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I think you might be surprised, as a practical matter, that many people in the world are not happy when their prudent choices are invalidated by a change in the

I think you might be surprised, as a practical matter, that many people in the world are not happy when their prudent choices are invalidated by a change in the government policy in favor of others who took the opposite choice as you. And that they be called "selfish" for thinking so. People working and making material sacrifices over their lifetimes only to see those burdens lifted for others are not a small edge case to be brushed away. How about if I put it in a HN-relevant case (and to paint it in more obviously judgemental terms to make the point). You and a colleague are given a 2-week deadline to deliver some code. It's a tough deadline. You are diligent and work day and night, overtime, missing your kids birthday and having your spouse mad at you, to meet the deadline and deliver your part. Your colleague has been a low performer consistently, asks your help to finish the work, doesn't actually finish it by the due date. Your boss, at the delivery meeting, says, actually, this was just a motivational exercise to get us to practice coding and teamwork, and didn't really count after all. She won't even bother looking at your work because it was just for your personal development. We're a team. How do you feel? How about we run that again the next 2 weeks. What are you going to do? Feeling good for your colleague who was about to get in some trouble, but luckily it all turned out ok? Your wife and kid will be glad for that I'm sure. And aside from all that, my points about the unintended incentives of such a policy remain.

cdolan 6y ago
Best comment yet. Take my upvote.
thomastjeffery 6y ago
> How do you feel? How does that take higher precedence than the literal financial situation of millions of people? > Your colleague has been a low performer consistently You are painting a very different picture here. People by and large don't get into unrecoverable student loan debt because they are low performers. Many of them achieve excellent grades. Their work is simply not compensated. So here in your metaphor, you have made a demon out of the victim. > How about we run that again the next 2 weeks. What are you going to do? Again, this metaphor has strayed from the reality it is meant to compare to. Student loan forgiveness isn't a perpetual system. It's an N time deal. N increases during the time it takes to overhaul our failed higher education system. Because we are motivated to keep N low, we are motivated to quickly overhaul our failed higher education system. > Your boss, at the delivery meeting, says, actually, this was just a motivational exercise to get us to practice coding and teamwork Notice how even in your metaphor, you are victimizing your teammate when it is clearly your boss who is at fault. That part of the metaphor tracts quite well with reality. In reality, you are blaming the student when the universities and stagnant wages are to blame. > And that they be called "selfish" for thinking so. Indeed it might be.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  How do we feel and how does it matter more than someone's bank account? It starts to, if it determines what we're going to do next, when provided certain incentives and systems in which to behave. Yes, loan forgiveness isn't a perpetual system (as in my example), for the student receiving it. Obviously. It's perpetual if you do that for every class into the future. And yes, I said openly in my preface that the picture I'm painting is to illustrate the point of incentives and policies -- not to say at all that student debt holders are underperformers. You miss my point if so.
  - thomastjeffery 6y ago
    > It's perpetual if you do that for every class into the future. In other words, it's perpetual so long as we perpetuate the underlying problem. So let's solve the underlying problem, too. By instituting Student Loan Forgiveness, we are suddenly motivated to overhaul our higher education system so that it does not demand student debt.
ryandrake 6y ago
> many people in the world are not happy when their prudent choices are invalidated by a change in the government policy in favor of others who took the opposite choice as you. And that they be called "selfish" for thinking so. Sorry, but they are called selfish because they are selfish. And, they are part of the reason we can't make any changes for the common good anymore. We can't seem to politically make things easier that were previously difficult. This "I suffered to do X, therefore everyone in the future must suffer to do X" is a toxic, progress-limiting, and quintessentially American point of view. Same logic as "We can't have universal healthcare, because I have been paying so long for my own healthcare!" and "We can't relax immigration policies, because when I immigrated, it was difficult!" and "We can't take care of our poor elderly because I paid my own 401K for decades!" I paid back over $200K in student loans over more than a decade. I'm glad they're paid, finally. Not having them hanging around my neck is helping me financially get on track. If there is a chance someone younger than me (maybe even my own kids) can go through his or her life without that burden, I am all for it. Their success does not diminish mine.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  Here, let's make this more concrete so we're not debating over intangibles. How much of your salary are you willing to give for this student loan forgiveness program? $10,000? every year? Not that much? Why are you being so selfish?
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    $1.5 trillion is less than what was spent on the Iraq war, and just two years of US military spending. We can make it work without simplistically raising everyone's taxes by $1.5T/everyone. The hardest step is to change people's political priorities so that they actually include making more people better off. Oh, and to answer your actual question, yes, I'd much rather have $300 of my tax bill every paycheck go towards the "making education free for everyone" fund rather than the "blowing up a kid hiding in a hole with an AK47" fund.
    - throwmehaweh 6y ago

