I have some very good opinion of this. I work in big tech and I might be a canonical example of some users who no longer find Quora interesting. From 2012 to about 2014 I was absolutely hooked to Quora spending anywhere between 2 to 4 hours every day. At that time I was a young professional in my early 30s, newly married and just at the beginning of my tech career after grad school. I used to love the questions posted on the forum which seemed very relevant to me e.g. how to build a career in tech, dating/relationship advice, tourism advice etc. I was hooked.
Fast forward 10 years from then. I am a 40 year old middle aged guy. Still working in tech albeit at a Senior level; with one school going kid and have a mortgage. I still visit Quora occasionally but am hard pressed to find any content that is interesting and appropriate for my age. It seems that they are still showing me questions which were mostly relevant to my younger self 10 years back and not now. There is practically no content or discussion in that forum that can attract and keep a 40 year old middle aged guy. Its just that I evolved but they didn't. Not to mention the fact that they also became more annoying with all these "promoted", "relevant" questions intermixed within the same page. I think their lack of ability to evolve over time absolutely finished the product. My two cents.
This is all good in theory so here is my question: since unions are essentially a power structure at its core what happens when they try to abuse their positions? What is the check/balance or counter to that?
Members can vote against those changes. They can vote in new leadership. Or they can stop paying dues and / or join a different union.
In my last workplace, there were a choice of 3 different unions I could have joined. I picked the one which aligned best with my needs, took part in how it was run, and could have stopped if I thought they weren't acting in my best interests.
No I am asking for a situation when the unions have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits out of the company while actively encouraging its members to put in the absolute bare minimum of effort. This will in a few years time will make the company's products prohibitevly expensive due to the associated cost inflation. As a result of which the company's products are no longer competitive in the free market unless heavily subsidized by tax payer dollars (think UAW and its role in gutting American car mannufacturing. These days except for states in rural US, cars made by American car companies: GM, Ford, Chrysler are mostly considered as jokes all over the world).
I mean the very simple question is: who pays? What protects the shareholders, management and the employees?
I'm not from the USA - so I don't know about that specific case.
But let's take your premise and reword it.
What happens if shareholders have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits out of the company while actively encouraging its demise?
We see that all the time with private equity groups loading up on debt so they can make a huge profit and then letting the company go bust.
What happens if senior managers have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits for minimum effort?
Again, how many CEOs get golden parachutes after wrecking a company?
Who protects the workers in those situations?
You'll find (in some cases) unions do take a long term view. They want to secure long term benefits rather than a short term bump. That's because they're working for people who need a regular pay cheque. So you'll see compromises being made in order to secure longer term employment.
So you have basically decided not to answer the relevant question but to parrot an idiotic left wing garbage narrative.
Okay! in that case, I rest my case that unions can actually be very harmful due to it being a power structure and particularly if they are not subjected to any check and balances.
> So you decided not to answer the relevant question but to parrot and idiotic left wing garbage narrative.
No, he had answered your first question and then you came up with an absurd hypothetical as a rebuttal, so he responded with an extension of your hypothetical which demonstrates its absurdity.
> I rest my case that unions can actually be very harmful due to it being a power structure and particularly if they are not subjected to any check and balances.
Sure, but the topic was if having unions was better than not… anything can be harmful given some abnormal premises, so you’ve made no valid point.
As a side question, is your objective to ‘win’ the argument, or be correct? To me, it sounds like the former.
> As a side question, is your objective to ‘win’ the argument, or be correct? To me, it sounds like the former.
My objective here is to get to the truth - nothing more and nothing less. Unions can be "every bit harmful" since they are a power structure and power corrupts. Unrestrained, unfettered, corrupt unions can do more harm than good. They are not a cure all remedy for all problems a modern "evil" corporation might have [1].
> What protects the shareholders, management, and the employees?
When you say protect these entities, what risk does each of these entities endure by being part of the company?
The employees usually put their entire livelihood with the company, and, at least in the US, an employee is dependent upon the employer for pretty much all sources of income and healthcare.
The managers could be classified into two groups: one who is also beholden to their employer, much like an employee and has little to no agency in their job (low/mid level management), and the other who has an ownership-stake or large compensation which prevents a loss-of-livelihood style coercion from their employer.
