A successful academic faces lifelong debt

I could go on, but I won't...I don't want this to turn into a Reddit-style argument. My basic position is that undervaluing teaching as a service undermines our educational productivity and long-term economic growth, through excess focus on short-term dividends at the expense of cumulative value.

I grew up in a relatively poor family in a third world country (in a rural area). So, don't make baseless assumptions.

> but we do want a world where people are free from worries about health care (due to our third-world health care system) and meeting basic needs.

These (healthcare, education, etc...) are privileges. You are lucky to have it – but it is still a privilege and not something that you can demand. Btw, Europeans go to the USA for advanced health care (such as Cancer treatment). Ever heard of the MD Anderson cancer centre? It is the best in the world.

Guess what, hospitals and doctors do not just pop into existence. They have to be paid and everything costs money. You want all this to be free (at least for you). I am quite sceptical of this – someone has to pay for it. It looks like everyone wants free healthcare and no-one wants to pay for it.

> You simply have a better society (more innovation, more creativity, happier and healthier people) if peoples' lives aren't clogged up by maintenance.

It seems that the list of entitlements only gets longer and the list of responsibilities gets shorter.

Wasn’t the USA founded on the principle that everyone can pursue their happiness? It seems more like you want government to guarantee it. I think that this says more about the current generation of young Americans than of the American system.

Correction: You know nothing about poverty in the United States.

These (healthcare, education, etc...) are privileges. You are lucky to have it – but it is still a privilege and not something that you can demand.

The discrete right/privilege distinction is a meaningless distraction from the more subjective issue of social justice. If the resources exist to give everyone healthcare, then everyone should have healthcare. If the resources don't exist, well... there's no such thing as a right to something that doesn't exist. Obviously, no one has the right to live to be 200. On the other hand, we shouldn't have people dying of third-world diseases in the U.S. just to keep insurance bureaucrats rich; that's not a reasonable trade-off.

Guess what, hospitals and doctors do not just pop into existence. They have to be paid and everything costs money. You want all this to be free (at least for you).

Wrong. I want to pay for it through the tax system. We're spending trillions on "defense"; why not spend money to be defended against things like cancer, which are far more likely to kill most of us than any terrorist?

It looks like everyone wants free healthcare and no-one wants to pay for it.

Ridiculous assertion. No one with half a brain considers that possible. Someone has to pay.

It seems that the list of entitlements only gets longer and the list of responsibilities gets shorter.

That's what happens as society improves. On the list of responsibilities shrinking: are you arguing that we should go back to an era when people spent a substantial fraction of their time making their own clothes, instead of buying cheap factory-made clothing at the store?

Wasn’t the USA founded on the principle that everyone can pursue their happiness? It seems more like you want government to guarantee it.

The idea that the government could guarantee anything about a person's emotional state is patently ridiculous, and you know this.

Also, how can someone pursue happiness if he can't afford treatment for basic medical conditions, and can't work because, untreated, that condition is too painful? People wouldn't get into messes like this in a more reasonable society.

I guess America is special then.

> The discrete right/privilege distinction is a meaningless distraction from the more subjective issue of social justice.

The word “social justice” is a misnomer for a list of entitlements and an enforcement of equality of outcome.

> If the resources exist to give everyone healthcare, then everyone should have healthcare.

The only problem you face is that these “resources” belong to private individuals. So you only have to coerce these “resources” away from them and somehow force them to keep working and creating these resources.

One guy once said what you are trying to implement: “From each according to his ability and to each according to his need”. Was it Marx?

> spending trillions on "defense"; why not spend money to be defended against things like cancer, which are far more likely to kill most of us than any terrorist?

You are justifying one bad idea with another bad idea. This is a stupid line of reasoning. For a government with an incredibly large amount of debt, it is not a good idea to spend trillions on anything.

> > It looks like everyone wants free healthcare and no-one wants to pay for it. > Ridiculous assertion. No one with half a brain considers that possible. Someone has to pay.

Yes. And the answer is always, “not us”. The argument is usually that “rich people” will pay for it.

> > It seems that the list of entitlements only gets longer and the list of responsibilities gets shorter. > That's what happens as society improves.

Now, that is when society declines and decays.

> On the list of responsibilities shrinking: are you arguing that we should go back to an era when people spent a substantial fraction of their time making their own clothes, instead of buying cheap factory-made clothing at the store?

This has nothing to do with government entitlements or personal responsibilities and duties. Here are some example responsibilities and duties:

- Save for your retirement (don’t push this duty on the government).

- Save to send your children to school and hopefully university.

- Raise your children well.

- Volunteer to become an army reservist, police reservist or any other civic duty.

- Take care of your parents when they are old. Etc…

Here are some entitlements: - Free healthcare

- Free welfare payments

- Cash payments for each child born.

- Free education and university

- Gauranteed salary throughout your life (whether employed or not). Some countries call this a "basic income grant".