5 ms·

This reminds me of people online who construct gigantic walls of bad faith argument text and insist that it's up to everyone else to "debate them" and spend hou

by Legion 5y ago

This reminds me of people online who construct gigantic walls of bad faith argument text and insist that it's up to everyone else to "debate them" and spend hours deconstructing their argument. Just possibly, dude, your argument isn't worth anyone else's time to debunk.

fennecfoxen 5y ago
This would be contradicted by the fact that his argument makes splashy headlines and is engaged with regularly.
lucb1e 5y ago
> Just possibly, dude, your argument isn't worth anyone else's time to debunk. Wow, that's one of the most dismissive remarks I've seen here in quite a while. It also does not seem like you could possibly believe it yourself. Education is a huge chunk of everyone's life, of course it's important to know the upsides and downsides. The returns are one aspect (I haven't read the book, it honestly sounds depressing, but I'm also intrigued) and calculating those with the highest reasonable precision seems like an important input to me, regardless of whether we like the answer. Why would you dismiss this altogether as not even worth anyone's time to look into?
- erulabs 5y ago
  You quoted the wrong part if you’re after the dismissiveness. Declaring someone’s argument is in “bad faith” is unimpeachable. You can counter “no, I genuinely believe this” - but that’s just more bad faith argument! It’s an iron-jawed and unconquerable tool to deploy against any argument you do not want to engage with. Now - are there arguments not worth engaging with? Absolutely.
- krisoft 5y ago
  > Wow, that's one of the most dismissive remarks I've seen here in quite a while. It also does not seem like you could possibly believe it yourself. It's a natural thing. If you come up with an implausible sounding thing supported by a very complicated argument then most likely you made a mistake. It is very easy to make mistakes and very hard to find them. If you have a 1000 page proof that 2*2 is 5 I won't spend my valuable time finding where you slipped up. Now clearly his claim is more nebulous. One has to invest money and time to even understand what the book claims, so then one can invest more time to debunk a spreadsheet?
  - Kalium 5y ago
    When there's a real possibility of meaningful and useful insights, we might consider taking it seriously. For me, this can be linked in part to the person's experience and credibility. Caplan isn't some interloper with no knowledge of any of the material he touches on ranting on Twitter. The man has a career as an economics researcher specializing in public-sector work and actually teaches economics at a reasonably prestigious university (I have heard of George Mason). Perhaps we might pause to consider that he may be, in the realm of his specialty, not a complete fool. In general, his work would seem to be worth engaging with by his peers. With that in mind, it is a little concerning that so many people are so ready and willing to argue with his claims yet none are interested in engaging with his work or methodology. Perhaps they, as you, are dismissive because he reaches conclusions they find so implausible as to be not worth engaging with. Or perhaps because as he alleges, the field simply does not value quantitative argument beyond its ability to get a paper published. For my own part, I think it would be educational to know which is the case. If the former, I would like to understand if this is politically motivated (and a lot of things are in economics, especially in a policy context). In the latter, it leads me to question just about every claim from the entire field, including Caplan's. I'm not equipped to evaluate his data or critique his work. I won't make the attempt. I would hope for better of his peers, though.
    - I-Robot 5y ago
      - lucb1e 5y ago
        You can have an opinion about everything, but others are not obliged to like it and/or give you a platform for it. Baseless opinions are not interesting to read, and if there is a base for it, then that would be worth posting. Also, not sure why you're afraid of troll responses given that your comment is literally trolling (merriam webster, definition 2c).
        I-Robot 5y ago
- frazbin 5y ago
  well like one example would be if the author's study is predicated on the notion that salaries are optimally allocated, but you suspect that the hidden term representing misallocation of labor is actually quite large. In other words, you have to consider the possibility that degrees are not a perfectly honest signal, and that people are not always paid exactly according to their productivity. You only have to have one flagrantly unprovable assumption to make the whole chain of inference invalid
beambot 5y ago
Another example: arxiv.org proofs of P != NP, FTL, perpetual motion, grand unified theory, etc. The signal-to-noise ratio of crackpots to experts is just too darn high. This is one example where academia & credentialing serves an important purpose, even if academia can be pedantic & insular at times.
henrikschroder 5y ago
For what it's worth, after spending a little bit of time looking at his intro and conclusions, it appears to me that he is actually not arguing in bad faith. His assumption is that the purpose of an education is to raise your future earnings potential, and that the higher your salary is, the better for society you are. I'm sure his numbers and spreadsheets are correct. But if you think this is a good argument, a worthwhile argument for educational policy, then JESUS FUCK could you go outside and touch some grass? Please? Go hug someone. Look at the stars. Read a book. Be human. Feel something! A lot of people choose universities based on which ones have the best parties. Is that even quantifiable? This whole thing seems so ridiculously out of touch with human motivation that what you're saying is correct: It's simply not worth anyone else's time to debunk.
- jmeister 5y ago
  Policy arguments are based entirely on economic considerations. I don’t remember anyone bringing up parties while discussing student loans or charter schools.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  > that the higher your salary is, the better for society you are. /me looks at teachers, nurses, and truck drivers.
ALittleLight 5y ago
But people are criticizing his result. His complaint is not "Nobody read my book or looked at my spreadsheets" but instead "People are disagreeing with my conclusions, but not my logic." If his case wasn't worth arguing about then people wouldn't be arguing with him. Given that they are arguing it's interesting to note that they aren't doing it by arguing quantitatively.

