Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#101

Post by the_solenoid » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #67

TrackerFF wrote: post #19

In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. Furthermore, strong labor laws have compressed salaries towards the mean, so people are not locking themselves into poverty by working low-wage / low-skill work, but there's a difference enough that people are incentivize…

> You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe? I don't think Europe is "worse" than the US. I think Europe is optimized for the poor whereas the US is optimized for the middle class and above. There are good arguments for both of these situations. In…

As a % of population, and % of military spending... does "less innovation" hold up? I assume you have some data backing that claim, would be interesting if true, and the reasons why.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#102

Post by LightG » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

Sorry, education is very important. But more important is who you know ... however that came to be. Might be family, chance, lucky, fortune. But it's true. I hate that it's true, but it is true. Hence, education is not the great equalizer, it is the mildly helpful stabiliser.

Don't believe me? Look around ... many good examples of educated people making it, but many more people of educated people who knew "someone" making it. Worse, many uneducated people matching or exceeding that performance.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#103

Post by rackjack » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #100

kungito wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what?

Environmental Policy (EPA). Family policy (gay marriage, transgenderism, etc via the Supreme Court). Healthcare (Obamacare). Education (no child left behind, the dept of education). Higher education (federal backed guarantees). We can go on...

Nixon founded the EPA and George W. Bush established no child left behind...

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#104

Post by only_as_i_fall » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

>First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point.

How do you define that though?

Do you consider someone working a minimum wage job full-time to be in this category? Someone making $15-20 an hour but without any real opportunity for advancement?

I don't understand the criteria.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#105

Post by iammisc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #24

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

Holy hell dude, are you calling the working class lazy and the professional class hard-working?! This tells me you don’t have a lot of contact with the working class. The working class busts their asses while most software devs I know work about 2 hours a day from their couch in pajamas. Someone who works at a warehouse or fast food joint is a much harder worker than a software architect. Probably also working 60-80…

Americans glorify hard work while undervaluing efficiency.

For example, I often hear fellow Americans brag about how many hours they put in or how intense their work is. This is true all the way from the blue collar trades to the most white collar (management consultants are notorious for this).

In reality, it's better to use fewer hours to accomplish the same goal. There is no inherent value in applying more time to something.

The truth is the SW architect, the CEO of many corporations, etc are more efficient than the lowest level workers. I know this is not popular, and it makes many uncomfortable, but it is undeniably true. This is because both the SW architect and the CEO and the management consultant and the operations manager, etc, are all into automation, which is an efficiency increasing process.

This is not just automation in terms of building robots (which maybe a SW architect is involved with), but also automation in terms of making the lowest level workers replaceable by developing corporate policy, procedures, etc. The CEO provides the service of automating investment returns to his/her company's shareholders.

In this light, it is obvious why certain professions earn more. They are way more efficient with their time.

> I’m somehow worth 20-40x what someone at an Amazon warehouse is.

Because your work is quite a bit more efficient. I mean, like many here, I write software for a living. Once my software component works, it works. It will work forever with minimal maintenance once it stabilizes, and will provide the company with many many years of value, even if I and my team were to drop dead. In other words, we are automators. The automators are always going to do better.

Anyway, going back to the lazy/hard-working dichotomy. These terms are used with unnecessary moralistic overtones. There is nothing wrong with working two hours a day, and there is nothing inherently good about working 14 hours. We need to stop acting as if those who work more have some inherent virtue. This leads to all sorts of social pathologies such as the toxic version of the bootstrap mentality.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#106

Post by hobs » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #100

kungito wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what?

Environmental Policy (EPA). Family policy (gay marriage, transgenderism, etc via the Supreme Court). Healthcare (Obamacare). Education (no child left behind, the dept of education). Higher education (federal backed guarantees). We can go on...

This has been one of the least informed comments I have read recently - most of the things you are attributing to democrats are were actually republicans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Pr... President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act#Legislativ... The ACA was championed by republicans until it became a political talking piece.

The concept of an individual mandate goes back to at least 1989, when The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, proposed an individual mandate as an alternative to single-payer health care.[121][122] It was championed for a time by conservative economists and Republican senators as a market-based approach to healthcare reform on the basis of individual responsibility and avoidance of free rider problems. Specifically, because the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires any hospital participating in Medicare (nearly all do) to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, the government often indirectly bore the cost of those without the ability to pay.[123][124][125]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act NCLB was totally a Bush thing.

It was coauthored by Representatives John Boehner (R-OH), George Miller (D-CA), and Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH). The United States House of Representatives passed the bill on December 13, 2001 (voting 381–41),[8] and the United States Senate passed it on December 18, 2001 (voting 87–10).[9] President Bush signed it into law on January 8, 2002.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#107

Post by the_solenoid » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #67

TrackerFF wrote: post #19

In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. Furthermore, strong labor laws have compressed salaries towards the mean, so people are not locking themselves into poverty by working low-wage / low-skill work, but there's a difference enough that people are incentivize…

> You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe? I don't think Europe is "worse" than the US. I think Europe is optimized for the poor whereas the US is optimized for the middle class and above. There are good arguments for both of these situations. In…

And to the rest of your comment - paying in taxes and getting universal benefits benefit society as a whole, not just the poor.

I think it was finland that got rid of private schools, and all of aa sudden schools got WAY better , for everyone.

Insulating people with wealth from everyone else is an overt societal negative. People are their experiences, and if you go through life without meeting people with different experiences than you, you grow up in a bubble.

Having everyone be able to enjoy life and not having a govt bought off that laser focuses on making a small class of people even richer is their goal, not solidarity with a certain class.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#108

Post by iammisc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #19

In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. Furthermore, strong labor laws have compressed salaries towards the mean, so people are not locking themselves into poverty by working low-wage / low-skill work, but there's a difference enough that people are incentivize…

> In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances.

That is a great explanation in theory, but simply does not work out in practice. In order to support the safety net, the EU has to impose several regulations that remove the ability of people to 'take chances', such as higher taxes on business, paternity/maternity leave policies that cause parents to have fewer children, higher regulatory atmosphere, etc.

Whether it's in business, family, education, etc, the EU is not particularly excellent at any. America still has most of the world's large innovative companies, still has a higher birth rate, still has more VC money (and access to capital in general), and still has the best universities and best research institutions.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#109

Post by adverbly » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

This is a great take and is simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic. I think you're optimistic about the right things though in that getting stuff done at an individual level has never been more valuable. Likewise, learning facts in an academic setting has never been less valuable. School teaches and kids learn, but it doesn't teach the right stuff anymore.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#110

Post by dougmwne » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #32

wayoutthere wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy hell dude, are you calling the working class lazy and the professional class hard-working?! This tells me you don’t have a lot of contact with the working class. The working class busts their asses while most software devs I know work about 2 hours a day from their couch in pajamas. Someone who works at a warehouse or fast food joint is a much harder worker than a software architect. Probably also working 60-80…

I did not. Reading comprehension is key.

I am actually unclear on what you mean by "Do". You seem to be using it in a very general sense, as in people who do something, anything, are better off than people who do nothing. That seems pretty obvious, movement is the very definition of work after all. However, the very vague way in which you talk about "Doing" creates a kind of Rorschach test where your readers can take any meaning they would like. So what is it, exactly that you mean? What sort of specific actions should a person take to raise their station in life? What about people not "doing"? Can you describe their life?