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I never understood the sentiment of valuing babies over all else. To me it always seemed obvious that fresh college graduates are most valuable to society, sinc
by ajmurmann 11y ago
I never understood the sentiment of valuing babies over all else. To me it always seemed obvious that fresh college graduates are most valuable to society, since we just finished investing a ton of money into them. Babies on the other hand are easily replaced.
I get this is mainly an emotional argument, but it's still startling to me how opposite it is to the purely economic argument I made above. In fact usually people think I'm just trolling when I'm stating my opinion on the matter but I'm dead serious.
- philwelch 11y agoBabies are full of potential. Fresh college graduates...let's be honest...are less so.
- tomp 11y agoWell, most babies will become fresh college graduates (or not even that), so I'm not sure I really follow your line of thought.
- philwelch 11y agoYeah, but a baby hasn't chosen a major, developed any mental illnesses, experienced any crippling trauma, or really done anything at all yet. A fresh college graduate is very often set for life when it comes to their career, brand preferences, political beliefs, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, etc. but babies have a lot more variability in terms of possible outcome.
- tertius 11y agoThought the sample of college graduates vs. all 22 year olds are a little different. All babies will turn into all 22 year olds. Only some babies will turn into college graduates. Therefore some of a population, if selected artificially (i.e. college graduates) will always be better than the whole population (i.e. all babies.)
- syntheticnature 11y agoHate to be that person, but it is true that most babies will turn into all 22 year olds.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tertius 11y agoYou are correct.
- xiaoma 11y agoCollege graduates are "better" than the whole population? Wow. I completely disagree and as a college graduate I would never say something like that.
- Centigonal 11y agoOh come on -- that's orthogonal to the point being made. However you define "success," it is true that some subgroup will have a higher potential of being successful than the average, i.e. all babies. Babies have the widest potential, but not the greatest potential.
- tertius 11y agoAre you objecting on the grounds that this speech is offensive to non-graduates or that it's generally not the case given the context? A test statement may be: A certain population is at the top of the IQ bell curve therefore they are smarter. The IQ bell curve being the context.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Retra 11y ago>Yeah, but a baby hasn't chosen a major, developed any mental illnesses, experienced any crippling trauma, or really done anything at all yet. Well, they will or they will die trying.
- tvanantwerp 11y agoWhen your kid is still a baby, you can dream that he/she will become a neurosurgeon or an astronaut. By the time the child has actually grown up and graduated with a degree in French poetry, your best hopes for them are dead.
- simplexion 11y agoIf your best hopes for your children are their career path you are doing it wrong.
- wfo 11y agoSounds like you shouldn't have children. If all that matters to you is being an astronaut or neurosurgeon or some other high-prestige but low-happiness job then you should do it yourself and stop talking about it on the internet: don't impose your twisted moral system where you judge human worth based on wealth on an innocent child who might create beautiful art or invent something new some day.
- rcthompson 11y agoIt's the same "logic" that values a startup without a product more highly than one with a product because if the product hasn't been developed yet, it could be amazing, but if it has, then we already know its not.
- drumdance 11y agoNot most. Only ~22% of people finish college.
- xiaoma 11y agoFollow the line of thought further. Most fresh graduates also become retired seniors. All retired seniors eventually become corpses. Can you maybe see potential declining over time now? A baby could become anyone.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- matt_heimer 11y agoIt is delayed onset of buyers remorse. When you have a baby you are still shopping, you don't know what type of adult you have created yet. Sometimes you'll end up producing the person that cures cancer and have no remorse. When you're looking at the college tuition bills for your offspring that has switched their major from Psychology to Philosophy to Art History to Archaeology you start to wonder if you could have made different choices.
- pen2l 11y agoRoughly 34% of Americans go on to complete college. Strictly and mathematically speaking, the fresh college graduates are a much better bet than babies.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sporro 11y agoAny random baby, maybe. Also there's the issue of malleability.
- notacoward 11y agoCollege grads are a "better bet" in terms of the probability that they'll succeed, but not in terms of additional investment making a difference. Spend time or money on/with a recent college grad who's already primed to succeed, and neither you nor society will get much that you wouldn't have already. Spend that same time or money on/with a child whose mind is still malleable and whose future is still uncertain . . now you're talking about a real possibility of making a difference.
- SilasX 11y agoBut it takes a baby some 20 years just to get to the lowly college graduate stage, so...