cdolan 6y ago

Best comment yet. Take my upvote.

thomastjeffery 6y ago

> How do you feel? How does that take higher precedence than the literal financial situation of millions of people? > Your colleague has been a low performer consistently You are painting a very different picture here. People by and large don't get into unrecoverable student loan debt because they are low performers. Many of them achieve excellent grades. Their work is simply not compensated. So here in your metaphor, you have made a demon out of the victim. > How about we run that again the next 2 weeks. What are you going to do? Again, this metaphor has strayed from the reality it is meant to compare to. Student loan forgiveness isn't a perpetual system. It's an N time deal. N increases during the time it takes to overhaul our failed higher education system. Because we are motivated to keep N low, we are motivated to quickly overhaul our failed higher education system. > Your boss, at the delivery meeting, says, actually, this was just a motivational exercise to get us to practice coding and teamwork Notice how even in your metaphor, you are victimizing your teammate when it is clearly your boss who is at fault. That part of the metaphor tracts quite well with reality. In reality, you are blaming the student when the universities and stagnant wages are to blame. > And that they be called "selfish" for thinking so. Indeed it might be.

supernova87a 6y ago
How do we feel and how does it matter more than someone's bank account? It starts to, if it determines what we're going to do next, when provided certain incentives and systems in which to behave. Yes, loan forgiveness isn't a perpetual system (as in my example), for the student receiving it. Obviously. It's perpetual if you do that for every class into the future. And yes, I said openly in my preface that the picture I'm painting is to illustrate the point of incentives and policies -- not to say at all that student debt holders are underperformers. You miss my point if so.
- thomastjeffery 6y ago
  > It's perpetual if you do that for every class into the future. In other words, it's perpetual so long as we perpetuate the underlying problem. So let's solve the underlying problem, too. By instituting Student Loan Forgiveness, we are suddenly motivated to overhaul our higher education system so that it does not demand student debt.

ryandrake 6y ago

> many people in the world are not happy when their prudent choices are invalidated by a change in the government policy in favor of others who took the opposite choice as you. And that they be called "selfish" for thinking so. Sorry, but they are called selfish because they are selfish. And, they are part of the reason we can't make any changes for the common good anymore. We can't seem to politically make things easier that were previously difficult. This "I suffered to do X, therefore everyone in the future must suffer to do X" is a toxic, progress-limiting, and quintessentially American point of view. Same logic as "We can't have universal healthcare, because I have been paying so long for my own healthcare!" and "We can't relax immigration policies, because when I immigrated, it was difficult!" and "We can't take care of our poor elderly because I paid my own 401K for decades!" I paid back over $200K in student loans over more than a decade. I'm glad they're paid, finally. Not having them hanging around my neck is helping me financially get on track. If there is a chance someone younger than me (maybe even my own kids) can go through his or her life without that burden, I am all for it. Their success does not diminish mine.

supernova87a 6y ago
Here, let's make this more concrete so we're not debating over intangibles. How much of your salary are you willing to give for this student loan forgiveness program? $10,000? every year? Not that much? Why are you being so selfish?
- ryandrake 6y ago
  $1.5 trillion is less than what was spent on the Iraq war, and just two years of US military spending. We can make it work without simplistically raising everyone's taxes by $1.5T/everyone. The hardest step is to change people's political priorities so that they actually include making more people better off. Oh, and to answer your actual question, yes, I'd much rather have $300 of my tax bill every paycheck go towards the "making education free for everyone" fund rather than the "blowing up a kid hiding in a hole with an AK47" fund.
  - throwmehaweh 6y ago