Often, the second class of management blends into the shareholder group, and their will dictates the policies and objectives of the company. A rapid change in this group (e.g., through a buyout, key member dying), results in rapid changes to the livelihoods of its employees.
The shareholders risk one thing: capital. While capital is important, and can affect one’s life significantly, the shareholder has no other risk.
Personally, I’d rather protect the employees at the risk of the shareholders.
> No I am asking for a situation when the unions have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits out of the company while actively encouraging its members to put in the absolute bare minimum of effort.
Sure, in this is specific situation a company would fail. Something to note, however, is that the objective of a union is never to stop its members from making money. Doing things which would harm the company into not being competitive would necessarily harm the union’s members.
Two key differences here between a union and the owners of a company doing this (which you scoffed at in your other reply), are:
1) if performed by the owners, the profits from this maximum-extraction would go to the owners, but if performed by the union it would be self-destructive, and
2) the decision to do so would’ve been done by an elected group and never potentially at the whims of an owner (for instance, an activist investor with a desire to strip it down for parts and make more than the purchase price).
> This will in a few years time will make the company's products prohibitevly expensive due to the associated cost inflation.
There is no evidence that this would be the case, because no union has ever acted like your hypothetical union.
> think the UAW and how in gutting American car manufacturing
This isn’t true, and you’ll need to provide some evidence for me to take this claim seriously; it is much more time consuming for me to clear up B.S. than it is for someone to make it up.
> Personally, I’d rather protect the employees at the risk of the shareholders.
Sorry, but thats not how capitalism operates. Modern corporations are created for the benefit of share holders and they operate for only one reason and one reason only i.e. "to maximize" shareholder value [1].
Honestly, you seem to be living in some alternative "la la la la" land where you perceive reality in a very different way or at least want reality to be what you want it to be than what currently it is. I am not quite sure how to argue with people who hold beliefs similar to yours. Please note, we are not arguing here as to what is fair or not (read my response carefully) as per some definition of fairness.
> Sorry, but thats not how capitalism operates. Modern corporations are created for the benefit of share holders and they operate for only one reason and one reason only i.e. "to maximize" shareholder value [1].
Sure, but we should quote Friedman a bit more completely… “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”
The key caveats to maximizing shareholder value are that this maximization happens ‘within the rules of the game’ and when the business ‘engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.’ A market’s ‘rules of the game,’ so to speak, are set by the government which has the power to enforce those rules.
Part of those rules include what can and cannot be made into a contract, and, in particular, what types of contracts wouldn’t be enforceable because of coercion. If an employee would lose their house because of a business’s decision (and the business has no objective incentive to warn the employee of this potential), I’d argue that most parts of the employer/employee relationship are coercive. A union can mitigate that somewhat by providing a real cost the business for not negotiating in good faith.
In addition, the ‘rules of the game’ are changed by the government, which itself is affected by large market players.
Outside of that: this is a rather one-sided discussion. I’ve given rather full responses and you’ve provided nothing other than ‘no you’re wrong, here’s a partial quote,’ and ‘what about this ridiculous hypothetical?’ Do you have any rebuttal to what I said, or is the ‘personally, I’d rather protect the employees at the risk of shareholders,’ the extent of what you can argue against?
Why do so few CS majors end up being professional Software Engineers even including the ones that graduate from top schools like MIT/Stanford/Harvard etc.? Even bigger question - among the few CS majors who do end up being Software Engineers why do so few of them remain Software Engineers 10+ year into their careers? Both of these two observations are based on my own anecdotal experiences but have nevertheless puzzled me for long.
RIP Bob Lee! I was highly inpired by some of your Java talks in Youtube and other places. Aside from that alas! what have things come down to in San Francisco? It has become an utter lawless city.
In the article that has been cited in the link the abstract says "Science says". I wonder if the writer even knows what Science is or means? No wonder our mass media today and public discourses are filled with utter quality garbage rhetoric and discussions that are not even worthy of two minutes of reading time.
Colleges and universities as institutions were never meant for commoners. Most people forget that barely a few centuries colleges and universities were places that primarily catered to two distinct classes of people: first, sons/daughters of rich aristocracies who had plenty of time in their leisure to pursue intellectual ideas; and second, were the clergy where it was considered a pre-requisite for the job.
