4of92000 🔰 @4of92000@qoto.org

I like how "that's shit" and "that's the shit" mean opposite things.

@freemo
Whatever's up for voting tomorrow.

Articles 11 and 13 are shit. I want to do something about it. I am American.

Someone help me out here.

The Article 13 fight is back. I'm American, so I can't do all that much, but if you're in the EU please email your MEP to make sure it's rejected.

@sireebob
that's called hikikomori

@QuantumHemp
GNOME isn't a distro; it's a shell.

@freemo
but— but that's how it works...

@freemo
So governments should run universities because they're the best option, then. (So you're saying.)

I tend to assume governments are not the best option until proven otherwise. I think there's a ton of evidence for net neutrality's implementation, for example, but otherwise I say stand back, give people the right to offer and receive services as they see fit, and step in only when absolutely necessary.

I think the exemption to bankruptcy law for student loan debt is bullshit; I think the American Federation of Teachers and other such organizations have too much power. My solution is to fix those and get back to the table.

@freemo
That has two pretty big problems: one, the worth of a thing is relative to the person perceiving it (I think I've already mentioned this: trade happens because both sides think that the other person has something more valuable than what they have); two, Amazon (for example) has given more people a better choice for more things than ever before and therefore made people by and large more productive, thereby raising GNP (not to mention the jobs they directly create and the fact that they're an American company, raising American GNP by their operating there). They're just a profit-oriented entity.

@freemo
Also "the state should be doing everything where the ROI exceeds the cost"

So the state should be performing every profitable activity? Or (far more likely) am I misinterpreting you?

I think the state should be in the business of protecting individual rights and *maybe* winning prisoner's dilemmas (so I supported the net neutrality rules). I default to "let private entities handle it". I do think that education is more valuable than it costs, but I don't think that's the case for everybody, I think that those who think paying for the cost is more than worth it will pay those costs—that is, after all, why we buy things, because we'd rather have them than the money it takes to pay—and I don't see why a bureaucracy is needed to pull this off.

Honestly, two steps. One, let students declare bankruptcy on student loan debt. (I have no idea why that isn't allowed.) Two, give students the choice of public schools they go to for pre-college education. (Where I live already does this.)

Go from there.

@freemo
Hell, I don't mind paid education to an extent. That extent is high school.

Another big problem with making college public is that it disincentivizes everyone else from negotiating with teachers' unions. Private unions have one side (the union wants better pay and easier working conditions) at odds with another (the owners want lower costs), so they keep each other in check. Public-sector unions, on the other hand, have one side (the union wants better pay and easier working conditions) at odds with nobody (a bunch of bureaucrats who are spending taxpayers' money and want to get back to their lives), so they always win and everyone else eventually loses.

And then teachers' unions campaign against school choice so their paycheck is secure (because jurisdictions like Texas—where I am—that have school choice generally pay school districts per student, so if a bad school hemorrhages students, the teachers don't get paid anymore).

@freemo
You don't need the state doing that. There is already a truly insane amount of scholarship money on the table (I managed to pay 90% of what little tuition I had with my short stint using scholarships, and I half-assed it); people just need to find it (which people are starting to get into the business of helping others do: look up Scholly; it's one of the best Shark Tank pitches I've ever seen and worked).

@freemo
It is impossible to make university free. The best you can do is make university taxpayer-funded.

And if someone's going to have that drive for knowledge (like myself), they're not going to need to go to university because there are so many other, far cheaper options available, like (this video was sponsored by) Skillshare and Brilliant and, hell, YouTube. If you're going to learn, you don't need a college environment to do it.

@freemo
If you can't read or write, you're paralyzed in a modern society. If you don't know vector calculus, you should be fine.

If, say, you want to be a welder, there are a lot of welding companies that will pay for your apprenticeship while you learn and work, and even if you aren't that lucky, vocational schools are way cheaper than traditional college and often land you a better job. There are options besides a college-level education; the problem is that as they stand they're pretty stigmatized.

@freemo
College is not for everyone. I went, I left after nine months, I'm currently tracking to enter the Navy.

Honestly, the main problem so far as I can tell is that we have to go to community college not because we need community college (or, better, trade school) but because secondary school is fundamentally broken. I don't think the state should pay for it; I do think that high schools need to be reorganized to provide a better platform for entering the workforce (so classes in vocational/technical things like welding).

If you want to go to a highly specialized field like medicine or psychology or law, go ahead. But for the most part, university is a scam; having the state pay for it (which they're already doing) is missing the problem.

@freemo
That's called public school, no? We already have that.

And it's pretty shit, but that's a whole new conversation. (I for one am for parents' right to switch public schools for their kids. I used to be for school vouchers that could be redeemed at a private school if it met standards, but a friend of mine who works in education patiently explained to me the bureaucratic nightmare that would ensue, so I backed off from that.)

(Also teachers' unions in general kinda suck.)

Though one of the nice things about BitTube is that it actually loads on my computer, which both LBRY and DTube refuse to do.