**** Elections thread *****

[boost]

Trump probably wouldn't, but as it is now, it would mean that a very small percentage of people vote. I forget the numbers exactly, but on average the middle class doesn't even pay tax by net. It's only like the top 2% that pay net taxes on average.

The masses voting is the path to civilization doom. The majority vote to take more and more money from the productive. We've seen the great damage this causes. If I were God and I were to engineer the destruction of the greatest civilization in the universe, I would turn it into a democracy with few limits on voting. People are good at stopping obvious disasters, but the disaster we don't stop is the one we don't see rotting our core.

It seems like, if we're going down this road, the system that makes the most sense is a correlation between dollars donated and votes allocated. Having it be binary, as you propose, gets the worst result as you both need a massive beurocracy to determine whether someone is net + or -, and you incentivize the gaming of the system where people gain full citizenship by paying a net $0.01 in taxes.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not in the top 2% of American earners, yet I think I pay net + in taxes. What am I missing? My paycheck has stuff taken out of it, and I typically get a very small tax return or owe a small amount (because lol@ loaning the government free monies.)

[MadMojoMonkey]

It seems like, if we're going down this road, the system that makes the most sense is a correlation between dollars donated and votes allocated. Having it be binary, as you propose, gets the worst result as you both need a massive beurocracy to determine whether someone is net + or -, and you incentivize the gaming of the system where people gain full citizenship by paying a net $0.01 in taxes.

Why all the hate against gamers?

This came up in a meeting the other day. Some of the TAs (grad students) are looking for ways to punish their undergrad students who are only interesting in accomplishing the bare minimum to receive full credit.
A) Our role as graders is not punishment, it's feedback.
B) What is even wrong with learning the actual requirements and meeting them efficiently?

The notion that if you're not overachieving, you're somehow disrespecting your fellows is absurd.

It reminds me of being an ambitious young carpenter who wastes time sanding the inside of a wall. No one is ever going to see or touch that surface once I seal the wall, so what advantage is gained by sanding it?

I see a lot of students sanding the inside of a wall, is all I'm saying, and it's just them making busywork for no advantage.

***
The minimum standard is still the standard. Gaming to meet the minimum is simply a life-scale optimization.
What's the problem with that?

[Poopadoop]

Why all the hate against gamers?

This came up in a meeting the other day. Some of the TAs (grad students) are looking for ways to punish their undergrad students who are only interesting in accomplishing the bare minimum to receive full credit.
A) Our role as graders is not punishment, it's feedback.
B) What is even wrong with learning the actual requirements and meeting them efficiently?

The notion that if you're not overachieving, you're somehow disrespecting your fellows is absurd.

It's the idea that the slackers are somehow devaluing the keeners' hard work. In fact it's the opposite. The slackers are making the keeners look even better by comparison. They should be thanking the slackers, not trying to punish them.

[wufwugy]

It's the idea that the slackers are somehow devaluing the keeners' hard work. In fact it's the opposite. The slackers are making the keeners look even better by comparison. They should be thanking the slackers, not trying to punish them.

Good point.

This is part of what I was getting at earlier when I said I'll never have an accurate understanding of reality; instead it matters what I believe. In your example, reality is one way, but how it affects one is dependent on their perspective.

[Poopadoop]

Good point.

This is part of what I was getting at earlier when I said I'll never have an accurate understanding of reality; instead it matters what I believe. In your example, reality is one way, but how it affects one is dependent on their perspective.

Ya, everyone has a different perspective. Thinking anyone who sees things differently from you is wrong doesn't make you right, it just makes you closed-minded.

[wufwugy]

I see a lot of students sanding the inside of a wall, is all I'm saying, and it's just them making busywork for no advantage

I'm very interested in some examples.

[Poopadoop]

I'm very interested in some examples.

For my part, I would say it's not realising there's a diminishing return with increased effort, to the point where the effort would better be expended elsewhere.

Making sure every little thing is just right in an essay like there's not a single typo or the references are formatted perfectly, or putting pretty designs on the cover page. Memorizing a textbook word for word instead of just getting a solid grasp of the material. Shit like that.

In my view, the smartest ones are still diligent in their approach to their schoolwork, but they also understand what really matters and focus on getting that right. A lot of overachievers actually manage to be both diligent and attentive to irrelevant detail. They still get a top mark but it's kind of like 'fuck me, here's your 95, get a life'.

[wufwugy]

For my part, I would say it's not realising there's a diminishing return with increased effort, to the point where the effort would better be expended elsewhere.

Making sure every little thing is just right in an essay like there's not a single typo or the references are formatted perfectly, or putting pretty designs on the cover page. Memorizing a textbook word for word instead of just getting a solid grasp of the material. Shit like that.

In my view, the smartest ones are still diligent in their approach to their schoolwork, but they also understand what really matters and focus on getting that right. A lot of overachievers actually manage to be both diligent and attentive to irrelevant detail. They still get a top mark but it's kind of like 'fuck me, here's your 95, get a life'.

Interesting. I tend to do the really nitty things you describe, and here's my explanation for why: I hate being graded down. It just feels bad. Like real bad. A 100 on an essay can make my day and a 92 will have me agitated for a while and questioning the Professor's understanding of how to teach/grade.

[Poopadoop]

Interesting. I tend to do the really nitty things you describe, and here's my explanation for why: I hate being graded down. It just feels bad. Like real bad. A 100 on an essay can make my day and a 92 will have me agitated for a while and questioning the Professor's understanding of how to teach/grade.