by Legion 5y ago

fennecfoxen 5y ago

This would be contradicted by the fact that his argument makes splashy headlines and is engaged with regularly.

lucb1e 5y ago

> Just possibly, dude, your argument isn't worth anyone else's time to debunk. Wow, that's one of the most dismissive remarks I've seen here in quite a while. It also does not seem like you could possibly believe it yourself. Education is a huge chunk of everyone's life, of course it's important to know the upsides and downsides. The returns are one aspect (I haven't read the book, it honestly sounds depressing, but I'm also intrigued) and calculating those with the highest reasonable precision seems like an important input to me, regardless of whether we like the answer. Why would you dismiss this altogether as not even worth anyone's time to look into?

erulabs 5y ago
You quoted the wrong part if you’re after the dismissiveness. Declaring someone’s argument is in “bad faith” is unimpeachable. You can counter “no, I genuinely believe this” - but that’s just more bad faith argument! It’s an iron-jawed and unconquerable tool to deploy against any argument you do not want to engage with. Now - are there arguments not worth engaging with? Absolutely.
krisoft 5y ago
> Wow, that's one of the most dismissive remarks I've seen here in quite a while. It also does not seem like you could possibly believe it yourself. It's a natural thing. If you come up with an implausible sounding thing supported by a very complicated argument then most likely you made a mistake. It is very easy to make mistakes and very hard to find them. If you have a 1000 page proof that 2*2 is 5 I won't spend my valuable time finding where you slipped up. Now clearly his claim is more nebulous. One has to invest money and time to even understand what the book claims, so then one can invest more time to debunk a spreadsheet?
- Kalium 5y ago
  When there's a real possibility of meaningful and useful insights, we might consider taking it seriously. For me, this can be linked in part to the person's experience and credibility. Caplan isn't some interloper with no knowledge of any of the material he touches on ranting on Twitter. The man has a career as an economics researcher specializing in public-sector work and actually teaches economics at a reasonably prestigious university (I have heard of George Mason). Perhaps we might pause to consider that he may be, in the realm of his specialty, not a complete fool. In general, his work would seem to be worth engaging with by his peers. With that in mind, it is a little concerning that so many people are so ready and willing to argue with his claims yet none are interested in engaging with his work or methodology. Perhaps they, as you, are dismissive because he reaches conclusions they find so implausible as to be not worth engaging with. Or perhaps because as he alleges, the field simply does not value quantitative argument beyond its ability to get a paper published. For my own part, I think it would be educational to know which is the case. If the former, I would like to understand if this is politically motivated (and a lot of things are in economics, especially in a policy context). In the latter, it leads me to question just about every claim from the entire field, including Caplan's. I'm not equipped to evaluate his data or critique his work. I won't make the attempt. I would hope for better of his peers, though.
  - I-Robot 5y ago
    - lucb1e 5y ago
      You can have an opinion about everything, but others are not obliged to like it and/or give you a platform for it. Baseless opinions are not interesting to read, and if there is a base for it, then that would be worth posting. Also, not sure why you're afraid of troll responses given that your comment is literally trolling (merriam webster, definition 2c).
      - I-Robot 5y ago
frazbin 5y ago
well like one example would be if the author's study is predicated on the notion that salaries are optimally allocated, but you suspect that the hidden term representing misallocation of labor is actually quite large. In other words, you have to consider the possibility that degrees are not a perfectly honest signal, and that people are not always paid exactly according to their productivity. You only have to have one flagrantly unprovable assumption to make the whole chain of inference invalid

beambot 5y ago

Another example: arxiv.org proofs of P != NP, FTL, perpetual motion, grand unified theory, etc. The signal-to-noise ratio of crackpots to experts is just too darn high. This is one example where academia & credentialing serves an important purpose, even if academia can be pedantic & insular at times.

henrikschroder 5y ago

For what it's worth, after spending a little bit of time looking at his intro and conclusions, it appears to me that he is actually not arguing in bad faith. His assumption is that the purpose of an education is to raise your future earnings potential, and that the higher your salary is, the better for society you are. I'm sure his numbers and spreadsheets are correct. But if you think this is a good argument, a worthwhile argument for educational policy, then JESUS FUCK could you go outside and touch some grass? Please? Go hug someone. Look at the stars. Read a book. Be human. Feel something! A lot of people choose universities based on which ones have the best parties. Is that even quantifiable? This whole thing seems so ridiculously out of touch with human motivation that what you're saying is correct: It's simply not worth anyone else's time to debunk.

jmeister 5y ago
Policy arguments are based entirely on economic considerations. I don’t remember anyone bringing up parties while discussing student loans or charter schools.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
> that the higher your salary is, the better for society you are. /me looks at teachers, nurses, and truck drivers.

ALittleLight 5y ago

But people are criticizing his result. His complaint is not "Nobody read my book or looked at my spreadsheets" but instead "People are disagreeing with my conclusions, but not my logic." If his case wasn't worth arguing about then people wouldn't be arguing with him. Given that they are arguing it's interesting to note that they aren't doing it by arguing quantitatively.