I agree that a competition-based school is far and away better than what could potentially pass off as education. That being said, I do think that we could do better. When it comes to competing for spots at a Prestigious University, I think that nudge-like solutions like limiting the amount of schools someone can apply to, seem fairly sensible and could help reduce the amount of public commons being burned.
I also think that it’d be crushing to tell people who aren’t doing well that they’re not doing well, but I also think that this is different from confronting reality. You want to people to dream high, but you also want them to calibrate their expectations to how the world is, yes? I can imagine there are more tactful ways to help people rescale their expectations, e.g. getting them both calibrated/inspired by looking at really Exceptional people.
could help reduce the amount of public commons being burned
I don’t see any public commons being burned. I a see a competition, a normal plain-vanilla competition which will have winners and losers. This is not a common-good project which requires joint effort, this is a contest with the number of gold medals being quite limited and silver/bronze medals being not plentiful either.
To agree to not compete looks to me like Olympic runners agreeing to not run too fast because then they won’t huff and puff that much.
Many, perhaps most competitions do in fact waste resources—it’s only under rather strict conditions that they can lead to globally-optimal outcomes, and the competitions we see in schools and sports do not satisfy these conditions. You can in fact view the banning of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympics as a gentleman’s agreement among Olympian runners that they’re not going to “run too fast”.
By that logic capitalism with its constant competition is highly wasteful. Surely a system where a wise man (or a wise Latina) just tells you what to do is going to work better… right?
the banning of performance-enhancing drugs
No, I don’t think so, because by the same argument you can ban any training. It’s not a gentlemen’s agreement, anyway, it’s a rule imposed from above by governing bodies which are mostly interested in selling the performance for money.
By that logic capitalism with its constant competition is highly wasteful.
Capitalism does not really involve more “competition” than is inherent in human nature anyway. What it does WRT competition is precisely to try and ensure that it leads to favorable outcomes, largely by making property rights more well-defined and more easily protected. (‘Tragedy of the commons’ scenarios result from competing over an exhaustible ‘commons’ for which neither property rights nor customary access rules are defined.)
it’s a rule imposed from above by governing bodies which are mostly interested in selling the performance for money.
You might be assuming that professional athletes are not collectively “interested” in having their performance be popular when it gets sold for money. The opposite is very much the case. Yes, much of the appeal of sports is in its “fair contest” aspects—we would not be happy with a “pure entertainment” surrogate where the outcome of every contest was actually pre-determined in advance! But of course every sport has its rules.
So does then socialism of the Soviet variety involve considerably less?
Soviet socialism involved more wasteful competition than modern free-market (‘capitalist’) economies, by far. Much of that competition played out in the political arena, through the handing out of all sorts of special privileges and permits as “prizes” to be won. I’m not sure what a social system that involved “considerably less” competition might actually look like. Neo-cameralism of the Moldbuggian variety is often said to have some (rather minor) benefits in reduced social competition, but the costs are rather uncertain and potentially quite high.[1]
[1] (I actually think it might have a useful role to play, but only for the narrow use case of transition from weak authoritarian government like what you see in most of the non-Western world, to something like modern liberal democracy.)
In any case, we started with you saying competition is wasteful. So what are the alternatives?
I’ve tried to outline feasible options for the issues in the OP elsewhere in the comment thread. Anyway, ‘we started’ with you saying competition among high-school students has to be desirable and non-wasteful, precisely because it is a competition. My point was just that this is not quite correct.
By that logic capitalism with its constant competition is highly wasteful.
Surely we can agree that competition usually leads to local maxima and not Pareto-optimal outcomes?
As a student myself, I’m noticing this general system and trying to point how things don’t seem to be very good. I think that if we want to do better, acknowledging how incentives are set up is important.
Coase’s Theorem is new to me (I’m not well-versed in econ or game theory), thanks for the link.
The thing I’m trying to point at is that there definitely seem to be ways to make incremental improvements in lots of systems which would be Pareto improvements.
I think that is agreeable? EX: Starting school later would likely be generally helpful for most students.
there definitely seem to be ways to make incremental improvements in lots of systems which would be Pareto improvements.
Real-life systems generally have multiple agents with different incentives and different amounts of power. Usually, if a system works in particular way it’s because this particular way benefits someone with power (often, at the expense of someone without power). Real-life systems also tend to be quite complex with many relationships not visible on a cursory glance—what looks like a Pareto improvement to you might look like an attack on an established right to someone else.
