Victoribus Spolia wrote:Interestingly enough, the existence of a formal police force funded by the state is a somewhat new phenomena in human civilization and has almost entirely existed during the time of human culture where we have the most crime and social decay (last 300 years); however, neither the police nor the military need to be state funded.
Interestingly enough, the existence of a formal body of governance that has an even minimal amount of concern for the general public is also a relatively new concept. Sure "pseudo police" might have existed 1000 years ago, but it was a military-like body that answered to feudal leaders such as royalty and the cleric and often at the expense of the plebs (working class). As I said, we did not arrive at this situation by chance... we have thousands of years of history in which a handful of well-positioned oppressors ruled with an iron fist. In a way, the social system that we have also works as a release valve to protect the powerful rich (see Russian and French monarchy).
Indeed, after militaries became almost entirely public-funded via the auspices of a social contract regime; wars became bigger, bloodier, and more global than in any prior time in human history; one only has to look at the world wars for an example. the social contract theory has been responsible for more death and destruction than the patriarchal style regimes it attempted to replace, by an exponential degree.
That is nonsense. Wars became bigger and bloodier because there are many more of us now with much better and efficient ways to kill each other. If during napoleon's time they had access to nukes, fighter planes and submarines the wars would have been just as devastating as WWII, same shit if Ghengis khan had access to the same shit. Don't compare apples to cherries
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions and nearly NO public schools teach logic or critical thinking; hence we have the universalization of mediocrity in education making everyone equally retarded and equally compliant.
Again, you are seeing shit in the vacuum. Just a few generations back people would not even expect to learn how to read and write much less any sort of formal education, even our shittiest public school is lightyears ahead of what the lowest socioeconomic classes had access to just 100 years ago. And this is not just a benefit for the individual, this is a benefit for society as a whole.
It seems that every other day there is a news article or a youtube video of someone freaking out because a customer or another citizen/tourist does not speak English or has a thick, hard-to-understand accent. Imagine how much shittier the world would be if instead of being limited to a small portion of the population and a narrow set of complaints (not speaking English, poor understanding of customs, etc) it would be universal. Society is certainly better off with a basic, universal system of education. The only thing that you could dispute is where do you draw the line, do you draw it at 9th grade? 12 grade? some college? anywhere else? That will probably keep changing as we evolve because every day there is more to teach...
And again, this does not in any way interfere with private schools or even homeschooling... society's minimum is just that... a minimum, if you can complement or replace for a better as an individual that is perfectly fine and acceptable.
Under your argument, you should be very PRO homeschooling then as an advancement over public education, as the academic performance is superior by every metric and is only 1/2000th of the cost; this being a privatized alternative to public education.
First, don't tell me what I should and should not be in favor off. Second, I am very pro-homeschooling if what you mean is that parents should also participate in the teaching of their children. If what you mean is to not take them to school and just teach them at home, no, I am not in favor of that at all. School have more to offer than just engraving in the children's brain a whole bunch of facts. It is critical for children and adolescent to learn how to deal with people with different point of views and different teaching/discussion styles. This is something that any "average" family would never be able to match, even with significant monetary resources, during the 1-12th grade of a child homeschooled they might get exposed to both parents and perhaps a couple of tutors (and that is stretching it, usually there are no tutors). This is critical, you might think your child is better off thinking and believing the same as you but this is shortsighted... you should want them to be better off than you... always. Doing this will deprive them of this very important skill that is not taught but acquired through years of experience.
I don't know where you get that number of "1/2000th of the cost". This is clearly BS. You might think, homeschooling might be free... but it is not. It is expensive indeed. The time you spend homeschooling is the time you could be working making whatever $$ you get paid. If you only consider "median" income and you give a conservative 4h/day of homeschooling... it would cost you about $15,000 just in potential income and we are not taking into account any other resources such as books etc. And the most interesting of this equation is... the more you make the most it would cost you to lose those few hours of homeschooling. At my current rate, for ~4h of homeschooling, I would be giving off $600-800 per day at least, for that much, I could put 10 children in a very good private school
. And you might say.. well if you make less its not that bad... but here is the thing, the less you make the more you have to work to make mean ends and thus the less time you have to teach your child. Also, I don't think any parent making $10/h that just finished a 10h+ shift working at Walmart will have any energies to go home and spend 4 hours teaching math and English to his/her child and then do houses' chores.
This "homeschooling" is limited to just a handful of families and it is not without cost. Certainly, it has a monetary cost (whether actual cost or potential cost) and social implications for the child as well.
IMO, the best approach is either a good public or a good private school + supplemented 1-2 hours of parental supervised teaching/homework at home +/- tutors if really required.
The reasons these agencies exist is because public uproar and hysteria created bad legislation that allows evil companies to still exist so long as they are "more careful." A more just system would allow bad companies to be sued out of existence for making a bad product, executed if they did it intentionally, and go bankrupt from a massive drop in demand.
LOL. "Let them be evil, we will punish later"
I'll give you a chance to think that through to see if you can spot how ridiculous that proposition is (hint: very ridiculous).
The 20th century was the time when such a system as you are defending became the most universal and it was arguably the most violent, bloody, and crime-ridden of any we have recorded in human history. Perhaps you would like to clarify your meaning then?
You are wrong. We live in the best time humans have ever experienced. And so did the people from the 20th century compared to before, and so did the ones from the 19th century compared to before.
https://www.businessinsider.com/whats-t ... orn-2014-9Pants-of-dog wrote:But by the arguments posted in this thread about how it is unjustifiable to pay for things that you do not want, need, or ask for, the current system of capitalism is unjustifiable.
Because sometimes you cannot choose exactly what you want, or think you want, because there is not enough demand to produce exactly the product that you want. When it comes to taxation it is similar, the logistics to charge you only for the "police, firefighter and roads" that you use and not charge you for the "military, medical care, education" that you think that you don't want are incredibly complex. You are buying in the package that society shaped. You contribute to shape this package with your vote. It is similar when you buy a car for instance. When I went to the dealer I wanted a reliable car with AC, electric locks and windows but no other silly tech gizmos.... unfortunately there are not enough people like me wanting exactly this product so companies don't usually make it, I could choose not to buy it (as you could choose to move away from society) but this is not an option that I am willing to entertain.