[11] Education

Title Card

YouTube Link

Status

Recording

Transcription

Air Date

Nov 21, 2023

Target: 30-45 minutes

Script

Intro

<<dual screen, background visible>> Shift+1

ZFi: GM and welcome to Moloch Traps, our new podcast here at From Aa to Zzz. I’m ZFi, this Zombie Shepherd, and we’re excited to be bringing you this new show in collaboration with BanklessDAO and its Audio/Visual team. To be clear, opinions in this series expressed by either of us are our own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of BanklessDAO at large.

This week, we will continue to study and discuss excerpts from the "Meditations on Moloch" essay, written by Scott Alexander. The essay provides examples of multi-polar traps and delves into various instances from history, biology, and economics to illustrate how competition often results in collective harm.

In today’s episode we’ll discuss Education. Let’s start with Alexander’s words on the education system.

Segment 2 — Education

ZFi:

(reading from Meditations)

11. Education. In my essay on reactionary philosophy, I talk about my frustration with education reform:

People ask why we can’t reform the education system. But right now students’ incentive is to go to the most prestigious college they can get into so employers will hire them – whether or not they learn anything. Employers’ incentive is to get students from the most prestigious college they can so that they can defend their decision to their boss if it goes wrong – whether or not the college provides value added. And colleges’ incentive is to do whatever it takes to get more prestige, as measured in US News and World Report rankings – whether or not it helps students. Does this lead to huge waste and poor education? Yes. Could the Education God notice this and make some Education Decrees that lead to a vastly more efficient system? Easily! But since there’s no Education God everybody is just going to follow their own incentives, which are only partly correlated with education or efficiency.

From a god’s eye view, it’s easy to say things like “Students should only go to college if they think they will get something out of it, and employers should hire applicants based on their competence and not on what college they went to”. From within the system, everyone’s already following their own incentives correctly, so unless the incentives change the system won’t either.

Segment 3 —  Open Discussion

<<dual screen, full frame>> Shift+2

Zombie Shepherd notes:

Education has largely become name brand universities, every other school cannot guarantee jobs, buy they will expect full payment and offering predatory loans for kids fresh out of high school that have no real idea how this works because their lower education didn't teach them anything about taxes, financial tools, or how money works. 

School is designed to create employees, predatory loans ensure that those employees become slaves with no option. Many educated people with degrees end up in the service industry because the jobs they're able to get are no longer paying livable wages.

The interest on these loans make it near impossible to dig out of the debt while also keeping up with the price of even rising while wages remain stagnant. Stagnant wages are actually negative wages as inflation debases their paycheck.

The next idea is income share agreements. Someone pays part of the loan in return for part of their future paychecks,  sounds like indentured servitude to me. 

ZFi notes:

Conclusion

<<dual screen with background visible>> Shift+1

Zombie Shepherd: (start and then hand off as appropriate)

Summary

What would YOU do? @listener?

Outro

Zombie Shepherd: 

Thanks for watching today’s episode of Moloch Traps. We hope you enjoy this series. As always, none of what we say is legal or financial advice, and we encourage listeners to do their own research in these areas before making any related decisions.

If you find our content informational, educational, or entertaining, and would like to support us, please collect these episodes on Lens. 18% of proceeds go back to BanklessDAO, 2% supports Lenstube for hosting our videos, and the rest helps to make From Aa to Zzz productions possible.

To stay on top of our weekly series, subscribe to us on the BanklessDAO YouTube. Don’t forget to like and comment while you’re there!

We’ll see you next time, frens!

Clickbait Titles and Descriptions

[11] Education

Title Card

YouTube Link

Status

Recording

Transcription

Air Date

Nov 21, 2023

Target: 30-45 minutes

Script

Intro

<<dual screen, background visible>> Shift+1

ZFi: GM and welcome to Moloch Traps, our new podcast here at From Aa to Zzz. I’m ZFi, this Zombie Shepherd, and we’re excited to be bringing you this new show in collaboration with BanklessDAO and its Audio/Visual team. To be clear, opinions in this series expressed by either of us are our own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of BanklessDAO at large.

This week, we will continue to study and discuss excerpts from the "Meditations on Moloch" essay, written by Scott Alexander. The essay provides examples of multi-polar traps and delves into various instances from history, biology, and economics to illustrate how competition often results in collective harm.

In today’s episode we’ll discuss Education. Let’s start with Alexander’s words on the education system.

Segment 2 — Education

ZFi:

(reading from Meditations)

11. Education. In my essay on reactionary philosophy, I talk about my frustration with education reform:

People ask why we can’t reform the education system. But right now students’ incentive is to go to the most prestigious college they can get into so employers will hire them – whether or not they learn anything. Employers’ incentive is to get students from the most prestigious college they can so that they can defend their decision to their boss if it goes wrong – whether or not the college provides value added. And colleges’ incentive is to do whatever it takes to get more prestige, as measured in US News and World Report rankings – whether or not it helps students. Does this lead to huge waste and poor education? Yes. Could the Education God notice this and make some Education Decrees that lead to a vastly more efficient system? Easily! But since there’s no Education God everybody is just going to follow their own incentives, which are only partly correlated with education or efficiency.

From a god’s eye view, it’s easy to say things like “Students should only go to college if they think they will get something out of it, and employers should hire applicants based on their competence and not on what college they went to”. From within the system, everyone’s already following their own incentives correctly, so unless the incentives change the system won’t either.

Segment 3 —  Open Discussion

<<dual screen, full frame>> Shift+2

Zombie Shepherd notes:

Education has largely become name brand universities, every other school cannot guarantee jobs, buy they will expect full payment and offering predatory loans for kids fresh out of high school that have no real idea how this works because their lower education didn't teach them anything about taxes, financial tools, or how money works. 

School is designed to create employees, predatory loans ensure that those employees become slaves with no option. Many educated people with degrees end up in the service industry because the jobs they're able to get are no longer paying livable wages.

The interest on these loans make it near impossible to dig out of the debt while also keeping up with the price of even rising while wages remain stagnant. Stagnant wages are actually negative wages as inflation debases their paycheck.

The next idea is income share agreements. Someone pays part of the loan in return for part of their future paychecks,  sounds like indentured servitude to me. 

ZFi notes:

Conclusion

<<dual screen with background visible>> Shift+1

Zombie Shepherd: (start and then hand off as appropriate)

Summary

What would YOU do? @listener?

Outro

Zombie Shepherd: 

Thanks for watching today’s episode of Moloch Traps. We hope you enjoy this series. As always, none of what we say is legal or financial advice, and we encourage listeners to do their own research in these areas before making any related decisions.

If you find our content informational, educational, or entertaining, and would like to support us, please collect these episodes on Lens. 18% of proceeds go back to BanklessDAO, 2% supports Lenstube for hosting our videos, and the rest helps to make From Aa to Zzz productions possible.

To stay on top of our weekly series, subscribe to us on the BanklessDAO YouTube. Don’t forget to like and comment while you’re there!

We’ll see you next time, frens!

Clickbait Titles and Descriptions