4 ms·

The article is basically claiming that if a doctor earns $100k a year, and costs, say, $1m in funds to be able to complete his or her extended studies (that tak

by swombat 16y ago

The article is basically claiming that if a doctor earns $100k a year, and costs, say, $1m in funds to be able to complete his or her extended studies (that take many years), then creating that doctor is not a worthwhile investment for parents or for society. That's wrong on so many levels that I won't even bother to argue with it.

bufordtwain 16y ago
Maybe there are some highly specialized occupations (e.g. theoretical scientist) where the high cost of education is justified. But the point is that most people don't go into those fields.
anamax 16y ago
> The article is basically claiming that if a {knowledge} earns ${number} year, and costs, say, ${bigger_number} in funds to be able to complete his or her extended studies (that take many years), then creating that notfunh is not a worthwhile investment for parents or for society. For a given value of {knowledge}, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true. There are other values for which it is false. Suppose, for example, it cost $1b to train a straw basketweaver and society was only willing to pay $10k for said basketweaver's output. That's not a worthwhile investment. And substituting doctor for basketweaver doesn't much change things. Absent force, salary/compensation doesn't capture all of the value that society places on an occupation, but it isn't hugely wrong either.
- anamax 16y ago
  > For a given value of {knowledge}, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true. There are other values for which it is false. Actually, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true regardless of the value of {knowledge}. I suspect that there are values for which it is always false as well.
pyre 16y ago
How many doctors are unemployed and living with their parents? Don't take the statement about hospitals and doctors and try to combine it with the statements about the education system. The former was just a jab at the healthcare system, the later is a jab at spending gobs of money just to end up with people that aren't doing much of anything with their education. Doctors that go out and do something with their education (i.e. work as a doctor) aren't included in that.

by swombat 16y ago

bufordtwain 16y ago

Maybe there are some highly specialized occupations (e.g. theoretical scientist) where the high cost of education is justified. But the point is that most people don't go into those fields.

anamax 16y ago

> The article is basically claiming that if a {knowledge} earns ${number} year, and costs, say, ${bigger_number} in funds to be able to complete his or her extended studies (that take many years), then creating that notfunh is not a worthwhile investment for parents or for society. For a given value of {knowledge}, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true. There are other values for which it is false. Suppose, for example, it cost $1b to train a straw basketweaver and society was only willing to pay $10k for said basketweaver's output. That's not a worthwhile investment. And substituting doctor for basketweaver doesn't much change things. Absent force, salary/compensation doesn't capture all of the value that society places on an occupation, but it isn't hugely wrong either.

anamax 16y ago
> For a given value of {knowledge}, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true. There are other values for which it is false. Actually, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true regardless of the value of {knowledge}. I suspect that there are values for which it is always false as well.

pyre 16y ago

How many doctors are unemployed and living with their parents? Don't take the statement about hospitals and doctors and try to combine it with the statements about the education system. The former was just a jab at the healthcare system, the later is a jab at spending gobs of money just to end up with people that aren't doing much of anything with their education. Doctors that go out and do something with their education (i.e. work as a doctor) aren't included in that.