6 ms·

>if Uber disappeared tomorrow, society would be moderately inconvenienced, but little else If you inconvenience 100 million people by costing them 15 minutes m

by carlmr 7y ago

>if Uber disappeared tomorrow, society would be moderately inconvenienced, but little else If you inconvenience 100 million people by costing them 15 minutes more a day, or a few dollars more for lack of competition, then the cost per person may be low, but the cost altogether will be high. This is the essential problem I see with the articles, they say so many jobs are useless, but often they're useful but only a small part of what is visible.

hacknat 7y ago
Totally, but now play the same scenario in your head if all the social workers or teachers disappeared tomorrow. Uber would be a societal inconvenience, but losing all of our teachers would be a catastrophe.
- carlmr 7y ago
  Many people don't have children, many people with children don't have children in school age. They will not be inconvenienced in the slightest by a lack of teachers (at least in the short term). The effect of teachers is concentrated in a smaller age group, so to those that need the service, the need is very apparent. Parents could teach their kids themselves, this would cost them time and energy. Of course it would cost them more time than lack of Uber, however what if we add up all the teacher pay and divide it by time and money (opportunity costs) saved and do the same for Uber drivers? Could this be a similar number? I'm not sure, but I think there might be some surprises there.
  - hacknat 7y ago
    You’re assuming they we a. Are accurately pricing teacher pay (if the upper bounds of private schools are any indication, we are not) b. The downstream effects wouldn’t be catastrophic. Certainly most American parents could not afford to properly educate themselves enough to do this job, let alone educate their children. Finally, a miseducated generation of children would probably end up costing us trillions of dollars in incarceration, health care, etc. You must think about the nth order effects of these things. Hence our completely inaccurate valuation of them.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      > [are we] accurately pricing teacher pay (if the upper bounds of private schools are any indication, we are not) Why would you look at the upper bounds? > Private school teachers make way less than public school teachers. Average salaries are nearly $50,000 for public, and barely $36,000 for private. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-are-private-school-teachers-paid-less-than-public-school-teachers/280829/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-ar...
- Double_Cast 7y ago
  Wages vary according to marginal utility rather than total utility. The question is not "what if all teachers disappeared", but "what if one particular teacher disappeared".
  - hacknat 7y ago
    Wages for public sector workers are legally defined and, at least, in this case, have very little to do with any measure of utility. Our society is horrendous at measuring utility in almost all long term cases.
    - Double_Cast 7y ago
      I'm not complaining that teacher salaries are too high or too low. I'm complaining that: A) you're reinventing the Paradox of Value; and B) you're challenging the norm without proposing an alternative economic model. "Just pay teachers according to the intrinsic value of their profession." But it's not immediately obvious what this means in practice. Suppose wages were set not by congress and not by the market. According to your moral calculus, what is the correct wage and how is it determined?
      - IkmoIkmo 7y ago
