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I think, in part, Caplan has made a fairly classic error in attempting to figure out the optimal strategy for an individual within an existing system, where sma

I think, in part, Caplan has made a fairly classic error in attempting to figure out the optimal strategy for an individual within an existing system, where small numbers of individuals deviating generally doesn't matter, and then using those results to make a policy recommendation about how to change the system en masse in a way that will radically change the system. His spreadsheets don't answer many questions I might have about such systemic changes, for example, would the reduction in college graduates reduce our nation's economic competitiveness? If it did, how would that effect overall quality of life for average Americans? I don't find compelling answers to these questions in his spreadsheets (nor his book). This is not an attempt to defend the system as it exists now but I think Caplan does a much better job outlining a problem than making his case for a solution.

nickff 5y ago
>" His spreadsheets don't answer many questions I might have about such systemic changes, for example, would the reduction in college graduates reduce our nation's economic competitiveness? If it did, how would that effect overall quality of life for average Americans? I don't find compelling answers to these questions in his spreadsheets." His book talked about those things; the spreadsheets are just him 'showing his work'. I think Caplan is trying to highlight that despite the fact that many challenged his conclusions, almost nobody challenged his logic or calculations.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  Probably because any attempt to even reduce the topic to a spreadsheet is a case of "not even wrong". When someone says that they proved that say, studying art doesn't matter, with math, you don't bother arguing with their math.
  - nickff 5y ago
    >"Probably because any attempt to even reduce the topic to a spreadsheet is a case of "not even wrong"." But he didn't reduce it to a spreadsheet, he wrote a very thorough book. >"When someone says that they proved that say, studying art doesn't matter, with math, you don't bother arguing with their math." I am not sure what you think Caplan says. His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of education. The vast majority of post-secondary students say they attend post-secondary education in order to increase their future earnings, so Caplan calculates the financial impact of various degrees, and then figures out how much is attributable to the various factors.
    - henrikschroder 5y ago
      > His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of education. The vast majority of post-secondary students say they attend post-secondary education in order to increase their future earnings So what about the partying, making friends for life, and learning to be an adult? What about care-free student life as a carrot to incentivise young adults to go into careers that might not be good for them personally, but good for society? Or how about letting people have careers that are personally fulfilling, but not economically productive? Taking a year abroad to study in the middle of whatever university education you're in is a financially stupid decision. And yet, one I recommend every single student to do, because it's fun. A million years ago when I was nearing the end of high school, we all talked about which university educations were financially the best, and worst. Which educations "paid for themselves", and which ones didn't. Everyone knew. And then we all picked whatever we personally liked and thought we would enjoy working with in the future. Caplan might be 100% right. And also 100% irrelevant.
      - xyzzyz 5y ago
        If you read his book, like it was already suggested to you a couple of times, you'd know what he says about "care-free student life". This way, you would be able to address his actual positions, instead of arguing against a version of Caplan you've conjured in your mind, based on a single blog post and a few HN comments.
        henrikschroder 5y ago
        So what does he say about care-free student life?
        _y5hn 5y ago
        Do your own homework?
        henrikschroder 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- majormajor 5y ago
  > His book talked about those things; the spreadsheets are just him 'showing his work'. I think Caplan is trying to highlight that despite the fact that many challenged his conclusions, almost nobody challenged his logic or calculations. Hermitian909 said "the spreadsheets are flawed by not including calculations for these additional levels of effect," and that claim seems pretty compelling: the calculations may be perfectly accurate and also perfectly useless because they say nothing about greater societal effects if everyone changed their behavior. The problem of individual strategy given the current system vs the question of what the system should be is a classic one, and the latter is far more complicated to compute. The "Moneyball"/baseball stats revolution shows a bit of this: as the things that were initially undervalued were no longer undervalued, "smart teams" had to continue changing. The system wasn't static. You say he talks about those things in his book in addition, but you can't call that "showing his work" if the work shown doesn't include the most relevant parts.
  - nickff 5y ago
    >"You say he talks about those things in his book in addition, but you can't call that "showing his work" if the work shown doesn't include the most relevant parts." The spreadsheet and book are complementary; you won't really understand either without reading both. In order to understand 'the work', you also have to know the question and the final answer.
- czbond 5y ago
  Because a majority of people are "feelers" (by nature) - they feel first, then run it through reasoning. An immature person of this nature would feel first, and then never proceed to use logic. In the same manner that a mature thinker uses logic first, then feels. An immature one may think, yet never also run the thoughts through the "feels department".
ALittleLight 5y ago
"His spreadsheets don't answer many questions I might have about such systemic changes" Just curious, have you read over his spreadsheets?
- Hermitian909 5y ago
  Yes
sbierwagen 5y ago
>would the reduction in college graduates reduce our nation's economic competitiveness? Google had 20k FTEs in 2008, 135k FTEs in 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-time-google-employees/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti... In those 12 years, Google did not launch a single new product that they didn't shut down a year later. 115 thousand people, most of them college graduates, did nothing useful for more than a decade. Their primary accomplishment was to inflate house prices in tech hubs. The United States is not short on college graduates.
- failuser 5y ago
  This is rich. If Google refused to grow it would have become another Yahoo. Chrome was launched in 2008 and was barely usable. Do you think it could have remained anywhere near dominant in ads, search and lot more if it stayed at 20k people?
- themacguffinman 5y ago
  Haha you're so right, I can't think of anything at all. *closes Chrome tab on my Android phone, opens another website hosted on Google Cloud Platform*
  - sbierwagen 5y ago
    >chrome Copy of Safari. >android Copy of iOS >GCP Copy of AWS. Cloning an existing product needed, at the absolute most, a staff of a hundred each. If you want to be wildly excessive, add 900 useless middle managers and developer relations people. Then what were the other 112,000 full time Google employees doing? What one hundred and twelve business critical new products were they engaged in? "Nothing"? Then why did they need to have college degrees?
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      > Each one of those needed, at the absolute most, a staff of a hundred. Ah yes, this is why AWS is noted for employing only 100 engineers, and Apple employs 200 across its browser and OS divisions.