- ajmurmann 11y agoYeah and in the meantime they need a ton of investment, might die before they even get to the age to work or turn it idiots.
- disantlor 11y agoI think we need to coin some new acronyms after this thread: FCG: fresh college grads (natch) LDE: lame-duck elderlies BMPP: babies; max-potential persons
- Atheros 11y agoActual ability is more valuable than potential ability.
- dudul 11y agoIn many "isolated" cultures, elderlies are actually considered more valuable than babies because of all their knowledge. When an old person passes away it is considered a great damage to the tribe, while losing a baby is meaningless since the baby didn't know anything.
- mamon 11y agoThis might have been true in Western civilization up until 18th century. Since industrial revolution started the pace at which the world is changing is so fast that by the time you reach your 70s most of your knowledge and life experience is already obsolete. That's why we leave elderly alone in nursing homes instead of keeping them close to use their wisdom.
- elinchrome 11y ago> Babies on the other hand are easily replaced. Someone has never had a baby.
- 001sky 11y agoThis shouldn't be downvoted, because its part of the argument. eg, still-born babies tend to have lots of emotional reprecussions. But the OP's point is that doesn;t make much sense. eg, the human female is programmed to reproduce every 28 days or whatever... but herein lies the heart of the issue...biology, rationality, and emotion, ane even culture are all (or may be) at cross purposes when it comes to this situation.
- davorak 11y ago> This shouldn't be down voted, I at least down voted it because, the comment it was quoting from was supposed to be a "purely economic argument" and it acknowledged that most argument come from an emotional view point. There are valid points that go a long the lines of the comment and your follow ups starts to add them but: > Someone has never had a baby. Does not add that detail or those arguments.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoI didn't care too much for the comment because it was smug superiority.
- vlehto 11y agoCollege graduate is just as difficult in the early stage. But needs additional 20 years of expensive fermentation.
- Retra 11y agoYeah, some people even do it on accident.
- GuiA 11y agoIn other words: "Children are special, but not particularly important" http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/01/children-are-special-but-not-particularly-important.html http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/01/children-ar...
- such_a_casual 11y agoIn terms of a 'purely economic argument', you have none. You're referring to a sunk cost: "are most valuable to society, since we just finished investing a ton of money into them" "In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to an investment decision. Traditional economics proposes that economic actors should not let sunk costs influence their decisions. Doing so would not be rationally assessing a decision exclusively on its own merits." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs
- everyone 11y agoYou are citing things but your argument is nonsensical.
- pmikesell 11y agoHe has a perfectly valid economic argument. He's not saying it's the sunk cost that provides the value, it's the added overall value they provide by having a college education. The cost of getting that education could be a reasonable proxy for the value of the education, though imperfect. People usually make the sunk cost mistake when they aren't evaluating the immediate potential of the options, just the emotional tie to the money invested. That's not the case here.
- such_a_casual 11y ago"He's not saying it's the sunk cost that provides the value" Actually, that's exactly what they said and I even quoted them on it.
- Atheros 11y agoIt should be clear to you that he meant that they are valuable because they have at least an education. You are being pedantic.
- vasiliys 11y agoWhat's the future cost of getting a college grad to become productive? Nothing. Future cost of making a baby productive? ~20 years of varying levels of investment.
- avar 11y agoIn terms of a single society it would make more economic sense to stop having children, import foreign collage graduates, and execute people once they reach retirement age. But society, luckily, isn't some autonomous macro-organism that can treat people like individual cells in your body. So when we say that we value babies above all else that's a projection of the individual aspirations of the members of that society. An average member of society will care much more about the health of their family and children than maximizing the GDP of their country, and government policy and rhetoric luckily at least partially reflects this.
- vasiliys 11y agoThe sentiment is correct, but even an average member of society who has to choose between two children is better off with the college grad than the incessant consumer whose cortex hasn't folded yet. The only valid explanation I can think of for our obsession with babies is evolutionary - you need some overkill hormonal persuasion to bond with babies. So every individual who has gone through such a period has some understanding of other individuals' love for babies - they're being empathetic when they hear someone say "I love my baby more than anything".
