Online discussion and blog commenting is often characterized by its worst examples. Many people write off the idea of online discussion and commenting because of this. Not all online discussions follow the stereotype of thoughtless, angry, grammatically challenged, racist, homophobic, or cruel statements slung by people hiding behind a curtain of anonymity.

I wanted to share with you an example of a good online discussion with thoughtful comments that highlights the value of the online medium. Too often only the bad examples get talked about.

This discussion is taking place on orgtheory.net about a thought experiment posed by Fabio Rojas on human capital theory:

Classic debate concerning the school/income correlation: Does education actually give you skills that make you valuable? Or is it merely a signal that you are smart and hard working? Here’s another thought experiment: Say person X went to MIT and got a computer science degree. Then say person Y logged into Academic earth, the web site of free university courses, and listened to every free lecture in the engineering curriculum at MIT. She then also downloaded all the free lecture notes from the MIT CS department. And she did all the homework problems. Who would make more money, in the long run, after graduation? Why? If you believe Y will make more or just as much, why don’t you quit school and just self-educate?

Rojas takes a shot at addressing the question later in the post, and a number of commenters (myself included) have engaged in the discussion with thoughtful comments and ideas. Take a look at the discussion, because that is what we should aim for in online discourse.