Readit NewsIt doesn't matter what your political leanings are or what you think about the matter at hand. No agency should have the much power to be the judge jury and executioner. Oh and also to just write laws at a whim.
This is really not cool. I have no idea how anybody who calls them selves an American can be cool with this.
The fact that that isn't totally the case is a great thing to hear, and I would love to have learned this fact sooner. It would go a long way for Zed's team to at least mention it on the Downloads page.
Its almost entirely backed by the government in most western nations aka socialism.
In my alternative, we will eliminate government assistance for higher education almost entirely with the exception of highly gifted. Yes this is central planning but it is almost nothing compared to the monstrocity we have today.
We don't need to get into why this concept is deeply flawed both morally and structurally but if the following truths are reasonable:
- Not everybody is equal in terms of value output, importance to society and value deserved.
- The most important civilisation sustaining things exist at the tail end of distributions.
- As such these things should be held extremely high in society relative to everything else.
Then we can take these truths to make claims like "the CEO wallmart is worth more than thousands of employees combined" because the difference between a good CEO vs exceptional CEO is billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs (throughout the economy).. let alone a bad CEO.
In the same way, we can say the difference between a gifted person going deep into english literature vs the average person is massive. Does it really make sense for society to back the average person on this venture? Does it make sense for the person?
Without societies backing, it would've been nearly impossible for the average person to go into this world.
The key is average here, I'm incorrectly using the word. The lady in the article is clearly not average but is she exceptional? NOPE.
Why does her role exist, why are the such courses in such third their colleges? what happens to the students..
Your alternative (restricting the supply of higher education) based on central planning sounds remarkably like the Soviet model.
Its almost entirely backed by the government in most western nations aka socialism.
In my alternative, we will eliminate government assistance for higher education almost entirely with the exception of highly gifted. Yes this is central planning but it is almost nothing compared to the monstrocity we have today.
This article is shows only one of the smaller downstream consequences, it gets much worse. We are talking an entire generation indebted by trillions, entire areas of the economy with staff shortages, "highly credentialed" people working unrelated jobs etc etc
Colleges we always meant to a niche entity. Huge inequalities were not just optional downsides, rather they were structurally essential. Most people shouldn't go to college, most phds and professorhips shouldn't exist and most colleges shouldnt..
This is not a luddite take, i think these things actually should 100x but not like the way it is right now. The issue is socialism.
Government/non-profit funded high education should only be afforded to a very small subset of the population. The gifted.
Everything else should be private and amongst them most should be treated like trades/apprenticeship.
These ideas seem radical/ridiculous but most of what we think of high education these days are a consequences of extremely silly post WWII socialist policies.
I don't even have a massive problem with government funding either, this can be effective but not socalism, nothing like what we have now. More like military research during the WWWII and the early period of the cold war.
Do others here feel similarly? Do you think these trends are reversible? Is technology the solution? Something else?
I guess my real question is: how do you incorporate all of this change into your worldview and outlook?
Also would be very helpful to look at the worst case predictions and what that would entail hundred years down the line.
Its not cool but it really not that bad. Definitely not apocalyptic.
Its also worth it to consider whats the alternative because every version of an alternative is exponentially worse (communism and/or luddite primitive feudalism).
Besides, we are not talking about breaking up the empire. That already happened with the dissolution of the USSR. We are talking about the extinction of a nation.
It would be like if the UK was split into Scotland, a puppet of the EU. Wales, a quasi independant state with strong ties to Scotland. England, a former power center. Finally Ireland becomes whole.
Do you really think the brits will be cool with this, especially if lets say Russia/China was working behind the scenes to make it happen and the so called ally EU was all too happy to gain all this new power and influence...
Your economy is more comparable to an American state like Florida than a powerful country. You're nation is a political pariah with fleeting influence even among former ussr members. You capability to exert military power outside of your own borders have been effectively disabled having being surrounded by NATO and with a heavily depleted military.
All of this combined with the natural resources and land you mentioned is exactly why its open season on Russia to be carved up by actors with higher economic, military and political power.
If I was in your shoes, I would either give up and move or do anything and everything I can to improve the odds of the terrible hand your nation has been given..
I'm not saying I condone his actions. I'm saying his actions are rational and strategic.
Putins choices were either leave a legacy of a slowly declining Russian federation until there isn't one or make massive gambits like this reverse Russias fortune.
The thing is, such gambits carries the risk of accelerating the current fate..
If I was ever put in a similar situation, my god I pray to have the balls and conviction to pull the trigger on such moves. It would be so much easier to just put up the appearances of normalcy by moving the chairs of the titanic while it sinks..
I, being Russian, can not understand how is that an existential threat to a country that has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, has insane amount of natural resources, and enjoys a virtually exclusive access to the best demographic reservoir in the world (except for Haredim, but it's not like they're planning to move anywhere, so yeah, the best one actually).
Your economy is more comparable to an American state like Florida than a powerful country. You're nation is a political pariah with fleeting influence even among former ussr members. You capability to exert military power outside of your own borders have been effectively disabled having being surrounded by NATO and with a heavily depleted military.
All of this combined with the natural resources and land you mentioned is exactly why its open season on Russia to be carved up by actors with higher economic, military and political power.
If I was in your shoes, I would either give up and move or do anything and everything I can to improve the odds of the terrible hand your nation has been given..
There is a lot to cover and almost all of it is well hidden. Biggest culprits being the Ocean and dense unreachable forests.. Also there is the constant of change/time which has erased the vast majority of the past.