This is not to say that existing systems can’t be improved. But there are reasons why they are what they are and unless you understand these reasons and have enough power to apply to leverage points, talking about incremental Pareto improvements is not likely to lead to anything.
Something that benefits “most students” to the detriment of some students and other participants (parents, teachers, etc) is NOT what pareto-efficient means. Starting school later means some mix of less total school, more school days, or ending school later, none of which have obvious unanimous support.
Do Ivy League schools actually provide for better education or it’s just signalling and status? In the former case, “better education” is a scarce resource because having it for everyone would be more beneficial that having it only for some, as is for example the case of Olympic medals. In the second case, there’s no common being burned but there’s a suboptimal equilibrium caused by Moloch, which could be seen as a cost opportunity being too high (a sort of negative common not being consumed?)
Do Ivy League schools actually provide for better education or it’s just signalling and status?
Both, as well as forced socialization with an impressive peer group. But Lumifer has this one right—both are scarce resources, and this particular mix of the two is a scarce resource, but it’s not being burned because it’s not a commons. They are successfully accepting only those they think will do well there and improve the environment for each other.
It’s a plain old competition, and I’ve seen no evidence of suboptimality. Are there other highly-competitive endeavors which you think are optimal? You mention Olympic medals—I’ve known some Olympic hopefuls, but they burned out or were injured before making the team. That’s not pleasant, but it’s not suboptimal, it’s what has to happen in order to identify the best performers.
But Lumifer has this one right—both are scarce resources, and this particular mix of the two is a scarce resource, but it’s not being burned because it’s not a commons. They are successfully accepting only those they think will do well there and improve the environment for each other.
What’s being burned here is not the benefits of being accepted to an Ivy. It’s the wasteful effort involved in, e.g. the marginal hours of intensive preparation on the SAT, that will affect the final score by a handful of points at best. (No one denies that some amount of test prep can be very useful for anyone, both academically and in terms of improving the test outcome!) To a first approximation, the positive payoff of the former is exactly offset, in expectation, by the negatives of the latter.
I agree that a competition-based school is far and away better than what could potentially pass off as education. That being said, I do think that we could do better. When it comes to competing for spots at a Prestigious University, I think that nudge-like solutions like limiting the amount of schools someone can apply to, seem fairly sensible and could help reduce the amount of public commons being burned.
I also think that it’d be crushing to tell people who aren’t doing well that they’re not doing well, but I also think that this is different from confronting reality. You want to people to dream high, but you also want them to calibrate their expectations to how the world is, yes? I can imagine there are more tactful ways to help people rescale their expectations, e.g. getting them both calibrated/inspired by looking at really Exceptional people.
I don’t see any public commons being burned. I a see a competition, a normal plain-vanilla competition which will have winners and losers. This is not a common-good project which requires joint effort, this is a contest with the number of gold medals being quite limited and silver/bronze medals being not plentiful either.
To agree to not compete looks to me like Olympic runners agreeing to not run too fast because then they won’t huff and puff that much.
Many, perhaps most competitions do in fact waste resources—it’s only under rather strict conditions that they can lead to globally-optimal outcomes, and the competitions we see in schools and sports do not satisfy these conditions. You can in fact view the banning of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympics as a gentleman’s agreement among Olympian runners that they’re not going to “run too fast”.
Compared to what?
By that logic capitalism with its constant competition is highly wasteful. Surely a system where a wise man (or a wise Latina) just tells you what to do is going to work better… right?
No, I don’t think so, because by the same argument you can ban any training. It’s not a gentlemen’s agreement, anyway, it’s a rule imposed from above by governing bodies which are mostly interested in selling the performance for money.
Capitalism does not really involve more “competition” than is inherent in human nature anyway. What it does WRT competition is precisely to try and ensure that it leads to favorable outcomes, largely by making property rights more well-defined and more easily protected. (‘Tragedy of the commons’ scenarios result from competing over an exhaustible ‘commons’ for which neither property rights nor customary access rules are defined.)
You might be assuming that professional athletes are not collectively “interested” in having their performance be popular when it gets sold for money. The opposite is very much the case. Yes, much of the appeal of sports is in its “fair contest” aspects—we would not be happy with a “pure entertainment” surrogate where the outcome of every contest was actually pre-determined in advance! But of course every sport has its rules.
