re: #103 freetoken

This is where I think Warren or whoever goes wrong.

Deeply wrong.

It’s a appeal to fairness, to equality, etc.

But I propose that doing so misses more fundamental issues.

Issues about humans, about why we do what we do, and don’t do what we don’t want to do.

It’s been a while since you and I were in secondary school, but think back… do you remember fellow students who didn’t want to be in class? Maybe they skipped class? Maybe they just didn’t like it.

There is something very important in there about human nature.

Trying to sell “free college” to the electorate is an elaborate attempt to get the 18-30y.o. vote.

But it misses important questions such as:
1) what is “work” in the 21st century America?
2) what to do with people who don’t have the interest or ability to be cogs in the information-society?
3) do you really think a college education is necessary to say lay asphalt?
3b) And if not, do think the asphalt layer should get the same income of, say, someone who goes to their now “free” university and gets a B.A. in business?

These are the kind of questions that Warren and all those who are using “free” education don’t really want to answer, because the answers may be uncomfortably disquieting.

When I was in high school, I took a stand against compulsory education for anyone, and for easy availability of educational opportunities for all. I was called an elitist. I was told that poor kids would suffer the most. I already knew a kid who committed suicide because he couldn’t take what he had to face in school (bigotry, among other things) nor what he faced at home (poverty and the inability to escape).

The possibility of universal basic income could change all of this. Let people from the bottom to the top pursue the education and work they have interest in.