"Operation Warp Speed, a uniquely successful federal government project..." Uniquely successful at what exactly? Skipping all the safety studies in order to rush to market a vaccine that doesn't work and has the highest rate of adverse side effects of any vaccine in the past seventy years?
Graham argues that European police are more effective than American police because they don't have the post-Warren-Court Bill of Rights. His assertion is that Europe (even the UK) doesn't have concepts like "inadmissible evidence" or "the right to remain silent", which makes it much easier to secure convictions, which therefore means that sentences don't have to be as long to achieve the same deterrent effect.
I’m very cynical about education. Even if private schools improved teaching methods, it wouldn’t matter all that much for real productivity. I would advocate just getting rid of everything (history, social studies, etc.) except for maybe math and reading. Students will forget almost all the information after a few years. If their comprehension is 100% or 80%, it’s not going to matter that much. After basic arithmetic and literacy, I think you’re largely just wasting students time. If IQ interventions fade out, far transfer largely doesn’t exist, and memory decays to almost nothing... what is the point? If the content actually matters, then why are there no public advocates for compulsory adult education of those who didn’t retain the information from their childhood? I think it’s because we believe adults can’t be coerced but children can be. People forget that everyone just forgets everything. Just let the kids work or play or read what they want.
I think you’re correct Richard. A lot of people can’t read and comprehend a passage because they lack the cognitive ability. If you read it to them and then asked them what it means, they wouldn’t know either. Arthur Jensen had a passage in The g Factor where he explained that this is a common issue with criticisms of reading comprehension. They also lack comprehension as well. You can push people to their phenotypic limit and there are almost no more gains to be had. Jensen thought that many/most schools in the developed nations reached that limit, I believe. I’ll try to find it later when I’m on my laptop.
People don’t think that teaching a bird to do calculus is possible. It’s likely exceedingly difficult to teach some people topics like calculus if they lack the raw cognitive ability. I think it seems possible because there are people walking around who understand calculus and we’re all humans. So, the assumption is that almost anyone can. The fact that good schools, good neighborhoods, good institutions follow from high cognitive ability presents a persuasive story for causation in the opposite direction.
Progressives (and conservatives) opposed to the idea of cognitive ability and IQ will have their ideas challenged seriously when widespread embryo selection for cognitive ability is available. There’s not enough data but when there is more genomic data on cognitive ability, selection from a moderately sized batch of embryos will be way more important than what school you attend. Some will realize this and some won’t. Eventually it will be inevitable because the evidence of enhancements benefits will be so overwhelmingly apparent.
Here it is on p. 282: "The problem of adult illiteracy (defined as less than a fourth-grade level of reading comprehension) in a society that provides an elementary school education to virtually its entire population is therefore largely a problem of the lower segment of the population distribution of g. In the vast majority of people with low reading comprehension, the problem is not word reading per se, but lack of comprehension. These individuals schore about the same on tests of reading comprehension even if the test paragraphs are read aloud to them by the examiner. In other words, indvidual differences in oral comprehension and in reading comprehension are highly correlated." [21] The whole discussion is pp. 280-282.
[21] Sticht, T. G. , Hooke, L.R & Caylor, J.S. (1981) Literacy, oracy, and vocational apptitude as predictors of attrition and promotion in the Armed Services. Alexandria, VA: Huiman Resources Research Organization.
Private schools ensure that the place you send your kids to daycare won't make them bored/miserable, tell them they are the wrong gender, and make them were a mask all day.
I love my kids private school. They do all of their classes outside when they can. Go on nature walks. Run a mile every day. Have no homework. Do a lot of fun activities. Involve the parents. The math isn't common core bullshit. The kids all seem well behaved, and they aren't allowed to be in front of screens at all (the kids at the after school program for public elementary school seem to be on their laptops playing games a lot). In short, they seem to love it and we like it.
If we got an Arizona style school voucher we wouldn't even have to worry about the cost differential.
Private schools do not ensure that at all. Both private school teachers and public school teachers attend the same teachers colleges. The private school might be more responsive to market pressure from the parents. But the teachers have all been drinking from the same poisoned well.
My kids private school is run by a group of conservative Catholic homeschoolers that all have 4+ kids. Her kindergarten teacher left public school because of all the nonsense from the last few years. I'm pretty sure they aren't about to get taught gender theory.