So does then socialism of the Soviet variety involve considerably less? I am not sure of the point you’re making.
Soviet socialism involved more wasteful competition than modern free-market (‘capitalist’) economies, by far. Much of that competition played out in the political arena, through the handing out of all sorts of special privileges and permits as “prizes” to be won. I’m not sure what a social system that involved “considerably less” competition might actually look like. Neo-cameralism of the Moldbuggian variety is often said to have some (rather minor) benefits in reduced social competition, but the costs are rather uncertain and potentially quite high.[1]
[1] (I actually think it might have a useful role to play, but only for the narrow use case of transition from weak authoritarian government like what you see in most of the non-Western world, to something like modern liberal democracy.)
Citation needed. This looks plain false to me.
In any case, we started with you saying competition is wasteful. So what are the alternatives?
I’ve tried to outline feasible options for the issues in the OP elsewhere in the comment thread. Anyway, ‘we started’ with you saying competition among high-school students has to be desirable and non-wasteful, precisely because it is a competition. My point was just that this is not quite correct.
Sigh. Bullshit. Quote me, please.
It’s only a few comments upthread and you already can’t distinguish between me and a straw monster living inside your mind.
Surely we can agree that competition usually leads to local maxima and not Pareto-optimal outcomes?
As a student myself, I’m noticing this general system and trying to point how things don’t seem to be very good. I think that if we want to do better, acknowledging how incentives are set up is important.
In reality? No, we can’t.
By the way, there was a fellow named Coase who had something to say about Pareto efficiency...
Coase’s Theorem is new to me (I’m not well-versed in econ or game theory), thanks for the link.
The thing I’m trying to point at is that there definitely seem to be ways to make incremental improvements in lots of systems which would be Pareto improvements.
I think that is agreeable? EX: Starting school later would likely be generally helpful for most students.
Real-life systems generally have multiple agents with different incentives and different amounts of power. Usually, if a system works in particular way it’s because this particular way benefits someone with power (often, at the expense of someone without power). Real-life systems also tend to be quite complex with many relationships not visible on a cursory glance—what looks like a Pareto improvement to you might look like an attack on an established right to someone else.
This is not to say that existing systems can’t be improved. But there are reasons why they are what they are and unless you understand these reasons and have enough power to apply to leverage points, talking about incremental Pareto improvements is not likely to lead to anything.
Thanks; that helps clear things up, and it improves my view of things.
Something that benefits “most students” to the detriment of some students and other participants (parents, teachers, etc) is NOT what pareto-efficient means. Starting school later means some mix of less total school, more school days, or ending school later, none of which have obvious unanimous support.
Given that there’s lots of factors here, I don’t disagree with the technical point you’re making about my misuse of terminology above.
Do Ivy League schools actually provide for better education or it’s just signalling and status?
In the former case, “better education” is a scarce resource because having it for everyone would be more beneficial that having it only for some, as is for example the case of Olympic medals.
In the second case, there’s no common being burned but there’s a suboptimal equilibrium caused by Moloch, which could be seen as a cost opportunity being too high (a sort of negative common not being consumed?)
Both (defining “education” as “various consequences of attending this college”).
Both, as well as forced socialization with an impressive peer group. But Lumifer has this one right—both are scarce resources, and this particular mix of the two is a scarce resource, but it’s not being burned because it’s not a commons. They are successfully accepting only those they think will do well there and improve the environment for each other.
It’s a plain old competition, and I’ve seen no evidence of suboptimality. Are there other highly-competitive endeavors which you think are optimal? You mention Olympic medals—I’ve known some Olympic hopefuls, but they burned out or were injured before making the team. That’s not pleasant, but it’s not suboptimal, it’s what has to happen in order to identify the best performers.
What’s being burned here is not the benefits of being accepted to an Ivy. It’s the wasteful effort involved in, e.g. the marginal hours of intensive preparation on the SAT, that will affect the final score by a handful of points at best. (No one denies that some amount of test prep can be very useful for anyone, both academically and in terms of improving the test outcome!) To a first approximation, the positive payoff of the former is exactly offset, in expectation, by the negatives of the latter.
Yep. Basically, the “waste” of competition is the price you pay to acquire information about performance.