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I don't know how to convey to you any more that this is a hypothetical rather than a real thing worth considering as much as you are doing. Like your entire ar

by johnfn 9y ago

I don't know how to convey to you any more that this is a hypothetical rather than a real thing worth considering as much as you are doing. Like your entire argument is "the S&P is pushed forward by people who go to college." Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article. The article could have said to invest in real estate or god forbid bitcoin. The specifics don't matter. Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-)

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
You can't generalize from specifics when the characteristics of the specifics are what makes the specifics work.
throwawayjava 9y ago
> ...this is a hypothetical... Ok. And it's a bad hypothetical because it emphasizes individual roi instead of systems-level effects when discussing a problem where all the interesting action is in the systems-level effects. I understand it's a hypothetical. I think it's a distracting hypothetical. > Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article It has every bit of relevance to the article because college is more than just an individual investment opportunity. The benefits of a large college educated population are enjoyed by an entire society. The real take-away from the article is that we apparently don't tax capital well enough because there's an absurd arbitrage opportunity for lazy people who have 200k in the bank. Or that the benefits of a college educated populace are high enough, and the cost also high enough, that we should be subsidizing college more than we currently are. Not that college is over-priced. The fact that your jump to the latter conclusion instead of the former is exactly the problem with this hypothetical. > The specifics don't matter.. Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-) Look. Either I'm not supposed to generalize from this specific case, or else your entire complaint is really confusing. Generalizing from this specific leads to all the wrong conclusions.

by johnfn 9y ago

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago

You can't generalize from specifics when the characteristics of the specifics are what makes the specifics work.

throwawayjava 9y ago

> ...this is a hypothetical... Ok. And it's a bad hypothetical because it emphasizes individual roi instead of systems-level effects when discussing a problem where all the interesting action is in the systems-level effects. I understand it's a hypothetical. I think it's a distracting hypothetical. > Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article It has every bit of relevance to the article because college is more than just an individual investment opportunity. The benefits of a large college educated population are enjoyed by an entire society. The real take-away from the article is that we apparently don't tax capital well enough because there's an absurd arbitrage opportunity for lazy people who have 200k in the bank. Or that the benefits of a college educated populace are high enough, and the cost also high enough, that we should be subsidizing college more than we currently are. Not that college is over-priced. The fact that your jump to the latter conclusion instead of the former is exactly the problem with this hypothetical. > The specifics don't matter.. Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-) Look. Either I'm not supposed to generalize from this specific case, or else your entire complaint is really confusing. Generalizing from this specific leads to all the wrong conclusions.