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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

Everything in this article is wrong. The moment you question any of it, it becomes obvious it’s nonsense. In America at least, elite university’s are private so they don’t cost society. And even in state institutions, the amount that state(s) contribute has been falling rapidly. The USA has a private system run according to the whims of donors. You might think it “should” be a meritocracy as part of a wider fair society. I might even agree. But that’s not what it is. Complaining it’s bad at that when that isn’t what it’s for is... not even wrong.

And that’s before we get to the thrust of the article...

Pfft.

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To me, the core of the article is this:

> The upshot is that many of the country’s best and brightest are either exerting their talents trying to beat each other out in a zero-sum trading game, or exploiting legal and behavioral loopholes to part investors from their money.

A lot fo these graduates make a lot of money this way, and I don't blame people who do it--but it does feel like a waste of talent and expertise.

Full disclosure: I weirdly strongly agree. I work in finance but I'm a really good teacher, I tutor, I did youth work before I turned 30, I hope to return to it one day. I should be a (socially useful) teacher.,

That said, society has decided that teaching is worthless.

No one says that out loud. But it's 100% what we have decided as a society. That decision has been in place since I was in school in the 90s. Its spanned administrations, economic conditions, booms and busts.

If we gave a shit about education, we'd fund it. But we don't. Everyone agrees its vitally important, until it's time to pay 1% more tax so a school can have a working fire alarm.

I feel like the author is blaming macdonalds employees for the fact no one is ordering salad. But on a national scale. Why not just be honest and say it: people want Ez credit and low taxes and if their kids come home with lead poisoning from the school paint, they're OK with that. We'll, not ok with it, but not willing to pay a dime to prevent it...

Its not Harvards fault or the fault of the "best and brightest" that we don't want the things we're meant to want.

Expecting the best and brightest to throw their lives away and work shitty jobs because it would be nice is pretty fucking rich and cheap

Society values teaching quite a bit actually. People pay thousands upon thousands for private schools, tutors, and specialized classes.

It's the citizenry that we deem worthless. That's why there's no money in public education.

Yes, that's correct. I should have drawn a line between the two.

But then of course, you're encouraging the exact thing the author objects to: private institutions for people who actually care (and have some cash to prove it)

The implication is that society has the incorrect values.

Or at least that government has the incorrect values which may or may not align with those of society at large (I would argue, not)

Society values education, not necessarily teaching, it seems.

For an outsider looking in at the US, it looks like they do not really value teachers (compared to professors) much. Not by the economic measure at least.

the US already spends a tremendous amount of money on education. the overall spending per-student is comparable to that of western european countries, and poorer US cities tend to spend even more, interestingly enough. maybe people don't want to spend 1% more because they just don't believe they'll get much for it.

as for teacher salary, someone with a bachelor's and no other certifications would start at around $50k in my (poor, east coast) city, which is roughly the median household income. this is not much less than tech startups will offer new CS grads in the area. city public school teachers can make over $100k by the end of their careers. certainly not enough to live like a king, but that puts them at about the 80th percentile for household income here. imo, that's pretty good for a public employee.

How do we square "teachers get paid pretty well actually" with "teachers have to buy student supplies out of their own pocket"? Is this happening simultaneously in the same school districts? Or is there a bimodal distribution of resources to school districts?

Do you have a source for poorer cities spending more on education? I’d like to read up on that

If someone has a terrible diet and doesn't exercise, it probably doesn't mean that they don't value their health, but that neuroses and overwhelming temptations have resulted in behaviour that has an adverse effect on their own wellbeing.

Conversely, they could spend a lot of money on fitness gadgets and instructors but never have the genuine motivation to get healthy and therefore fail despite the spending.

Does the same not apply to the things that individuals in society are collectively willing to spend money on? From this perspective you might describe Scandinavian countries as less neurotic, in that they willingly part with larger chunks of their income to go towards state-funded education and public services, and at the same time have a genuine conviction for the most part that this is healthy for society.

