The “Should we get rid of the GRE?” conversation and the “Should we pay undergrad RAs $15/hour?” conversation have three things in common that I think are really unfortunate — 🧵

(For the record, I personally think we should keep the GRE and that the minimum wage should be $15 but I know a lot more about psychometrics than labor economics so I’m more confident about the former opinion)
1- lack of clarity regarding whether a proposed change is seen as a morally good END in itself, versus a MEANS to another end, and if the latter what that end is
1b - for instance, I don’t care whether or not capital punishment deters crime; it’s instrumental purpose is irrelevant to the fact that I think it’s a moral wrong
1c -for the GRE, do you think testing is Bad, regardless of its utility? Or do you think that under representation of some racial groups is Bad? Or do you think the racial wealth gap is Bad? people rarely clarify what ultimate wrong they are trying to right
1d- for minimum wage, do you think a certain wage is a Good as a symbol of the dignity of labor? Do you care about income inequality itself? Do you care about the quality of life for the poorest?
1e- This muddiness about means and ends gets us in trouble because debating whether X is the best way to get to Y will be outraging to people who care about X in and of itself
2 - A widespread failure to take the possibility of unintended consequences seriously. I think this is because it’s easy to empathize with people in the here and now but hard to empathize with people in counterfactual worlds
2b - With the GRE, the number of people who are blank when I ask, “what are you going to use instead, and what evidence that you have that that is fairer?” is astonishing. But the counterfactual has to be considered, and it doesn’t make someone an evil monster to bring that up
2c — more on that here https://t.co/rzSRA8d7G6
3 - A failure to grapple with the dual roles that faculty play as employers of skilled labor in a highly competitive field vs mentors / advisors to students, and the fact that they have to succeed at the former in order to do the latter
3b - This duality reflects larger duality in “what is higher education for?” To bring about social equality? To advance human knowledge and technology? Yes and yes. And also, in practice, those lofty goals conflict and their locus of conflict is in the individual faculty member
4 - I said three things but I’m going to add a fourth, which is that some of the meanest and loudest voices in these conversations are men from the natural sciences who don’t study humans and quite honestly do not know what they are talking about
(The misogyny and mansplaining of woke white men will be a thread for another day)

More from Economy

Latest @SouledOutWorld articles:
(Article Thread)

All in one convenient location to access.


https://t.co/TuyltZTyW0


https://t.co/XJJRvpLRQE


https://t.co/NeeFCfMkP2


https://t.co/yFtbIgqzzm
Priyamvada Gopal is part of a class of elite academics in the imperial core who teach the ruling class, and use woke radlib rhetoric to justify current Western imperial aggression.

She echoes propaganda against Syria, Iran, and China and is silent about Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc


Anti-anti-imperialist Cambridge University Professor @PriyamvadaGopal smears opponents of the Western neocolonial war on Syria as "Assadists"

Would she ever call liberal imperialist Obama a "blood-soaked cretin"? He has exponentially more blood on


The CIA spent over a billion dollars per year arming and training "rebels" who massacred and ethnically cleansed Syrian civilians, especially religious minorities.

But anti-anti-imperialist @PriyamvadaGopal insists these CIA-backed contras are


This was elite anti-anti-imperialist Cambridge University gatekeeper @PriyamvadaGopal's response right after colonial powers the US, UK, and France bombed Syria in April 2018 on bogus lies that have since been


Of course anti-anti-imperialist Cambridge Professor @PriyamvadaGopal's is also a supporter of the neoliberal imperialist European Union -- one of the key institutions of European necolonialism
The argument for deficits & debt raising interest rates in the US is not increased credit risk, it is that interest rates are a function of economic fundamentals, flows & policy. Deficits/debt change those.

I can't tell if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with @jc_econ.


Increasing government spending or reducing taxes increases demand (or reduces saving). This raises the price of loanable funds or the interest rate.

In a dynamic context, more demand means a stronger economy, the central bank raises interest rates sooner, and long rates rise.

(As an aside, we are not close to the United States needing to worry about credit risk and the risks are more overstated than understated in most other advanced economies too. But credit risk is not always & everywhere irrelevant, just look at the UK in 1976 or Canada in 1994.)

Interest rates have fallen over the last 20 yrs while debt has risen. This does not necessarily mean that debt rising causes interest rates to fall. It could also mean that other things have happened at he same time that pushed down interest rates more than debt pushed them up.

The suspects for these "other things" include slower productivity growth, slower popln growth, higher inequality, less investment, etc. All of which either increase the supply of saving or reduce the demand for investment, reducing the equilibrium interest rate.

You May Also Like

“We don’t negotiate salaries” is a negotiation tactic.

Always. No, your company is not an exception.

A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.

Listen to Aditya


And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.

I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.

You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.

Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
These 10 threads will teach you more than reading 100 books

Five billionaires share their top lessons on startups, life and entrepreneurship (1/10)


10 competitive advantages that will trump talent (2/10)


Some harsh truths you probably don’t want to hear (3/10)


10 significant lies you’re told about the world (4/10)