@freemo Show them that as well 🤨

@ster
Done, thanks

@SecondJon
True

@4of92000 Well it is over. But that doesnt mean that the people alive today aren't suffering as a result of it.

If the government came in and took all your money and beat you to the point of having PTSD, then right after doing that made it illegal for the government to do that, it would be perfectly acceptable for you to complain about your shitty situation just because it is now illegal.

The black community is poor with very little to show for it, they were denied education too for many generations. These effects are very hard to overcome and it is completely valid to recognize the issue that remains even if legally we have made some progress in preventing it getting any worse.

@freemo
I just don't see what else there is to do besides admit that "our culture was pretty fucked up" that doesn't end in an injustice in its own right.

Again, not saying it isn't bad. I am saying that it's been two generations and change, and while that's nothing on the grand scheme of things, it is enough so that I (a white guy) am not complicit in any of that shit (which, shit it was) at all.

So the problem isn't the memory per se, and I'm not saying it's entirely blacks' fault (because that would be idiotic). But if anyone says that I personally owe "the black community" anything besides that which I owe any other human or group thereof, I'm calling bullshit.

@4of92000 @freemo I guess you owe them sympathy and empathy. Like everyone else.

@4of92000 Plenty we could do, offering tax-paid education programs would be a good start to reverse the damage.

@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.)

@4of92000 Last time I checked public school ends at remedial education. I am talking university and college. Which should be a standard level of education every citizen has.

@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.

@4of92000 Well I think part of the problem is that college is currently built in a way that it isnt for everyone. Parts of the solution is significantly changing how college operates int the first place.

With that said I think college should be for everyone, not everyone will enjoy it, or be good at it, but not everyone enjoys or is good at writing either, but I wouldnt say being illiterate is a viable option if you don't enjoy it either. I would say the same about advanced education, everyone should learn it, even if all you want to do is be a cashier or a janitor.

@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.

@4of92000 I'm not sure I agree. Knowing vector calculus has made me better at everything I do, from just a walk in the park and appreciating the complexity of nature, to being better at adding and subtracting.

I'd say if you dont know vector calculus you are still "paralyzed" in society its just that everyone else around you tends to be paralyzed too so you never notice so much.

I do agree with the cost issues of vocational vs university. But thats part of why I say the solution revolves around making university free in the first place. NO ONE should have to sacrifice learning because they cant afford it. The value to society is way too high not to provide it for all who are willing.

@freemo @4of92000  Most important lesson I learned from the various math classes I took... "We call this kind of system a coupled system since knowledge of x2 is required in order to find x1 and likewise knowledge of x1 is required to find x2. We will worry about how to go about solving these later." http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/DE/SystemsDE.aspx

@js290 lol, love it. @4of92000

@freemo @4of92000 the best engr I know told me way back in grad school, "coupled systems cannot be magically decoupled" which made me realize everything in Nature is coupled to varying degrees (coefficients in the eigenvalue problem).

@js290 Thats a very occult based idea as well. The idea that there is no clear line between where you stop and the world begins. The line we tend to create is an artificial one.

@4of92000

@freemo @4of92000  https://twitter.com/Rob_Reid/status/990999225642168320

@freemo @4of92000 well, I would say somethings are more clear than others. But, higher order effects are not always immediate nor obvious.

@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.

@4of92000 Yes tax-payer paid is obviously what i mean by "free" here. I am well aware that the cost doesnt disappear. But the ROI is so much higher than the investment that it is well worth it IMO.

I also dont think everyone needs university to aquire that knowledge, nor would they need primary school in many situations. But for those who do learn best in that environment should have access to it.

Even then if someone wants to learn and has the drive to learn on their own you still need access to labs, resources, and experts. You can't avoid that and it is never free. But this comes back to what i said that university needs to be redesigned as well. If you just want one course or supervision to use the labs, etc.

@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).

@4of92000 In my view the state should be doing anything where the ROI exceeds the cost. University absolutely meets that description in my view. There are many gov't programs I'd get rid of LONG before I'd pass up free education at every level.

@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.

@4of92000 By ROI i dont simply mean profitable. I am talking about effect on GNP, basically ROI for the tax payers collectively.

@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.

@4of92000 However if amazon were a govt entity it likely would have done less to raise the GNP than as a private entity. Thus i wouldnt argue that the govt start an amazon like company.

@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.

@4of92000 Hell id rather have free education than free healthcare even. For me healthcare is better solved through co-op systems. Plus there isnt much of an ROI on healthcare being tax-paid.

@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).

@4of92000 Well removing the free marjket is an issue with anything tax paid. Its an issue with building roads for example, as private companies need to negotiate prices but the government will buy those roads regardless of cost.

In the end i wouldn't abandon government funded road infrastructure any more so than i would university for the exact same reason, the ROI exceeds the cost.