        Indeed. Oxygen is very valuable too, but it should not be expensive for this reason alone. It's abundant, and therefore cheap, and that's a good thing. Similarly, hypothetically speaking, perhaps teachers are the most valuable profession to society, but if there's plenty of people willing to become a teacher, and plenty capable, there's no reason to reward these people with vast extra sums of money for the sake of their value. Such a system would lead to extreme inefficient allocations of resources, an oversupply of teachers. Yes, if teachers are valuable and you can't find people willing or capable to do the job, then by all means, raise their pay. That's the reason I think many teachers deserve more pay. Not because they're intrinsically valuable.
    - ChrisLomont 7y ago
      >Wages for public sector workers are legally defined and, at least, in this case, have very little to do with any measure of utility. Public sector workers can leave for private wages, and for most comparable jobs, are paid similar wages, perhaps more so when adding benefits of most public sector jobs compared to volatility in private equivalents. So maybe the wage is not the result of public artificial restriction, but of the value placed on the jobs themselves in the open job market. Also not US teachers are among the highest paid in the world, certainly the OECD, likely because of Baumol's Cost Disease (which would imply US teachers are intrinsically overpaid, but receive the wages they do because schools must compete with outside even higher paying jobs to attract teachers). So perhaps it's not simply the US or public systems, but this is around the value on such skills worldwide. So either the entire planet places similar utility on teaching as measured by pay, or the entire planet, public and private, has reached the same wrong conclusion.
- adaml_623 7y ago
  I agree. And to be clear I think I think it would be an immediate catastrophe as parents would not be able to work as they would have to take care of their children. Teaching is obviously vastly more important than childcare but teachers on their undervalued salaries provide both of these salaries.
  - njarboe 7y ago
    If parents did not have to work or could take their children to work, they could be both caregivers and teachers.
- lenkite 7y ago
  No, it wouldn't really be any sort of calamity. Online-Courses/tuitions/bootcamps/home-schooling will take the place of traditional teachers in no time assuming some overlord disappeared them.
2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
I think a problem with this line of reasoning is that people forget what we used to do before we had certain conveniences. If Uber disappears, people would just read a book for 15mins or plan everything to take the extra time into account. Another problem with this line of reasoning is that people assume that they can always utilise 15m in a productive way or that not doing anything is not productive. How many times do you need a break everyday? How many times would a 15m break to relax and refocus or meditate actually benefit you rather than trying to force some work?
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  > I think a problem with this line of reasoning is that people forget what we used to do before we had certain conveniences. If indoor plumbing disappears, people would just read a book for 15mins or plan everything to take the extra time into account. Of course people would get by, but their lives would be worse and advocating for making people's lives worse is kind of a shitty thing to do.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
    False equivalence. Indoor plumbing is nothing like an app to call a taxi. Also see both my points. You don’t know if their lives would get worse. You’ve just assumed that the main goal of everyone is to hyper optimise their lives.
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      Yes I do know their lives would get worse[1] and yes it is an equivalent. You think when indoor plumbing came around people weren't arguing how it was an unnecessary luxury and making people soft and how that wasted time walking to the outhouse builds character and refocuses the self and how we'd all be better off without it? [1] Because they have said they do, repeatedly, with their wallets.

