit. He managed to rebuild his life, and he did it all on his own. This was ~15 years ago. Great guy! I don't want to get too autobiographical on you, but I didn't have the smoothest time myself: I bombed out of…

What conclusions have I made? Next time make a new post instead of editing your previous one.
Post reply on HN