- avar 11y agoI think both you and the parent I was replying to are guilty of the same fallacy: transposing economic value on the individual level to society at large. People at large want to have kids, they want to not die from treatable illnesses. Even when those two goals are at odds with optimal economic realities societies will still try to attain them, because we build societies and economies as a means to an end to attain our goals, we don't live our lives purely to satisfy economic efficiencies. We're an organism that's the product of billions of years of evolution, all organisms try to spread their genes to the next generation. To say that you're better off with one child who's a collage graduate than two who aren't might be true economically, but ignores what's fundamentally driving us all forward as an organism. Does anyone really think the primacy of reproduction can be superseded by some clever economic theories?
- givan 11y agoLife is not limited to economics.
- jqm 11y agoNo, but it certainly is limited by economics.
- nommm-nommm 11y ago> fresh college graduates are most valuable to society This seems to be a popular opinion on here and I really don't understand that. In fact its kinda fucked up. I can only guess there's a lot of fresh college grads on HN. It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. I certainly don't want a society made up of fresh college grads who think they know it all.
- ajmurmann 11y agoI strongly agree that we need a healthy mix. However, for fresh college graduates there is more time left to pay off the investment we made in them as a society. In fact I believe they will be at their most productive a little later than that. But they get there as they get older. Edit: Typos
- nommm-nommm 11y agoMeh... I don't think there is really much difference from your average fresh college grad and your average non-college educated 22 year old. I guess from an economical sense college is expensive but... I don't know... how many college grads actually use their degree?
- nitrogen 11y agoI think the more important question is how many college grads actually benefit from their education (modified words italicized). A degree in, say, forestry should still be useful for someone working in sales because of the experience dealing with diverse opinions, processing new information, and studying a range of subjects.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 11y agoThis is anecdotal, and not a very controversial opinion, but many people in my family and group of friends are sociology majors. After watching them grow and knowing them pre and post degree, I can without a doubt say that education is beneficial. What you learn is unimportant. Becoming acquainted with the process of learning is the true benefit of education.
- notacoward 11y agoThe purely economic argument is not about which is the bigger sunk cost. It's not about which will create the most total economic value, either. It's about the delta in economic value from additional investment. College grads are already on an upward trajectory. Statistically and as a group, they're likely to create significant value without any additional investment. Babies, on the other hand, are entirely unrealized potential. Significant investment is still necessary. In a way, your argument works against your conclusion. The more you've already spent, the less remains to be spent before the person takes off on their own trajectory. Fresh grads don't scale like startups do. They don't need ever-increasing investment to keep up with growth. They're (ideally) more like established companies, already capable of generating their own income and no longer in need of infusions from outside. They don't need our attention as much as babies do. That's why we call them incubators. ;)
- cakoose 11y agoI couldn't quite follow. Are you disagreeing with anything OP said?
- notacoward 11y agoYes, I disagree with the "obvious" conclusion that college graduates are most valuable. Additionally, I think the argument put forward supposedly in support of that conclusion - i.e. that we've invested more in graduates - actually leads to the exact opposite conclusion. As others have pointed out, it's not valid economics but pure sunk-cost fallacy.
- airmondii 11y agoI think all he's getting at is recent college grads have the highest Net Present Value. It's not a matter of sunk cost.
- droopybuns 11y agoIs a college loan that is exempt from bankruptcy protections really the same as an "investment?"
- adrianlmm 11y ago>I never understood the sentiment of valuing babies over all else Becuase you are a sociopath.
- dang 11y ago> you are a sociopath Personal attacks are not allowed on HN. We ban accounts that do this. This isn't the first time you've broken the site guidelines by being uncivil. Please read the rules and follow them from now on: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- adrianlmm 11y agoWhat is wrong with calling him the way he reflects to be? and honestly, I've seen worse name calling here, if you can call it like that anyway.
- dang 11y agoWhy is "Be civil" a rule here? Because if it weren't, incivility would dominate and destroy the community. This doesn't stop applying just because someone else did worse. On HN, please post civilly and substantively or not at all.
- adrianlmm 11y agoI understand your point, I just don't think I wasn't being civil.
- tptacek 11y agoNot extrapolating a visceral disagreement with someone to either a condemnation of that person or a diagnosis of mental illness or dysfunction seems almost like the essence of HN civility. "Don't call people sociopaths" seemed almost too banal to comment on, but this is is a pattern that recurs several times a day on HN.
- serge2k 11y agoThe reason people think you're trolling is because this > Babies on the other hand are easily replaced sounds like something a sociopath would say about it. I mean really, is the answer not obvious? Babies need constant care and attention or they die.
- ryuker16 11y agoWe have more college grads than jobs....we could lose a few.