nickff 5y ago

>" His spreadsheets don't answer many questions I might have about such systemic changes, for example, would the reduction in college graduates reduce our nation's economic competitiveness? If it did, how would that effect overall quality of life for average Americans? I don't find compelling answers to these questions in his spreadsheets." His book talked about those things; the spreadsheets are just him 'showing his work'. I think Caplan is trying to highlight that despite the fact that many challenged his conclusions, almost nobody challenged his logic or calculations.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
Probably because any attempt to even reduce the topic to a spreadsheet is a case of "not even wrong". When someone says that they proved that say, studying art doesn't matter, with math, you don't bother arguing with their math.
- nickff 5y ago
  >"Probably because any attempt to even reduce the topic to a spreadsheet is a case of "not even wrong"." But he didn't reduce it to a spreadsheet, he wrote a very thorough book. >"When someone says that they proved that say, studying art doesn't matter, with math, you don't bother arguing with their math." I am not sure what you think Caplan says. His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of education. The vast majority of post-secondary students say they attend post-secondary education in order to increase their future earnings, so Caplan calculates the financial impact of various degrees, and then figures out how much is attributable to the various factors.
  - henrikschroder 5y ago
    > His book is mostly about the signalling and human capital models of education. The vast majority of post-secondary students say they attend post-secondary education in order to increase their future earnings So what about the partying, making friends for life, and learning to be an adult? What about care-free student life as a carrot to incentivise young adults to go into careers that might not be good for them personally, but good for society? Or how about letting people have careers that are personally fulfilling, but not economically productive? Taking a year abroad to study in the middle of whatever university education you're in is a financially stupid decision. And yet, one I recommend every single student to do, because it's fun. A million years ago when I was nearing the end of high school, we all talked about which university educations were financially the best, and worst. Which educations "paid for themselves", and which ones didn't. Everyone knew. And then we all picked whatever we personally liked and thought we would enjoy working with in the future. Caplan might be 100% right. And also 100% irrelevant.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      If you read his book, like it was already suggested to you a couple of times, you'd know what he says about "care-free student life". This way, you would be able to address his actual positions, instead of arguing against a version of Caplan you've conjured in your mind, based on a single blog post and a few HN comments.
      - henrikschroder 5y ago
        So what does he say about care-free student life?
        _y5hn 5y ago
        Do your own homework?
        henrikschroder 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
majormajor 5y ago
> His book talked about those things; the spreadsheets are just him 'showing his work'. I think Caplan is trying to highlight that despite the fact that many challenged his conclusions, almost nobody challenged his logic or calculations. Hermitian909 said "the spreadsheets are flawed by not including calculations for these additional levels of effect," and that claim seems pretty compelling: the calculations may be perfectly accurate and also perfectly useless because they say nothing about greater societal effects if everyone changed their behavior. The problem of individual strategy given the current system vs the question of what the system should be is a classic one, and the latter is far more complicated to compute. The "Moneyball"/baseball stats revolution shows a bit of this: as the things that were initially undervalued were no longer undervalued, "smart teams" had to continue changing. The system wasn't static. You say he talks about those things in his book in addition, but you can't call that "showing his work" if the work shown doesn't include the most relevant parts.
- nickff 5y ago
  >"You say he talks about those things in his book in addition, but you can't call that "showing his work" if the work shown doesn't include the most relevant parts." The spreadsheet and book are complementary; you won't really understand either without reading both. In order to understand 'the work', you also have to know the question and the final answer.
czbond 5y ago
Because a majority of people are "feelers" (by nature) - they feel first, then run it through reasoning. An immature person of this nature would feel first, and then never proceed to use logic. In the same manner that a mature thinker uses logic first, then feels. An immature one may think, yet never also run the thoughts through the "feels department".

ALittleLight 5y ago

"His spreadsheets don't answer many questions I might have about such systemic changes" Just curious, have you read over his spreadsheets?

Hermitian909 5y ago
Yes

sbierwagen 5y ago

>would the reduction in college graduates reduce our nation's economic competitiveness? Google had 20k FTEs in 2008, 135k FTEs in 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-time-google-employees/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti... In those 12 years, Google did not launch a single new product that they didn't shut down a year later. 115 thousand people, most of them college graduates, did nothing useful for more than a decade. Their primary accomplishment was to inflate house prices in tech hubs. The United States is not short on college graduates.

failuser 5y ago
This is rich. If Google refused to grow it would have become another Yahoo. Chrome was launched in 2008 and was barely usable. Do you think it could have remained anywhere near dominant in ads, search and lot more if it stayed at 20k people?
themacguffinman 5y ago
Haha you're so right, I can't think of anything at all. *closes Chrome tab on my Android phone, opens another website hosted on Google Cloud Platform*
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  >chrome Copy of Safari. >android Copy of iOS >GCP Copy of AWS. Cloning an existing product needed, at the absolute most, a staff of a hundred each. If you want to be wildly excessive, add 900 useless middle managers and developer relations people. Then what were the other 112,000 full time Google employees doing? What one hundred and twelve business critical new products were they engaged in? "Nothing"? Then why did they need to have college degrees?
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    > Each one of those needed, at the absolute most, a staff of a hundred. Ah yes, this is why AWS is noted for employing only 100 engineers, and Apple employs 200 across its browser and OS divisions.