Why should we pay for other peoples’ education?

[Viva_Daddy]

Because we will have to pay a hell of a lot more for their ignorance.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Because they hopefully contribute to the nation's well-being...

or, if not educated, they contribute to the degradation of the country.

[Baobab]

13. Offshore em! (SARCASM)

pay other countries a lump sum to take the uneducated, disabled, old or merely unfashionable. And eliminate the moral hazard. Like the baby farmers of yore.

Privatization is the future. plus, its the law now. We "have to do it" the WTO says so. (re:privatization of anything thats already commercialized by somebody)

Find some low lying island menaced by global warming and ship all the millions (billions?) of low earners there. leaving the entore rest of the planet to the million or so successful.

[lewebley3]

44. We are not doing well with primary schools:we need to fix them 1st

[LonePirate]

2. We all will need a doctor some day. We all need safe buildings and cars now.

We want a functioning and thriving Internet. All of these are provided to us by educated people, along with countless other needs and wants in our society.

[rhett o rick]

3. The corporations benefit from an educated workforce. They should be helping pay

for public education. A local corporation was complaining that they couldn't find enough educated people to hire. Turns out they don't pay taxes.

[JudyM]

4. If most of their workforce is overseas, no matter.

[Baobab]

27. Trade deals make it so corporations gain a right to transfer their employees anywhere they want

temporarily. (it just cant be permanent)

They wont be limited by national boundaries that say "only these people can work here" or other pesky domestic regulations for much longer.

“Such disciplines shall aim to ensure that such requirements are, inter alia:

based on objective and transparent criteria, such as the competence and the ability to supply the service;

not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service;

in the case of licensing procedures not in themselves a restriction on the supply of the service”.

[JDPriestly]

12. That's the reasoning behind Value Added Taxes.

They are regressive. True. But they tax is imposed indirectly and in a convoluted way equally on the production in other countries and that in your own country.

It's a good way to fund government services that benefit working people who usually don't have as much discretionary income.

They don't impose that tax on food or certain necessities depending on the country.

[Baobab]

14. No, globalization and falling need for human labor means that they should be able to take their pick

of millions of potential employees soon. Plus countries are offering up pre-educated workers. We can get three of them for what one terrified American worker costs.

[1939]

21. They do

Some of the best funded school districts have a high percentage of their land occupied by corporate facilities who pay property taxes and (in many places) ad valorem taxes on their machinery, equipment, and facilities.

[awoke_in_2003]

35. To paraphrase George Carlin

they are not interested in an educated populace capable of asking difficult questions. They want obedient workers who are just smart enough move the levers (do the job) and nothing more.

[Ratty]

5. Wait, what? Don't we do that already?

I don't have kids but my taxes go to public schools. My taxes go toward our state university system as well. I don't begrudge a dime of it. I'm a Democrat.

[AlbertCat]

6. Why should we pay for other peoples’ education?

Because I get bored when surrounded by idiots?


Seriously, who wouldn't understand that more educated people bring up the QUALITY of life for everyone? It's like not supporting the arts. Yeah... we all want to live in cinderblock cubes with nothing on the wall. Supporting education and the arts (and sports...which I never participate in in any way but pay for) is what makes for a quality, not just quantity, life.

[Baobab]

15. "Poor people wont be able to stay in the country, so you wont be surrounded by idiots" (DYSTOPIAN SA

Last edited Tue Apr 12, 2016, 05:06 PM - Edit history (1)

RCASM)

just smart people and the others will magically disappear due to gentrification.

Eventually it will just be a few successful folks.

[awoke_in_2003]

36. they don't want to bring up the quality of life...

just the quality of their offshore bank accounts.

[thesquanderer]

7. If you don't want to pay for other kids' educations, you'd better be in favor of abortions.

That according to a friend of mine.

[Turbineguy]

8. I had a highly subsidized education

For which I have always been grateful.

Fortunately, my education afforded me the opportunity to pay lots of taxes.

[JDPriestly]

9. And we do. K&R.

Trump -- the cost of ignorance.

Bush II -- the cost of ignorance.

Violent crime -- the cost of ignorance.

Police brutality -- the cost of ignorance.

[whatthehey]

10. Yah. We pay for a lot of things.

We pay for other peoples' protection from criminals and harmful scofflaws.

For other peoples' fire fighting.

For other peoples' rescue at sea or in the wild.

For other peoples' defense of freedom or projection of power, depending on your view of militarism.

For other peoples' sewers and water lines.

For other peoples' disaster recovery.

And, as you say, for other peoples' education.

And the RWNJ barely raise a peep except for a few rural off-gridders and sophomoric libertarians.

So why the fuck can't we convince them that yes we should pay, and pay less as every other OECD country manages and with better resulks than ours, for their hralthcare? Do the loons really want unhealthy, contagious, work-missing, unproductive proles at the base of the economic pyramid and to pay more for that privilege? Apparently yes.

[weknowvino2]

11. If you don't pay for their education...

You will wind up paying for their incarceration.

