3 ms·

I know how zerohedge is autobanned on hn, but they included some charts that should make people think (especially for those who have been looking away)[0][1].

I know how zerohedge is autobanned on hn, but they included some charts that should make people think (especially for those who have been looking away)[0][1]. Personally, I dropped out of Brown 2 years ago, and pursued other opportunities that wouldn't leave me and my family in a mound of debt upon graduation for returns that wont be monetarily or mentally satisfying (Not many interesting options for ChemE's beyond working for big oil/big pharma/big food co). Still grinding it out, but I wouldn't go back unless things change, and considering how things are now (and how they continue to be more of the same) and what I have done since, some college grads I've worked with say I'll come out ahead, but at least I know I'm not getting behind… [0] http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2012/09-2/20120928_coll5.png http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303... [1] http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2012/09-2/20120928_coll6.png http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303...

delluminatus 13y ago
I would like to point out that those graphs are very misleading if not carefully read. For instance, the first is tuned to make it appear that college and high school graduates are on exactly equal footing in mid-2006, whereas in fact in 2006 the median income of a high-school graduate with no higher education is $37,000, but the median income for a bachelor degree holder with no higher education is $60,000. It's useful for comparing the change in the two values over time, but it is not useful for comparing the values of the two at any given time. All I'm saying is, be careful not to let your intuition get in the way, and think carefully about what the graph is saying.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure both charts mention that they are rates or % change, if one needs a degree to read things carefully to not be mislead, we have bigger problems… All I'm saying is, if one wants to work 40+ years of their life putting a significant portion of ones increasingly diminishing difference of median income levels (which for those with high expectations for oneself, the difference is a joke anyways in the scheme of things) into 401k/403b/RothIRA's "invested" for them in the thing we call a stock "market", while paying off increasing larger debts for things one does not need to survive or to enjoy life and that's if one is apart of the decreasingly smaller group of those "successful" enough to come out "ahead" in that game, that's ones prerogative, not mine.
  - delluminatus 13y ago
    I'm not attacking your position, just trying to clarify some graphs that are obviously confusing (whether deliberately or not I don't know). The whole purpose of a graph is that it makes information visually available and easily digestible. If you have to "read it carefully to not be mislead," that is a faulty graphic.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      There isn't an agreed upon purpose of a graph, but luckily for us, there is for what a graph is: a diagram showing the relation between variable quantities, typically of two variables, each measured along one of a pair of axes at right angles.[0] I missed the part on "makes information visually available and easily digestible", but considering that you recognized it as a graph means that it did its job and everything else can be stroked upon to infinity, and like I said, we have bigger problems… I'm not attacking your clarification, just clarifying my original personal anecdote that was dependent on state of the status quo and its direction (rates and % change, respectively). [0] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/graph http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/graph
  - argonaut 13y ago
    No, the graph is very misleading. The first one is not of rates of change, it's % relative to 2007. Which is a really really weird way to graph things.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      Yet it clearly stated what it was measuring in the title regardless of if "really weird" or not. If I was reading a graph that measured % moles of two different substances in a solution over a period of time that was adjusted at t=x and mentioned for in the title, sure, some might see that as "really weird", but one will still be able to extract information from it and apply it in a context of a report (as BoA did in theirs and mine in my statement). But let me not sit here and type away on the internet and think that some graph is going to wipe away the cognitive dissonance of populations…
- mikeyouse 13y ago
  An actually useful graph that basically refutes that idiotic Zerohedge one; http://i.imgur.com/s3GqHl2.png http://i.imgur.com/s3GqHl2.png

delluminatus 13y ago

I would like to point out that those graphs are very misleading if not carefully read. For instance, the first is tuned to make it appear that college and high school graduates are on exactly equal footing in mid-2006, whereas in fact in 2006 the median income of a high-school graduate with no higher education is $37,000, but the median income for a bachelor degree holder with no higher education is $60,000. It's useful for comparing the change in the two values over time, but it is not useful for comparing the values of the two at any given time. All I'm saying is, be careful not to let your intuition get in the way, and think carefully about what the graph is saying.

cinquemb 13y ago
I'm pretty sure both charts mention that they are rates or % change, if one needs a degree to read things carefully to not be mislead, we have bigger problems… All I'm saying is, if one wants to work 40+ years of their life putting a significant portion of ones increasingly diminishing difference of median income levels (which for those with high expectations for oneself, the difference is a joke anyways in the scheme of things) into 401k/403b/RothIRA's "invested" for them in the thing we call a stock "market", while paying off increasing larger debts for things one does not need to survive or to enjoy life and that's if one is apart of the decreasingly smaller group of those "successful" enough to come out "ahead" in that game, that's ones prerogative, not mine.
- delluminatus 13y ago
  I'm not attacking your position, just trying to clarify some graphs that are obviously confusing (whether deliberately or not I don't know). The whole purpose of a graph is that it makes information visually available and easily digestible. If you have to "read it carefully to not be mislead," that is a faulty graphic.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    There isn't an agreed upon purpose of a graph, but luckily for us, there is for what a graph is: a diagram showing the relation between variable quantities, typically of two variables, each measured along one of a pair of axes at right angles.[0] I missed the part on "makes information visually available and easily digestible", but considering that you recognized it as a graph means that it did its job and everything else can be stroked upon to infinity, and like I said, we have bigger problems… I'm not attacking your clarification, just clarifying my original personal anecdote that was dependent on state of the status quo and its direction (rates and % change, respectively). [0] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/graph http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/graph
- argonaut 13y ago
  No, the graph is very misleading. The first one is not of rates of change, it's % relative to 2007. Which is a really really weird way to graph things.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    Yet it clearly stated what it was measuring in the title regardless of if "really weird" or not. If I was reading a graph that measured % moles of two different substances in a solution over a period of time that was adjusted at t=x and mentioned for in the title, sure, some might see that as "really weird", but one will still be able to extract information from it and apply it in a context of a report (as BoA did in theirs and mine in my statement). But let me not sit here and type away on the internet and think that some graph is going to wipe away the cognitive dissonance of populations…
mikeyouse 13y ago
An actually useful graph that basically refutes that idiotic Zerohedge one; http://i.imgur.com/s3GqHl2.png http://i.imgur.com/s3GqHl2.png