Colleges and universities were never meant to be a way to riches and fortunes. If interested a degree is worth pursuing just for knowledge's sake regardless of the material benefits it may bestow upon the owner at some later point in their life. Hence I find the "college is so expensive" argument to be quite disingenious honestly. What exactly were you expecting may I ask?
Also, for people who want to learn something as a way to earn a living - may I humbly suggest vocational training instead?
> Also, for people who want to learn something as a way to earn a living - may I humbly suggest vocational training instead?
Tell that to HR/whoever is selling hiring software. It's nearly impossible to get past the resume screening process for many entry level jobs without a college degree. The starkness of the divide between have and have-not is what motivates the push for widespread college education.
> Colleges and universities as institutions were never meant for commoners. Most people forget that barely a few centuries colleges and universities were places that primarily catered to two distinct classes of people
Fine, but that all changed no later than the Morrill Act of 1862 [1], which called on every state in the US to create a public agriculture and engineering university (and provided a method for funding the creation).
> "Colleges and universities were never meant to be a way to riches and fortunes. [...] What exactly were you expecting may I ask?"
I disagree with the assumption that the administrators and many professors at universities intend for undergraduate programs to be primarily for learning, and not for improving job prospects.
Many professors focus on material benefits during the first lecture of the course. There are also numerous career fairs and sometimes internship opportunities with industry, which focus greatly on getting material benefits.
Consider also the marketing for many universities: many advertisements (e.g. on public transit) show enrolment at even research-intensive universities as a way to get into prestigious jobs. Alumni networks are also promoted in marketing (though I'm unsure how effective these really are). In my view, times have changed, and the expectation of material benefit is entirely reasonable and even supported by university officials.
No, that is what I am talking about. As one of the points below have mentioned more succintly- utility of a degree in terms of monetary renumaration is already determined by free market forces. For degrees that are determined as less useful, I find that there is no reason whatsoever to burden the tax payer with a bill so that "so and so" can satisfy his/her intellectual curiosity.
For degrees that are determined as less useful from a market perspective still one could make a case that there is a need to provide funding at graduate i.e. at the PhD level. I would give you that since most PhD students do go on to make significant contributions to scholarly literature therby vastly increasing human understanding and frontiers of knowledge.
But clearly this is not the case at undergraduate level. Sorry but the argument that tax payers should foot a bill just so that someone can satisfy his/her intellectual curiosity does not sound convincing at all.
It's fair that the funding of programs just to let people satisfy intellectual curiosity may not be convincing to many taxpayers.
However, real benefits of government funding can still exist. If we agree that work by PhD students in the humanities can create real benefits for a country, then there can be real benefits to having researchers come from a variety of economic upbringings, not just from wealthy backgrounds.
Many academics do social science research on how to craft better policies to improve the health and economic outcomes of underdeveloped rural parts of a country. They can arguably do more effective research if some of the researchers are from a low-income rural background. To achieve this benefit, a social science undergraduate education would need to be subsidized, so the student is eligible to work at the PhD level.
> They can arguably do more effective research if some of the researchers are from a low-income rural background.
Surely by now such an argument can be made with data rather than rhetoric? “There can be real benefits to having researchers come from a variety of economic upbringings” is a testable hypothesis. It would be unscientific to advance a funding regime geared towards this absent data.
I couldn't find data from a quick search, though I did find a study where researchers groups with a higher diversity of "ethnicity, age, gender, and affiliation" tended to have higher citation counts. [1]
Still, it's not too out there to say that a researcher who grew up in a low-income family can provide a very useful perspective for designing research for addressing poverty (even at least for designing research questions and better recruiting participants). I concede that the evidence may not reach the bar for large, massive investment, but it could at least be promising for at least some funding as a starting point—at least some needs-based scholarships.
That benefit isn't large enough to justify the cost. If you're just talking about subsidizing the education of the most promising 5 percent of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, then sure. Otherwise, no.
It's too late to change. The economic damage of pulling back government spending for financial aid would totally destroy many schools and the cities and businesses that have grown up around/downstream of them.
Protecting jobs is not an argument for continuing wasteful spending. The same argument can be deployed to justify agricultural subsidies and many other wasteful practices. The net result is significant harm, even if locally and short-term it is the path of least resistance. It's procrastination at the level of a country.