Well I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that, but it's not like it sways me one way or the other if I see a typo. That said, different markers are sensitive to different things and some of the stuff that makes me see red doesn't seem to bother others and vice-versa. I can imagine there being someone out there who sees a reference formatted wrong and thinks 'minus 5 for that'. But I think (hope) they're pretty rare, cause honestly, what does it have to do with how strong your paper is?

[MadMojoMonkey]

A 100 on an essay can make my day and a 92 will have me agitated for a while and questioning the Professor's understanding of how to teach/grade.

If this is true, then why are you paying for it?

I mean, if everything you write on the subject is worth 100%, then why do you need to take the class?
Shouldn't / Couldn't you be teaching that class?

[wufwugy]

If this is true, then why are you paying for it?

I mean, if everything you write on the subject is worth 100%, then why do you need to take the class?
Shouldn't / Couldn't you be teaching that class?

I know, right?

Perhaps a way to explain it is that some incentives in the university are distorted. An example is how so many students are not there to learn but there to get an official piece of paper and to put a desired GPA value on the resume.

If you'll indulge me for a minute, here's more or less what has happened to the system: as the government began subsidizing college more and more, the demand for degrees has been increasing and the supply of graduates has been increasing. These have increased to the point that white-collar employers have the incentive to discard resumes void of a bachelor's degree, which puts even more upward pressure on the demand for college degrees. I am in this spot. I am not necessarily college material (even though I do well) and I would prefer to not be in college, but my incentive to get a degree is high enough because that opens doors to so many jobs that once were open to those who didn't have degrees. Government subsidization has turned the university into "13th-16th grade". Just like how kids in high school don't necessarily want to be there or learn, college students are converging onto the same territory.

This subsidization has caused a dilution of standards. The stories older professors tell of their exams show that the exams today are meager in comparison. There is an irony in that faculty tend toward favoring the very subsidization that is turning the university into the very things the faculty is not proud of: reduced diligence in students, lowered syllabus standards, increased control by administration, and overall lots of graduates that are ill-prepared for the job market and often even the next class in a series.


Tangent aside, to try to answer your question, because I live in a construct that incentivizes me to get a diploma and a favorable GPA, that's more or less what I'm paying for. I recognize that this is a totally screwed up system. But beyond that, my personal feelings towards my GPA is because honestly my education is secondary to my GPA. I'd rather be working instead, developing the industry-specific skills more efficiently. Every friend I have with a bachelor's degree does not credit what they learned in college with teaching them much of what they do now for work (even though they're working in their major's field). I hope that my experience will end up differently, but I know I shouldn't necessarily expect it to.

On top of that, if it is true that the intention of a college degree is to demonstrate education and skills, GPA is a poor metric. As economist Bryan Caplan has put it, the university doesn't measure talent, skill, or education so much as it measures conformity. This is at least in part due to the GPA creating a dynamic where students don't learn as much as they should. If the institution was truly about displaying education of its graduates, it would make the exams repeatable and graded pass/fail. This would allow the exams to be much harder (like the exams given by private organizations) and it would designate that more or less all graduates understand the material. This is getting into a different topic, though, so I'll stop.

I'll just end on this: I've learned some stuff outside of school and I've noticed that the learning process is nothing like studying for an exam then taking the exam and moving past it to the next exam. When people learn things outside the university system, there's trial and error and they don't move on until they get it right and the final result replaces the antecedents. GPA is like saying "this student learned only this much of the material and then we moved to other material." It should not be that way. It should be "this student learned all the material required to move on." It looks like I'm about to get back into the weeds I said I would avoid; it's basically my version of what I think the education system would look like if it was totally private instead of the subsidized pseudo-daycare it is now. That's for another day, I guess.

[Poopadoop]

It seems like, if we're going down this road, the system that makes the most sense is a correlation between dollars donated and votes allocated. Having it be binary, as you propose, gets the worst result as you both need a massive beurocracy to determine whether someone is net + or -, and you incentivize the gaming of the system where people gain full citizenship by paying a net $0.01 in taxes.

Wouldn't you need a massive bureaucracy to enact your system too?

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not in the top 2% of American earners, yet I think I pay net + in taxes. What am I missing? My paycheck has stuff taken out of it, and I typically get a very small tax return or owe a small amount (because lol@ loaning the government free monies.)

I'm guessing by 'net' he means the people who pay more tax than the average amount paid by a taxpayer? However it's calculated it would amount to giving only the wealthy people the vote, and so seems not so good in principle.

[wufwugy]

It seems like, if we're going down this road, the system that makes the most sense is a correlation between dollars donated and votes allocated. Having it be binary, as you propose, gets the worst result as you both need a massive beurocracy to determine whether someone is net + or -, and you incentivize the gaming of the system where people gain full citizenship by paying a net $0.01 in taxes.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not in the top 2% of American earners, yet I think I pay net + in taxes. What am I missing? My paycheck has stuff taken out of it, and I typically get a very small tax return or owe a small amount (because lol@ loaning the government free monies.)

Good points. I meant that something along the liens of the top 2% "on average." Lots of middle class people (and even some poor) pay net taxes, but then there are lots in those income groups that get huge subsidies. It's also possible it was just in federal income tax. I saw the data a while back and don't remember the details much.