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Every time I want to criticize Lisa for finding some half-cracked philosophy or idea and propounding it like it's the best thing going, I keep remembering I have the tendency too. I don't know what to say, except that I hope I can have a sense of humor about it in myself. Whatever.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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Lisa, given that we're in the middle of midterms, I simply do not have enough time to devote to debating with you over the existence of natural monopolies. I skimmed the article you linked to, and it did not seem a particularly legitimate piece of literature. If you do a search for "natural monopoly" on JSTOR's economics journals (only one place, but my default goto for the good economic journals), you'll find a number of articles which deal with both theory and case studies of natural monopolies.
The following brief, non-technical article by Holley Ulbrich might be of interest, since it's written about educating students on natural monopolies, and notes why some of the main principles texts make the topic more confusing than it needs to be: http://tinyurl.com/2lmezqPosts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:I will point out that I have yet to use trigonometry for anything whatsoever in my life. Okay, that's not entirely true. I did start out in engineering school, so I used it there, but other than that, never. Why should all children have to learn trig? Why should all children have to take literature courses? Reading is one thing, but reading Hamlet? To Kill a Mockingbird? Grapes of Wrath? Why?
This gets into an argument of degree (no pun intended) of education, which is a different matter.
For Radians like Lisa, it's not.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Nobody should have their resources culled. As soon as you create a mechanism for taking people's money, you invite graphed.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Nobody should have their resources culled. As soon as you create a mechanism for taking people's money, you invite graphed.
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Look Dag, I like fun and games as much as the next guy, but this is a serious thread; you really shouldn't go off on a pie-throwing tangent.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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You always have to say the opposite of me. I'm not sure why that is, but my hypotenuse is that you're cranky because of the kids in your secant period class.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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No, that's not it. It's because you're so obtuse, you don't even know to coincide when it rains.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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You guys are so Negative. It may be only sine of the Times, but I must add my own perspective. Don't be so un-product-ive
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: A lack of education can limit economic mobility. Then again, so can being ugly or having a high pitched nasal voice. Lots of people have done quite well with what you'd certainly consider a substandard education.
Exceptions don't make a rule. It has been well established that those with higher educations tend to earn more money.
quote:Originally posted by Lina: Can I tell you how many jobs I've been turned down for because I was "overqualified"?
I know there are exceptions but those aren't relevant to the broad picture. If I graduate from college then I am still qualified to apply for all of the jobs a high school dropout could apply for. The reverse is not true.
I've heard of people being rejected for being overqualified for jobs where their overqualifications would require higher pay (namely as what happened to my dad a few years). I've never heard of a someone like a computer programmer being rejected for a job as a janitor or a cashier. I'm sure it happens but I've seen no evidence to suggest that it is commonplace.
quote:Originally posted by Lina:
quote:Originally posted by Threads: Without public education, the richest kids would have access to better education (better education will tend to cost more) than the poorer kids thus creating a sort of virtual aristocracy.
Not so. I went to public school through my freshman year in high school. When I went to private school, I paid full tuition. Which effectively made it possible for 2 or three scholarship students to attend as well. That's generally how it works, you know, at most private schools. Mine was excellent, btw.
In practice that has been shown to not be enough. My parents will be paying full tuition for me when I go to college and, while that will help the college give financial aid to other students, there will still be kids who did not apply in the first place because they couldn't afford it. The competition among colleges has helped create the great selection that our country has to offer but it comes at the price of excluding people based solely on the family they were born in to. I'm willing to accept that to a certain extent but to privatize all schools and, in effect, prevent some people in our country from getting any education whatsoever is unacceptable.
quote:Originally posted by Lina: A dream doesn't justify robbery, Threads.
You haven't established how it is robbery.
quote:Originally posted by Lina: Well, I don't accept "society" as an entity, so that's kind of unfortunate.
What do you mean by that? "Society" is just a term to refer to organization among individuals. They exist.
quote:Originally posted by Lina: But I'd actually contend that the cookie-cutter mentality produced by a government mandated curriculum and cross-subject peer promotion increases crime rates and loses us some of our most potentially creative minds by setting up a structure that independent minded individuals chafe against and rebel against.