Actually, education costs a lot less.

[FSogol]

16. The post where Viva_Daddy realizes that most DU'ers only read the subject line and not the body of

the message. Good luck.

[AllyCat]

40. Hah! Right?

[greatauntoftriplets]

41. Amazing, isn't it?

[vkkv]

17. Because WE ALL LOSE when people can't think critically or earn a decent living... eom

[valerief]

18. I'd rather pay for the masses' education than the elites' wars. nt

[lpbk2713]

19. It's a way of paying forward.

I owe a lot to so many people and I am very grateful.

[ErikJ]

20. Thom Hartmann said today for every $ we spend on education we get back

$5 to $7 in tax revenue. And T. Jefferson and Lincoln said that democracy depends on a well-educated populace.

[zentrum]

22. Kicked!

[Major Nikon]

23. Because someone paid for our education

Whether or not it was utilized. So it's really just a matter of passing the torch, and ideally we should leave things better for the next generation.

[Baobab]

24. What about when education doesnt lead to a job except for maybe 10% of us, should we rise to the cha

challenge? Even though it will likely take multiple PhDs and owneing some niche of science to get hired?

YES. here is why. in that future we only have two choices, a welfare state or genocide. Since we'll be unbelievably rich because machines will do everything for practically nothing, a lot of people are likely to drop out of education when they realize they will never get that good going to school until they know what it is that they want to study. And they don't.

It wont be enough to want to study something, people will have to like it to even hope to attain that leve of accomplishment. Money is simply not the great motivator that the thirst for knowledge is once somebody reaches a certain point. Its nice but its not the primary motivator of all of the great scientists I have known. (All of whom lived very UN-ostentatious lives- absorbed in their work and families.)

At the same time, a smaller number of people will be freed by the shift to really reach their true potential, as society's resources will be freed up to help THEM more.

I think that in the final analysis there will only be one possible path for all of us and that will be to give people who want it and can handle it free education, as long as they are making progress and doing something constructive with their time (that is all important, because time is precious) Also, knowledge is precious. more so than money, far more.

We have to realize our long term goals should be to move beyond this planet and strike out into the stars.

[Major Nikon]

25. The duty to educate really shouldn't only be about job training

I don't even think that should be the primary reason.

[Baobab]

31. By mid century we will likely have sef aware computers that can do any human job.

Long before then the job as we know it today will likely have vanished. It just wont make sense to have people working unless there is some really unique reason to. far cheaper and less wasteful to have a machine do everything it can.

This has been an important issue for a long time, its not really debatable. the scientific community is fairly unanimous that this is happening, its apolitical and unavoidable. the rate of technological change is increasing exponentially so decisionmakes consistently underestimate the rapidly of the changes.

[Major Nikon]

32. We've already been moving in that direction for at least the last 100 years or so

Productivity has been steadily going up for about the last 70 years. Most advanced countries have figured out the answer to this is for workers to work less hours and get paid more per hour while the US has moved in pretty much the opposite direction.

[Baobab]

33. Exponential growth means the rate of knowlege aquisition is building on itself.

Basically, the more we learn the faster we learn more.

If Bob can write a program that does a given kind of thing and makes a lot of money, that's great for Bob, in theory, but all the changes demand action on the part of society to adjust. Your response would give people the impression those changes will occur in the future at around the same rate they occurred in the past.

Visualize an increasingly almost vertical line as the rate of technology change in the future and a horizontal line as the graph in the past. And the slope of the line is becoming more vertical quickly.

[Ilsa]

26. When an anti-choice person throws the "what if that aborted baby is

...the next Einstein," rationale at me, I remind him that it won't matter if our society doesn't bother with funding great education programs.

I know it's a little off topic, but they can't use that argument when they are so intentionally short-sighted about the benefits of good education.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

38. BOOM

this is the kind of replies i like to be ready with - many thanks

[Stryder]

28. So very true.

http://imgur.com/2OmDX3t

[w0nderer]

29. because they'll help pay higher taxes

and thus lessen the over all tax pressure?


but i like your reason ...just like mine it caters to the selfish voter instead of trying to cater to the nonexistent (R) selfless/helping voter

[Baobab]

34. But we dont have to go far into the future to find a world where only a few pay taxes because

most people wont have jobs and likely wont ever get jobs. They just wont ever get that good. We likely will be a planet of "pro amateurs" though. People will have a lot of time to learn lots of things since machines will do almost all of the work.

[azmom]

30. Kick

[Skittles]

37. because I like and appreciate being around educated people

[Silver_Witch]

39. Standing ovation!!

[leftyladyfrommo]

42. I don't have kids. But I pay a bunch every year in county taxes for schools.

I don't complain. Those same taxes paid for me to go to school all my life.

[MisterP]

43. and we'll all have to pay for the student debt--either through Washington or by

turning the economy into those human-processor towers in the Matrix

[Pharaoh]

45. if we educate

Everyone, the masses might catch on that we're

Controlled by a few elite oligarchs and revolt.