That is almost right. Society has decided that, on average [or median if you prefer], every job is worthless. Income inequality is skyrocketing between automation, globalization and capital gains. The only jobs that are not worthless are top 10% jobs that increase the inequality gradient, mainly finance or automation.

They are talking about finance, but the same could be said of the computer field.

I would say just a limited number of software engineers work on projects that significantly benefit society.

Seriously, a computer-controlled toilet could be measurably more beneficial to society than most phone applications.

The application of AI to self-driving cars is way more meaningful than applying it (in a negative fashion) to purchasing preferences.

sometimes I spend a long time researching shoes online. What can I say, good shoes are crucial when you live in the mountains. Do I want to waste my time on this task? No. Please sign me up for an algorithm that can assist in this purchasing decision. That way I can spend that time doing more important work. Thank you.

There’s no money in that algorithm. Now a shoe with geolocation and audio capture, sending back real time info about who you are and your daily environment... now we’re talking!

Are you interpreting "cost to society" as "money that is paid by the state" and nothing more?

I suspect many people have a broader definition of "cost to society" than just "how much money the public purse has to give to someone".

How would you work out the cost to society of elite universities? I'm happy to consider other things.

I should disclose that I think the US has very little society, the US is very much about individuals alone or in small groups, not a society as a whole. That's another side of the point I make above. In Europe these institutions are overwhelmingly publically funded and part of a wider social fabric. In the US the opposite is true...

If we consider the cost of something to be "that which has to be given up to have it", then part of the cost of smart people going to elite universities and being funneled into finance is that they don't get funneled into doing something useful [0]. Much as a number of very smart people get funneled into coming up with ways to sell advertising space on the Facebook. These smart people could have gone into any number of industries that are a lot more useful to society (which basically means "other people") than finance and selling adverts.

[0] Harsh and hyperbolic for effect, but it makes a point.

That's a fine measure of cost. But then we have to ask the same question: what is the alternative?

* Those smart kids could go to state institutions. But then we would need to fund those institutions so they could get a comparable education to the one they would get going to an elite university. And we have been cutting those very funds for decades (and increasing the amounts spent on sport stadiums instead of educational facilities). So that won't work.

* we could move them once they graduate from finance to socially useful professions like education. But then we'd have to pay teacher like we pay bankers and no one wants that. Everyone agrees education is important, but not important enough to fund teachers. Same for researchers or medics or social workers or defence attorneys.

People going into finance are making a rational informed choice that we encourage. If we really want less bankers and more teachers, we should pay for it. There are plenty of disillusioned finance workers who would come over (I am one of them), they just don't want to be charged for making the world a better place...

That's a false dichotomy, maybe they could work on decreasing the rate of climate change instead of increasing it.

I think working in the financialization industry is a form of destructive waste. That's the gist of the idea. But that judgement is a very subjective thing, because why is my software helping society any better? I'm making new and better ways to program robots. Sooo, could better autonomous systems lead to job loss? Potentially, sure.

In developing countries many of the best and brightest leave. Society in those countries finds it harder to advance and improve without talent to drive innovation. In the developed world, the talent is there, but it's used inefficiently. Would society be better off if smart people directed their energy towards developing vaccines instead of high frequency trading? The writer of the article thinks so, but the incentive systems direct talent towards the latter activity.

I get the thrust of the article. I just think he's totally misunderstood the world. In America, if you are one of the best and brightest (or if you're not) you're on your own. No one will pay for your education. But then, when you're done, you don't owe anyone else. If you want to go do HFT, that's up to you. There is no social argument to be made there. In Europe, life is different.

The same logic applies to his "meritocracy" soap box: if America was a meritocracy then... Oh wait it's not so why would I complete a sentence based on a false premis?

And that's without getting into whether we actually need more vaccines or whether HFT is useful even if you don't know why...

In developing countries the best and brightest can't do much without a supporting eco system. For example, several Indians come to the US and get jobs as software engineers in the best companies. But the same employees wouldn't be able to produce similar work while working from India in the same companies (anecdotal evidence) as more is needed for a functioning team than just developers. This is the case for most jobs.

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