What do you have that supports such a claim?
quote:Originally posted by Lina: The very egalitarianism of public education standards puts undo pressure on children who can't handle it and leaves them no socially acceptable outlet.
Is that an inevitable product of public education or just a flaw in our current system?
Also, couldn't those children just go to private schools?
quote:Originally posted by Lina: That article says that kids who are indoctrinated from an earlier age fit in better. Bottom line, that's what it's saying. Pardon me while I stare in horror at the idea of that being a Greater Good.
I don't even view that as a valid complaint. What metric would you propose that would allow effective testing of the benefits and problems of public education?
What data supports the effectiveness of the libertarian system?
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: No, it's not. Equality doesn't mean that everyone gets a TV. We don't talk about the right to happiness; we talk about the right to the pursuit of happiness.
What about equal rights to the pursuit of happiness? Implicit in the libertarian system is the fact that those with more money have greater opportunities to the pursuit of happiness. That's true of our current system as well but is also an integral part of any system which intends to provide motivation for progress. All I'm advocating is that we have provide an acceptable baseline set of opportunities for everyone in our society. A poor kid is still free to good off and drop out but he can't claim that he didn't have a chance.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I reject the idea of economic "power" as an actual force.
What do you mean? Do you reject the idea that those with more money have greater influence over others? Microsoft has more power than a startup company partly because it has more money to invest in research, marketing, and suppression of competition.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Public education does not do a thing to eliminate the gaps between the rich and the poor.
On what grounds do you base that claim?
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I grew up middle to upper middle class in Highland Park, Illinois. I know what schools are like there. My partner taught for a while in the Chicago Public School system. I know what that's like, too. Public schools have maintained a huge class difference. Meanwhile, at the private school I attended in high school, we had people from all different economic backgrounds.
I go to one of the top public high schools in New Jersey. It is not a magnet school and has to accept all students who live in the area who want to attend. A significant chunk of the graduating class each year gets accepted into ivy league colleges as well as other top colleges. That's rare but is also shows that public schools can succeed despite the fact that they cannot reject students based on their grade levels or mental disabilities like private schools can.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Yikes. You talk like you're playing chess with human pawns. Understand that it shouldn't be your decision to make. No one has the right to stand above it all and determine whether equality should or should not be eliminated.
Equality is not one dimensional. The issue here is balancing legal freedoms with the economic inequalities inherent in our system. Libertarianism places all of the focus on legal freedoms under the guise of supporting greater freedom in general.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Anti-trust laws. The income tax. The Federal Reserve. Every one of them a disaster in terms of freedom and the economy.
The problems I mentioned developed before the anti-trust laws.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Every one of them resulting in more of the wealth in the US migrating into the pockets of a smaller and smaller elite at the expense of the rest of us.
Then where did our middle class come from? Our country did not have a real middle class until after those laws passed.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Slave class, my arse. Everyone in the country was effectively getting wealthier. The economy was improving by leaps and bounds. All of the government manipulation managed to put the breaks on for the poorer part of the economy.
Was The Jungle a lie then? Those poor people working 16 hour shifts in factories for six or seven days a week and earning barely enough money to survive just didn't exist? Poor child laborers didn't exist?
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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quote:I will point out that I have yet to use trigonometry for anything whatsoever in my life. Okay, that's not entirely true. I did start out in engineering school, so I used it there, but other than that, never. Why should all children have to learn trig? Why should all children have to take literature courses? Reading is one thing, but reading Hamlet? To Kill a Mockingbird? Grapes of Wrath? Why?
This gets into an argument of degree (no pun intended) of education, which is a different matter.
For Radians like Lisa, it's not.
Because schools are dumb and need to be reformed? Every year I remember the same thing "this is our interpretation of the atom" and every year after that until university they say "what we taught you last year was a lie because we do not believe you are capable of the real thing".
Year after year, can you believe this? And then english class, 6 years of learning the exact same course with different books, 6 years of learning how to write an essay that is absurd.
1-2 years english tops, 1-2 years sciences tops, 3 years math tops but more evenly spaced and not constantly reviewing for more then a class, so we have more room for computer sciences while the kids are younger.
Right now public schooling is more akin to baby sitting, the movies Teachers comes to mind.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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