Research finds no gender bias in academic science

> Funneling children into the arms of private businesses is fundamentally socialist redistribution

Mmm I'm going to take a very controversial stance here and say that no, privatizing education is not "fundamentally socialist distribution" or even "progressive" for that matter.

It absolutely is a money problem when teachers are spending their own salaries (already much lower than their EU counterparts) on classrooms. You can say there's corruption, that the money disappears, etc. but it's possible to solve the problems in public education by making sure the people molding the minds of the next generation make a decent living.

All my friends in academia were tired of being treated like shit (in both public and charter systems) and ended up pivoting to code where they make 2-3x the salary with dramatically less effort. Even worse for teachers in "inner cities" where the cost of living is higher. Small wonder that the US has some of the worst education outcomes compared to other "industrial liberal republics".

In my observation, private schools (outside the most ritzy ones) are usually VERY hesitant to remove students because they can’t afford the revenue loss while public schools get the same money either way.

The ability to separate good students (regardless of financial or ethnic background) so they can learn without disruption from kids not wanting to learn is a huge positive. Lots of brilliant kids are held back by the terrible schools they are forced to attend. This would provide much better equality of opportunity.

Let's say that the terms of a trust dictate that interest revenue be immediately paid out to a specific charity, but you are allowed to spend the principal. Are you poor?

I get your point but I wouldn't call it an academic paper disclaimer, it is giving you the scope/breadth of their research. That is why I took the whole paragraph, they are saying they found a bias in hiring. That is a specific slice of "Academic Science," that the HigherEd article is calling out but only a slice. That is why the

"We did not examine systemic claims of bias, such as the tenure schedule that imposes inflexible time-career paths or structural societal norms that burden women with greater responsibilities outside of their academic jobs or that penalize women for negotiating forcefully for wage increases or seeking outside offers. Other scholars have identified a myriad of such systemic barriers. "

part is important, it specifically is saying there has been a lot of work showing systemic barriers but they are not researching that part. This isn't a critique of their research but of the summary articles headline and what some people seem to be taking away from that headline. Even in the HigherEd piece it says there are concerns and this research is to help identify where there has been progress and where we need to focus.

Does that actually follow, though?

My own perspective on the matter as someone who sorta bootstrapped from a pretty shitty strating position is: no. If we took a cross section of people doing reasonably well what they've done is complied with society's demands, more succinctly they've served the market. They aren't exceptionally smart, talented, or disciplined, they just selflessly (including moving far and wide) elected a corner of the market that was valuable, and where they were themselves valued. And from my experience: they have really poor spending habits, they have shallow economic and political positions. And this is sort of the paradigmatic flaw with throwing money at people, in a lot of cases they do not have the faculties to comport themselves in such a manner where it is a benefit to themselves nor to their fellows. I fear many of these people, when they're put through some serious adversity, will succeed in recovering themselves.

I'm not trying to make an argument which paints me as some superior element to these folks, but rather these are mistakes that I have personally made and lived through while also existing on the precipice of dangerous self-amplifying poverty. To some extent, and with the way that things are structured, I think this very much attends to the "teach a man to fish" logic, and that lending that kind of real, personalized trivium is the way forward.

Italy has (or had) such a program: they would disburse pooled funds to a minimum of 3 unemployed individuals who were then expected to use said funds to start a business. To my knowledge many of these were cooperatives, which I think is an ingenious way of remediating some of the more egregious issues which we see bubbling up in our day-to-day lives in the US.

Now, I won't discount the fact that having a decent starting position is a huge boon; the crux of my argument here is that modifying it without respect to the nuance, as I've seen it, can lead to even worse outcomes. And I think the quasi-exclusive programs also nucleate certain perspectives, culture, and communities which themselves can be pretty detrimental. For instance I grew up in trailer parks, I have some aspects of white trash that I very deliberately maintain to my own detriment because it is part of my identity and a mark of pride, and sequestration of those habits makes me legitimately uncomfortable.

Also don't bother comparing the US and Europe, the latter without the former has historically been very volatile and I don't believe there's any reason to expect that things will have changed. As to why that matters: the US must have certain integral aspects both socially and politically which favor its position as the "world peacekeeping force" (read: world police), including egregious spending on "defense". And this is apparently perceived at large as justified. Moreover, military participation is also quite high, in part because of the way that America at large is structured. It is very much a multifaceted incentive complex. And I think that, over the years, it has very much seated America as the lynchpin of the globalized system. Personally, I don't like it, but I very much anticipate the effacement of America's current position as a global leader is going to lead to a very traumatic shift in the way of the world as we know it. The US is itself structured in a completely different way than is Europe as well, with considerable contrasts in needs and wants in comparison to Europe and in contrast with our own many, varied, and multifaceted communities. Rural America is not urban America.

Also, I think with (real) progressive policies the socioeconomic rules shift, and those shifts tend to make realizing even a modicum of wealth even more difficult in a lot of cases. For instance the big money print over COVID has destroyed a pretty considerable amount of my savings, and the Biden administration pushing for student loan forgiveness - I could've taken loans, shaved many years off of my opportunity cost, and have saved substantially less money to exit my university program with no debt burden, and I wouldn't have to suffer post-COVID university experience. Instead, assuming it was to be passed, I would be out $10k and I will have paid substantially more than previously predicted given the Feds 2% mandate, in addition to the huge shuffling of staff, policies, and the experience all due to policy changes. To the best of my knowledge, I have elected classical fiscal policy, and lost at every turn while trying to drag myself upwards but it was the paradigmatic road to success that I tried to pave.