You're not wrong, but when it comes to political will for change, destroying jobs and opportunity is not a good look. Democracies really cannot effectively avoid handouts to entrenched interests.
> there is no reason whatsoever to burden the tax payer
Why burden tax payers at all? Just have Universities and Colleges charge the full freight of the degree/diploma to the student. That should work out swimmingly.
The issue with breaking down colleges and universities into "feeder programs" for jobs, is that they are terrible at that. Jobs require specific skills, and institutions are teaching subjects that might cover some of those skills, but not all of them and most importantly not the future ones.
What Universities SHOULD be doing, is teaching students how to THINK about their intended subject. Consider different areas and approaches, and be able to be creative and innovative. You know, those things that VCs actually prattle on about?
There are PLENTY of people that started in another field, and for whatever reason pivoted to tech.
(And while we've had some student loan forgiveness recently, it's mostly the students that foot the bill for their education -- and the most expensive parts of the system are for-profit colleges which are supposed to be the "most" market responsive).
Lastly, the "market" is not all knowing and all seeing, and at times it's pretty fickle. Early on there was no "market" for something like the Internet, but it's proved pretty useful. Started as a wasteful to taxpayers pie in the sky project, too.
So only subjects that are profitable for employers should be funded? And PhDs should be funded even when they are not profitable but never undergraduate studies so that only people with enough money can afford to pursue an undergraduate degree? Sounds like an excellent way to give even more power to the already rich. This is the kind of late stage capitalism that makes my skin crawl.
Why should taxes subsidize the study of topics that have no economic value?
Most "college should be free" proposals fail under scrutiny because degrees tend to fall into a spectrum of utility:
On one end are degrees that impart skills that are needed and desired by the economy. By and large, graduates of these degrees _already_ enjoy sustainable wages, because the market recognizes and rewards those skills. Government subsidy for these degrees tend to have marginal benefits, because it is already a sound financial choice for students.
On the other extreme are degrees that, like GP identified, were never meant to be economically sound. They focus on intellectual ideas and curiosities, rather than skills actively needed by the economy. Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns.
There _are_ specific degrees where there's a public policy interest in encouraging the study of topics not adequately compensated by market forces. Most of these are already covered by specific subsidies, such as scientific research grants.
Because if they don't have to pay for it, theyll do it because it's what interests them and we will get more interacademic crossover ideas. Which is where innovation thrives! As it stands, people who persue their dreams are forced to go into debt which is, I assume, a shitty thing to have to do and probably doesn't promote creative problem solving (beyond how to get a higher paying job to pay off the debt).
Also, because an eclectically educated mix of people is likely more pleasant to live amongst than an uneducated group. And since it would benefit everyone to have everyone educated it should be paid for with taxes.
Plus it's simply good to leave the world better than you came into it.
Four years of on-campus private school education is a consumption good and I’m not paying for it with my taxes. Nobody who commutes to state school is graduating with six figures of life-destroying debt, and the educational quality is the same or better. Don’t fall for the shiny brochures. A decent, cheap higher education can be had if you aren’t in it for the parties.
For example, in the most populous US state, California, there's a CSU within commuting distance of probably 95% of the population, had for $6k/year, such that student loans at 4% mean a cost of $960/year interest. If you were truly financially savvy (and not having the rest of your countrymen paying for your dorm fraternity experience), the first two years would be community college, at a cost of $2k/year and an interest cost of $640/year.
But maybe I'm biased since I paid for my 3 years community college and 2 years of UC by choosing Computer Science and paying for the $30k with my first year's salary. All of my peers had that option.
It's both. I had a variety of things I wanted to study: philosophy, economics, history, and computers. I took electives where I could and majored in CS so I could pursue the rest in my leisure time. The alternative had worse odds of letting me study the others in my leisure time.
You're OK with post secondary being paid for by tax, but not PhD's, why? Why not two PhD's?
I am ok with the basic critical thinking skills useful in navigating life being taught. I believe public school is designed that way and accomplishes that much better than post secondary. I've seen the general psychology, business admin, arts, sociology, and criminology cohort that public universities pump out in the last 5 years. They aren't swimming in unique insights and most worthy of the substantial financial investments we could make elsewhere.
I would have 0 respect for someone that wants a free 4 year ride to study sociology in a pampered university setting, while opposing critical financial aid to the impoverished Ukrainians dying to defend their country.