On a somewhat related note, I very much sympathize with the views of American psychologist G. Stanley Hall: (from Wikipedia)
[Hall] characterized pre-adolescent children as savages and therefore rationalized that reasoning was a waste of time with children. He believed that children must simply be led to fear God, love country, and develop a strong body. As the child burns out the vestiges of evil in his nature, he needs a good dose of authoritarian discipline, including corporal punishment. He believed that adolescents are characterized by more altruistic natures than pre-adolescents and that high schools should indoctrinate students into selfless ideals of service, patriotism, body culture, military discipline, love of authority, awe of nature, and devotion to the state and the well-being of others. Hall consistently argued against intellectual attainment at all levels of public education. Open discussion and critical opinions were not to be tolerated. Students needed indoctrination to save them from the individualism that was so damaging to the progress of American culture.
In his book, I believe he advocated for 80%. In this, it seems he’s saying only 10% human capital. The ability bias seems to be consumption. I don’t remember him discussing that in his book. That seems more radical, not less.
So it depends on what your denominator is. 80% is consistent with the table if you use total effect on income as the denominator with the portion not explained by increased productivity in the numerator (since pure ability bias implies no effect of education on either income or productivity you get .4/.5).
When he says that the ability bias model is observationally equivalent to a consumption model, I think he is referring to the observed relationship between education and earnings or productivity that we would see if people went to school just because they enjoyed it (derived consumption value). Ability bias is still a different model from the consumption model, just happens to be observationally equivalent.
Initially when I read the table, I was using the model ratios since they were closest to what Alex said but I think that was a mistake on both our parts. The relevant number should be the 80%.
The regulations and policies that would make education and healthcare more expensive make sense as causes. I think that his explanation of manufacturing/services makes sense too, but I don’t see why it can’t be both.
"Operation Warp Speed, a uniquely successful federal government project..." Uniquely successful at what exactly? Skipping all the safety studies in order to rush to market a vaccine that doesn't work and has the highest rate of adverse side effects of any vaccine in the past seventy years?
On Tabarrok's claims about the "underpolicing" of America's cities, has he ever responded to the objections from Graham?
https://grahamfactor.substack.com/p/earl-warrens-greatest-mistake
Graham argues that European police are more effective than American police because they don't have the post-Warren-Court Bill of Rights. His assertion is that Europe (even the UK) doesn't have concepts like "inadmissible evidence" or "the right to remain silent", which makes it much easier to secure convictions, which therefore means that sentences don't have to be as long to achieve the same deterrent effect.
I’m very cynical about education. Even if private schools improved teaching methods, it wouldn’t matter all that much for real productivity. I would advocate just getting rid of everything (history, social studies, etc.) except for maybe math and reading. Students will forget almost all the information after a few years. If their comprehension is 100% or 80%, it’s not going to matter that much. After basic arithmetic and literacy, I think you’re largely just wasting students time. If IQ interventions fade out, far transfer largely doesn’t exist, and memory decays to almost nothing... what is the point? If the content actually matters, then why are there no public advocates for compulsory adult education of those who didn’t retain the information from their childhood? I think it’s because we believe adults can’t be coerced but children can be. People forget that everyone just forgets everything. Just let the kids work or play or read what they want.
I think you’re correct Richard. A lot of people can’t read and comprehend a passage because they lack the cognitive ability. If you read it to them and then asked them what it means, they wouldn’t know either. Arthur Jensen had a passage in The g Factor where he explained that this is a common issue with criticisms of reading comprehension. They also lack comprehension as well. You can push people to their phenotypic limit and there are almost no more gains to be had. Jensen thought that many/most schools in the developed nations reached that limit, I believe. I’ll try to find it later when I’m on my laptop.
People don’t think that teaching a bird to do calculus is possible. It’s likely exceedingly difficult to teach some people topics like calculus if they lack the raw cognitive ability. I think it seems possible because there are people walking around who understand calculus and we’re all humans. So, the assumption is that almost anyone can. The fact that good schools, good neighborhoods, good institutions follow from high cognitive ability presents a persuasive story for causation in the opposite direction.
