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All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

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Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#161

Post by qwytw »

pessimizer wrote: post #86
throwawaysleep wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regular people would be jealous of how kids who were wards of the state lived Given that the money to do that would have been taken from those parents, you can see why in a democracy parents would object to having their resources stolen for government kids to have better lives over their own.

They should give their kids up if they don't want them.

This makes me think that your original comment was some form of sarcasm. So your plan is to incentivize lower class parents to abandon their children because the state would be able to take better care of them?

That does not sound dystopian at all..

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#162

Post by jjtheblunt »

throwaway72762 wrote: post #111

Is everything culture war all the time now on this site? Every post becomes a stupid comment section where we'd be better off getting an LLM to write the comments for us. Here it's people trying to insert their affirmative action narratives and also rant about California a bit (in a backhanded way). We can do better.

Disclaimer: have been here since HN started, didn't bother making an account for five years or so.

It seems increasingly common that long-time HN readers lament that the fraction of computing news has diluted at an increasing rate itself.

I wonder if there's a way to measure that.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#163

Post by pbjtime »

WalterBright wrote: post #68
lotsofpulp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand why it should be limited to foster kids. Just make the schools free for all, and collect with higher marginal income / wealth taxes. It should not be dependent on parents’ status either. I got zero aid due to my parents, but I also got zero from my parents.

If it's all free, it'll be just like the public school system.

A groundbreaking notion that contributed to America essentially dominating the world? Cool.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#164

Post by mcpackieh »

themitigating wrote: post #108
axlee wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many slaves in the family tree should someone have to qualify? Do white slaves count? How far back should we go? Would citizens whose families have immigrated to this country after the deed be also on the hook for reparations? Should reparations only be given to struggling people, or should they be given out regardless of the situation of the descendant of a slave? It's a lot easier to quantify and equalize the s…

There were racist laws all the way up to late 1960s.

That doesn't address his questions. If you're going to codify these things into law, then you should be able to answer questions like this. My paternal grandfather was discriminated against for being black. In truth he was half black, but that didn't temper the racism he faced from people who considered him to be black. For the purposes of reparations, am I 1/4th black or 1/8th black? Because he was my paternal grandfather and family wealth has traditionally been passed on predominantly through father to son, does my paternal grandfather count more than my maternal grandmother? And if I marry a white woman, will my son be 1/8th black or 1/16th black for the purposes of reparations? Does he get any?

These are sticky questions, but if you're serious about reparations being law then you should be prepared to give some straight-forward answers without deflection.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#165

Post by nomat »

slashdev wrote: post #123
pessimizer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmative action shouldn't ever have been a contest with prizes for the most unfortunate. It was sold as a way to fix the wrongs of slavery. Having been enslaved legally in the US is not a race, it's an atrocity. The reason we should be paying for foster kids' college is because the state is their parent, so it's our responsibility. In a country that wasn't shit, regular people would be jealous of how kids who were…

Do reparations for slavery even make logical sense? Please cut me some slack here, by the nature of the world we live in, I have not uttered these thoughts to another human being, and they might have obvious flaws. It's tough when you can't talk about ideas out of fear of the consequences. I think nobody argues that it's a vile, morally repugnant thing to enslave another human being. But that was a long time ago, and…

I think the numbers tell a convincing story.

The median net worth of Americans in 2019 was $121,760.

In 2019, the median net worth of white Americans was $189,100.

The median net worth of Black Americans was $24,100

I forget how to link on hn but it's from the motley fool.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#166

Post by MisterBastahrd »

slashdev wrote: post #123
pessimizer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmative action shouldn't ever have been a contest with prizes for the most unfortunate. It was sold as a way to fix the wrongs of slavery. Having been enslaved legally in the US is not a race, it's an atrocity. The reason we should be paying for foster kids' college is because the state is their parent, so it's our responsibility. In a country that wasn't shit, regular people would be jealous of how kids who were…

Do reparations for slavery even make logical sense? Please cut me some slack here, by the nature of the world we live in, I have not uttered these thoughts to another human being, and they might have obvious flaws. It's tough when you can't talk about ideas out of fear of the consequences. I think nobody argues that it's a vile, morally repugnant thing to enslave another human being. But that was a long time ago, and…

Are they wealthier and better off than the people whose ancestors stole their labor?

No?

Then we need reparations.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#167

Post by version_five »

throwaway72762 wrote: post #111

Is everything culture war all the time now on this site? Every post becomes a stupid comment section where we'd be better off getting an LLM to write the comments for us. Here it's people trying to insert their affirmative action narratives and also rant about California a bit (in a backhanded way). We can do better.

What are you looking for? Do you think the post shouldn't have been on here at all? Or if it's here do you think discussion should be limited to a certain perspective or a certain axis? Admitting a political story inherently admits political opinions. What would "doing better" look like?

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#168

Post by makeitdouble »

lockhouse wrote: post #51
mmanfrin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmative action was to address systemic inequalities, not individual ones. Bringing it up in an article about foster kids and then further including the bit about gender feels like flamebait.

Ironically affirmative action is systemic racism itself, no matter how well intentioned.

Compensation needs to happen on the same criteria as the prejudice.

If you stiffed a whole generation matching X criteria, you should give reparation to people matching the same X criteria, whatever that criteria is.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#169

Post by fpig »

torstenvl wrote: post #24
megaman821 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All school lunches and breakfasts should be free. It is abhorrent that any child in a country as rich as the United States should go hungry at school.

As a taxpayer who funds public schools, I find it acceptable to subsidize the food of those who are struggling, but I do not have any desire to subsidize the ruling elite (who, in many cases, intentionally keep working class pay low). They can pay for their own children's food.

It's much simpler to provide public services to everyone and handle economic inequality through taxation.

Means-tested benefits result in bureaucracy that sometimes costs more than the increase in cost from giving the benefit to everyone would be, they create poverty traps, and they screw over people in atypical situations (i.e. a kid whose parents care so little they can't even be bothered to get the paperwork done that proves their low income status).

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#170

Post by qwytw »

ttfkam wrote: post #119
throwawaycities wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devils advocate… Foster children are not a protected class under the law. Perhaps foster kids could or even should be a protected class, however unlike most protected classes that have faced historical systematic discrimination codified in law, the general hardships of foster children are not based in unjust laws. I have worked in Dependency law (ie with children that have been abused, abandoned and negl…

Oh no! Some young adults might have an easier time attending college even when their lives weren't as shitty as others. Squint and we might start looking like college tuitions in Europe.

> SOME young adults might have an easier time attending college even when their lives weren't as shitty as others.

Seems like the opposite of universally accessible higher education regardless of background.

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