• Neuromancer@lemm.eeOPM
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    1 month ago

    That is how most countries that provide free education work. If you had read the article, you would see they end up with just as much debt as Americans.

    Since education itself has no known negative side-effects, why limit access?

    Cost. Even in countries where it is free, they end up in just as much debt as here.

    There is no free lunch.

    • BobaFuttbucker@reddthat.com
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      1 month ago

      Subsidizing the cost of public goods is absolutely within the government’s remit. Just because other countries do it one way doesn’t mean we have to either, and just because those citizens are also in debt doesn’t mean that withholding education makes it better.

      You benefit from publicly funded programs and infrastructure because it is deemed a benefit for society. Likewise, education as well as healthcare can be provided for all Americans more affordably than it is now. None of your presented arguments are a barrier to that possibility.

      Libraries do a pretty good job at being a social benefit that educates with the public funds they receive. Why not run all educational institutions similarly?

      • Neuromancer@lemm.eeOPM
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        1 month ago

        Subsidizing the cost of public goods is absolutely within the government’s remit.

        We already do. Do you think public colleges don’t receive tax money?

        The barrier is simply cost. It would cost too much to do. We already run at a deficit, which is driving inflation. Taking on a wasteful cost, such as paying for idiots to get college degrees, would add zero benefits and destroy poor people with inflation.

        If we want to make it free, we need to ration it to only the best. I wouldn’t mind paying for it at that point.

        • BobaFuttbucker@reddthat.com
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          1 month ago

          I don’t think they receive enough. Education is not what’s driving the deficit, and the deficit isn’t what’s driving inflation. It’s mainly corporate greed.

          There’s nothing wasteful about educating the population. It’s simply a qualitative good, which is not compatible with your quantitative mindset.

          There’s no such thing as rationing knowledge. That’s a dangerous position. Why do you want people to be uneducated?

          • Neuromancer@lemm.eeOPM
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            1 month ago

            Why do you want people to be uneducated?

            Why do you keep trying to build a strawman? LIke any resource, we have limits.

            We need to spend those resources on the people best capable of using them.

            • BobaFuttbucker@reddthat.com
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              1 month ago

              Education does not grow on trees. It does not need to be grown in a garden. It does not require water and sunlight. It cannot be loaded onto a truck and dispersed through a distribution network. Stores do not have education shortages. We are not killing the planet due to the emissions of knowledge. It is not bound by the same physical limitations that resources you are referencing have. This is another example of how your quantitative mindset cannot comprehend a qualitative good.

              You sound like someone who would’ve supported the burning of the library of Alexandria.

              We need to spend more resources on making our people better, not subsidizing business models that still charge the people directly or denying people the opportunity to better themselves.