Progressives (and conservatives) opposed to the idea of cognitive ability and IQ will have their ideas challenged seriously when widespread embryo selection for cognitive ability is available. There’s not enough data but when there is more genomic data on cognitive ability, selection from a moderately sized batch of embryos will be way more important than what school you attend. Some will realize this and some won’t. Eventually it will be inevitable because the evidence of enhancements benefits will be so overwhelmingly apparent.
Here it is on p. 282: "The problem of adult illiteracy (defined as less than a fourth-grade level of reading comprehension) in a society that provides an elementary school education to virtually its entire population is therefore largely a problem of the lower segment of the population distribution of g. In the vast majority of people with low reading comprehension, the problem is not word reading per se, but lack of comprehension. These individuals schore about the same on tests of reading comprehension even if the test paragraphs are read aloud to them by the examiner. In other words, indvidual differences in oral comprehension and in reading comprehension are highly correlated." [21] The whole discussion is pp. 280-282.
[21] Sticht, T. G. , Hooke, L.R & Caylor, J.S. (1981) Literacy, oracy, and vocational apptitude as predictors of attrition and promotion in the Armed Services. Alexandria, VA: Huiman Resources Research Organization.
Private schools ensure that the place you send your kids to daycare won't make them bored/miserable, tell them they are the wrong gender, and make them were a mask all day.
I love my kids private school. They do all of their classes outside when they can. Go on nature walks. Run a mile every day. Have no homework. Do a lot of fun activities. Involve the parents. The math isn't common core bullshit. The kids all seem well behaved, and they aren't allowed to be in front of screens at all (the kids at the after school program for public elementary school seem to be on their laptops playing games a lot). In short, they seem to love it and we like it.
If we got an Arizona style school voucher we wouldn't even have to worry about the cost differential.
Private schools do not ensure that at all. Both private school teachers and public school teachers attend the same teachers colleges. The private school might be more responsive to market pressure from the parents. But the teachers have all been drinking from the same poisoned well.
My kids private school is run by a group of conservative Catholic homeschoolers that all have 4+ kids. Her kindergarten teacher left public school because of all the nonsense from the last few years. I'm pretty sure they aren't about to get taught gender theory.
That sounds wonderful. However, your private school is nowhere near the norm for private schools.
I think those are all good things. I’m glad your kids are doing that.
On a somewhat related note, I very much sympathize with the views of American psychologist G. Stanley Hall: (from Wikipedia)
[Hall] characterized pre-adolescent children as savages and therefore rationalized that reasoning was a waste of time with children. He believed that children must simply be led to fear God, love country, and develop a strong body. As the child burns out the vestiges of evil in his nature, he needs a good dose of authoritarian discipline, including corporal punishment. He believed that adolescents are characterized by more altruistic natures than pre-adolescents and that high schools should indoctrinate students into selfless ideals of service, patriotism, body culture, military discipline, love of authority, awe of nature, and devotion to the state and the well-being of others. Hall consistently argued against intellectual attainment at all levels of public education. Open discussion and critical opinions were not to be tolerated. Students needed indoctrination to save them from the individualism that was so damaging to the progress of American culture.
Transcript!
Nobody has time to listen to 1:30 podcast.
I was surprised to hear Alex say that Bryan’s estimate is that 50% of education is signaling. Turns out his estimate is actually only 40%.
That makes it seem like Bryan is much less extreme than he really is though because he assigns an additional 50% of the credit to ability bias.
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/10/economic_models_1.html
In his book, I believe he advocated for 80%. In this, it seems he’s saying only 10% human capital. The ability bias seems to be consumption. I don’t remember him discussing that in his book. That seems more radical, not less.
So it depends on what your denominator is. 80% is consistent with the table if you use total effect on income as the denominator with the portion not explained by increased productivity in the numerator (since pure ability bias implies no effect of education on either income or productivity you get .4/.5).
When he says that the ability bias model is observationally equivalent to a consumption model, I think he is referring to the observed relationship between education and earnings or productivity that we would see if people went to school just because they enjoyed it (derived consumption value). Ability bias is still a different model from the consumption model, just happens to be observationally equivalent.
Initially when I read the table, I was using the model ratios since they were closest to what Alex said but I think that was a mistake on both our parts. The relevant number should be the 80%.
The regulations and policies that would make education and healthcare more expensive make sense as causes. I think that his explanation of manufacturing/services makes sense too, but I don’t see why it can’t be both.