by carlmr 7y ago

hacknat 7y ago

Totally, but now play the same scenario in your head if all the social workers or teachers disappeared tomorrow. Uber would be a societal inconvenience, but losing all of our teachers would be a catastrophe.

carlmr 7y ago
Many people don't have children, many people with children don't have children in school age. They will not be inconvenienced in the slightest by a lack of teachers (at least in the short term). The effect of teachers is concentrated in a smaller age group, so to those that need the service, the need is very apparent. Parents could teach their kids themselves, this would cost them time and energy. Of course it would cost them more time than lack of Uber, however what if we add up all the teacher pay and divide it by time and money (opportunity costs) saved and do the same for Uber drivers? Could this be a similar number? I'm not sure, but I think there might be some surprises there.
- hacknat 7y ago
  You’re assuming they we a. Are accurately pricing teacher pay (if the upper bounds of private schools are any indication, we are not) b. The downstream effects wouldn’t be catastrophic. Certainly most American parents could not afford to properly educate themselves enough to do this job, let alone educate their children. Finally, a miseducated generation of children would probably end up costing us trillions of dollars in incarceration, health care, etc. You must think about the nth order effects of these things. Hence our completely inaccurate valuation of them.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    > [are we] accurately pricing teacher pay (if the upper bounds of private schools are any indication, we are not) Why would you look at the upper bounds? > Private school teachers make way less than public school teachers. Average salaries are nearly $50,000 for public, and barely $36,000 for private. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-are-private-school-teachers-paid-less-than-public-school-teachers/280829/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-ar...
Double_Cast 7y ago
Wages vary according to marginal utility rather than total utility. The question is not "what if all teachers disappeared", but "what if one particular teacher disappeared".
- hacknat 7y ago
  Wages for public sector workers are legally defined and, at least, in this case, have very little to do with any measure of utility. Our society is horrendous at measuring utility in almost all long term cases.
  - Double_Cast 7y ago
    I'm not complaining that teacher salaries are too high or too low. I'm complaining that: A) you're reinventing the Paradox of Value; and B) you're challenging the norm without proposing an alternative economic model. "Just pay teachers according to the intrinsic value of their profession." But it's not immediately obvious what this means in practice. Suppose wages were set not by congress and not by the market. According to your moral calculus, what is the correct wage and how is it determined?
    - IkmoIkmo 7y ago
      Indeed. Oxygen is very valuable too, but it should not be expensive for this reason alone. It's abundant, and therefore cheap, and that's a good thing. Similarly, hypothetically speaking, perhaps teachers are the most valuable profession to society, but if there's plenty of people willing to become a teacher, and plenty capable, there's no reason to reward these people with vast extra sums of money for the sake of their value. Such a system would lead to extreme inefficient allocations of resources, an oversupply of teachers. Yes, if teachers are valuable and you can't find people willing or capable to do the job, then by all means, raise their pay. That's the reason I think many teachers deserve more pay. Not because they're intrinsically valuable.
  - ChrisLomont 7y ago
    >Wages for public sector workers are legally defined and, at least, in this case, have very little to do with any measure of utility. Public sector workers can leave for private wages, and for most comparable jobs, are paid similar wages, perhaps more so when adding benefits of most public sector jobs compared to volatility in private equivalents. So maybe the wage is not the result of public artificial restriction, but of the value placed on the jobs themselves in the open job market. Also not US teachers are among the highest paid in the world, certainly the OECD, likely because of Baumol's Cost Disease (which would imply US teachers are intrinsically overpaid, but receive the wages they do because schools must compete with outside even higher paying jobs to attract teachers). So perhaps it's not simply the US or public systems, but this is around the value on such skills worldwide. So either the entire planet places similar utility on teaching as measured by pay, or the entire planet, public and private, has reached the same wrong conclusion.
adaml_623 7y ago
I agree. And to be clear I think I think it would be an immediate catastrophe as parents would not be able to work as they would have to take care of their children. Teaching is obviously vastly more important than childcare but teachers on their undervalued salaries provide both of these salaries.
- njarboe 7y ago
  If parents did not have to work or could take their children to work, they could be both caregivers and teachers.
lenkite 7y ago
No, it wouldn't really be any sort of calamity. Online-Courses/tuitions/bootcamps/home-schooling will take the place of traditional teachers in no time assuming some overlord disappeared them.

2muchcoffeeman 7y ago

I think a problem with this line of reasoning is that people forget what we used to do before we had certain conveniences. If Uber disappears, people would just read a book for 15mins or plan everything to take the extra time into account. Another problem with this line of reasoning is that people assume that they can always utilise 15m in a productive way or that not doing anything is not productive. How many times do you need a break everyday? How many times would a 15m break to relax and refocus or meditate actually benefit you rather than trying to force some work?

thereisnospork 7y ago
> I think a problem with this line of reasoning is that people forget what we used to do before we had certain conveniences. If indoor plumbing disappears, people would just read a book for 15mins or plan everything to take the extra time into account. Of course people would get by, but their lives would be worse and advocating for making people's lives worse is kind of a shitty thing to do.
- 2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
  False equivalence. Indoor plumbing is nothing like an app to call a taxi. Also see both my points. You don’t know if their lives would get worse. You’ve just assumed that the main goal of everyone is to hyper optimise their lives.
  - thereisnospork 7y ago
    Yes I do know their lives would get worse[1] and yes it is an equivalent. You think when indoor plumbing came around people weren't arguing how it was an unnecessary luxury and making people soft and how that wasted time walking to the outhouse builds character and refocuses the self and how we'd all be better off without it? [1] Because they have said they do, repeatedly, with their wallets.