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Because a ton of people want to dedicate their lives to advancing justice and human knowledge. Who are any of us to deny them that pursuit if they are competent

Because a ton of people want to dedicate their lives to advancing justice and human knowledge. Who are any of us to deny them that pursuit if they are competent and committed enough to pass the Bar or defend a novel thesis? I’m pretty much the opposite of a libertarian, but I find the very idea of restricting education and denying competent people professional certification on the grounds of limiting supply to be perverse.

tivert 2y ago
You need to meet some lawyers who were never able to practice because of oversupply, or hopeful PhDs that found themselves trapped in the adjunct precariat. There's no good accomplished by letting people waste their time, money, and talent on training they won't be able to use; and which they are counting on using to support themselves.
- throwup238 2y ago
  I’ve got a family member who’s been an underpaid postdoc their entire professional career going on 30 years and another stuck in banking for a decade after a physics PhD. I’m intimately familiar with the reality. Neither of them regret their education or the effort they put in. There’s no good accomplished by restricting education and professional certification to artificially restrict supply. All it does is create perverse incentives and harm the public good.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > I’m intimately familiar with the reality. Neither of them regret their education or the effort they put in. The people I know in similar situations regret their choices, or are at least are a little bitter. > There’s no good accomplished by restricting education and professional certification except to destroy peoples dreams for the sake of a lucky few. Let me put it this way: if their dreams are going to be destroyed, it's best to do that as soon a possible. Putting that off makes things worse, not better.
    - throwup238 2y ago
      Except you have no idea a priori who will succeed and who won’t. If your selection process happens before the certification process, you’ll just be selecting for other metrics, ones usually irrelevant to the actual field. That’s just bad policy. There are a ton of shitty doctors and entire geographic regions that are deprived of specialists because of this kind of nonsense. Your policy may help a few people but it harms all of society.
      - tivert 2y ago
        > Except you have no idea a priori who will succeed and who won’t. Sort of. In many areas it's possible to do a good-enough job of sorting out the people who will almost certainly succeed. It won't be perfect, but nothing is. If there are enough of those to fill a long and specialized training program to the point where actual needs are met, then you shouldn't be letting a bunch of extra "maybes" in too, because that just introduces bad outcomes at the end that could be avoided.
        throwup238 2y ago
        Based on my experience with doctors medicine is not one of those fields. Residency is the final gauntlet that matters and that’s the part that’s artificially restricted. On the other hand, because of supply, finding a good lawyer just requires a bit of money, well within reach of the average person facing a criminal trial or some civil dispute. Finding a good doctor requires sitting on waitlists for months (if you’re lucky enough to find one taking new patients) unless you have enough money to afford a concierge service, which the vast majority of people cannot afford. I’ve had bad concierge doctors but I’ve never had a shitty lawyer paying that kind of money. I mean really, where do we stop? There’s many more English literature graduates than jobs. Same with ____ studies and just about every other humanities degree. Do we restrict those too? How about higher education altogether? There’s an important debate to be had about government financing and the non-dischargeability of loans and all its effects, but restricting education based on job supply is just harmful to societies on so many levels. This is a two way street. Everybody needs medical care. Almost everyone is going to need legal advice in their lives. Depriving them of competent care and representation does far more harm than limiting supply would save. Failed medical students don’t die from the ordeal, but patients do. The washout rate for A&P aircraft mechanics is on the order of 75%. Imagine if healthcare were as reliable as airplanes (though there’s a shortage there too).
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I don't think you can generalize attitudes based on the experiences of two people you know.
- lukan 2y ago
  But there is good, in letting people wait 6 months for important medical issues?
  - tivert 2y ago
    You misunderstand my position. I am not arguing for the status quo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947148. What I'm arguing against is a reactionary over-correction.

tivert 2y ago

You need to meet some lawyers who were never able to practice because of oversupply, or hopeful PhDs that found themselves trapped in the adjunct precariat. There's no good accomplished by letting people waste their time, money, and talent on training they won't be able to use; and which they are counting on using to support themselves.

throwup238 2y ago
I’ve got a family member who’s been an underpaid postdoc their entire professional career going on 30 years and another stuck in banking for a decade after a physics PhD. I’m intimately familiar with the reality. Neither of them regret their education or the effort they put in. There’s no good accomplished by restricting education and professional certification to artificially restrict supply. All it does is create perverse incentives and harm the public good.
- tivert 2y ago
  > I’m intimately familiar with the reality. Neither of them regret their education or the effort they put in. The people I know in similar situations regret their choices, or are at least are a little bitter. > There’s no good accomplished by restricting education and professional certification except to destroy peoples dreams for the sake of a lucky few. Let me put it this way: if their dreams are going to be destroyed, it's best to do that as soon a possible. Putting that off makes things worse, not better.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Except you have no idea a priori who will succeed and who won’t. If your selection process happens before the certification process, you’ll just be selecting for other metrics, ones usually irrelevant to the actual field. That’s just bad policy. There are a ton of shitty doctors and entire geographic regions that are deprived of specialists because of this kind of nonsense. Your policy may help a few people but it harms all of society.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > Except you have no idea a priori who will succeed and who won’t. Sort of. In many areas it's possible to do a good-enough job of sorting out the people who will almost certainly succeed. It won't be perfect, but nothing is. If there are enough of those to fill a long and specialized training program to the point where actual needs are met, then you shouldn't be letting a bunch of extra "maybes" in too, because that just introduces bad outcomes at the end that could be avoided.
      - throwup238 2y ago
        Based on my experience with doctors medicine is not one of those fields. Residency is the final gauntlet that matters and that’s the part that’s artificially restricted. On the other hand, because of supply, finding a good lawyer just requires a bit of money, well within reach of the average person facing a criminal trial or some civil dispute. Finding a good doctor requires sitting on waitlists for months (if you’re lucky enough to find one taking new patients) unless you have enough money to afford a concierge service, which the vast majority of people cannot afford. I’ve had bad concierge doctors but I’ve never had a shitty lawyer paying that kind of money. I mean really, where do we stop? There’s many more English literature graduates than jobs. Same with ____ studies and just about every other humanities degree. Do we restrict those too? How about higher education altogether? There’s an important debate to be had about government financing and the non-dischargeability of loans and all its effects, but restricting education based on job supply is just harmful to societies on so many levels. This is a two way street. Everybody needs medical care. Almost everyone is going to need legal advice in their lives. Depriving them of competent care and representation does far more harm than limiting supply would save. Failed medical students don’t die from the ordeal, but patients do. The washout rate for A&P aircraft mechanics is on the order of 75%. Imagine if healthcare were as reliable as airplanes (though there’s a shortage there too).
- kelnos 2y ago
  I don't think you can generalize attitudes based on the experiences of two people you know.
lukan 2y ago
But there is good, in letting people wait 6 months for important medical issues?
- tivert 2y ago
  You misunderstand my position. I am not arguing for the status quo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947148. What I'm arguing against is a reactionary over-correction.