I think people hear "private" and they think "better". Which in some cases, sure.
But when you hear "private" you should think "FOR PROFIT". And we all know the way to maximize profit is by maximizing spending and minimizing revenue, right?
I am blessed that public schools in my area are EXTREMELY good. To compete, private schools have to have smaller class sizes and charge a LOT more then a comparative public education costs.
If you drop all students in the public system into a private system, to have things COST the same to parents, you'd have to ramp up class sizes or cut what you are providing. Plus, you have to run a profit, so more incentives to skimp.
I think in a lot of areas, due to chronic underfunding, the public school system is bad. But the way to fix this is adequate funding, not the notion that private schools are magic and that the same funding level will lead to similar outcomes.
Poor funding seems to be strangely well correlated with poor educational outcomes in public education.
And well funded systems seem to produce good results.
The graduates of the private high school near the neighborhood I grew up in, however, mostly ended up as accountants after attending a local public university. For specifics, you can take most private high schools in the US (even many of the very expensive ones), and they won't have as good outcomes recorded for their students as Hunter or its equivalent public schools in New York City.
> "On the other extreme are degrees that, like GP identified, were never meant to be economically sound. They focus on intellectual ideas and curiosities, rather than skills actively needed by the economy. Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns."
The risk of defunding these programs is that you can't confidently say whether many of these subjects might become useful in the future.
Many research areas in linguistics, for example, may not have direct economic benefits right now, but could be useful far in the future if humans have alien contact (like the film "The Arrival"). Less speculatively and outside of science fiction, many pure math discoveries have ended up as useful in cryptography and computer science. Astronomy and astrophysics could yield commercial applications far into the future, along with other fundamental scientific research.
Outside of science and more into the arts, history has been influential in recent times to the decision-making of various political leaders. Social science research can be important for the welfare of a country, in the creation of effective evidence-based policy. The support of artists and writers can improve the political influence of a country, when influential works spread to other countries. Focusing on economic returns right now is too narrowly focused on the short term, and ignores the longer-term benefits for a country.
>>> Really? You wouldn't prefer that it was all free any everyone got access to it?
>> "On the other extreme are degrees that, like GP identified, were never meant to be economically sound. They focus on intellectual ideas and curiosities, rather than skills actively needed by the economy. Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns."
>The risk of defunding these programs is that you can't confidently say whether many of these subjects might become useful in the future.
Why do the options have to be either "free college for all" or "defund programs that don't have direct economic benefits"? The option that you're missing is not giving free college for all, but still providing some merit based scholarships to subsidize the most promising students.
That's a a valid option, but my response was to GP's phrase that "Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns," which effectively supports the removal of government funding to humanities programs.
Partial or full funding covers my view that at least some government support should exist for humanities programs. The UK, Canada, and many US state universities effectively already do this, where domestic students pay a relatively affordable sum each year (roughly $10,000 USD annually) with merit and need-based scholarships available.
Social and cultural benefits are entirely subjective and difficult to see how any large group of people would agree on what constitutes such benefits. I don’t think many people would be okay with subsiding the supposed benefits that theologists percisely because they disagree about the benefits. Economic benefits are much more likely to be widely accepted and understood.
The stuff that the market doesn't value (e.g sociology)
is already free in online lecture series. So, no it would not be great for the taxpayer to pay for the credential/status/signalling/social aspect when the actual value (learning and knowledge) is free already.
I hope metaverse does not go the same way as Libra/Novi. If that happens somehow I think Meta will face an existential threat. I think Zuck understands this.
The metaverse existed long before Facebook's interest in (pretending like they invented) it, and it'll likely be around long after Facebook fails at it.
> "This is just one of the ways an unprincipled "builder culture" can backfire, particularly if you have people running the show who have no problem putting their own gains ahead of the company. They'll push all kinds of garbage if it makes them hit their goals and get a bigger bonus, a promotion, or some kind of shiny new position."
In lots of places I have worked there is a particular term that is often used to precisely describe this situation, it is called POA aka "Promotion Oriented Architecture". In POA, you deliberately add a lot of accidental complexity to come up with a fiendishly complicated solution to a relatively simple problem. In short, the complexity stems from the solution space rather than the problem space.
