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Comment by geoalchimista | Hacker News Reader

> "Without even knowing where people are from, I sense a similar trend in this discussion: Europeans are more willing (trained and socialized) to sacrifice individual preferences in favor of the 'greater good'."

I would speculate (without exact justification) that this is because Europeans are nowadays heavily indoctrinated in socialism. What you call "greater good" may not be a market-efficient solution or effective altruism.

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Or what you call "market-efficient solution" or "effective altruism" hurts the greater good.

Well, I am not against the greater good. But who is in charge to define and enforce it? Does surrendering individual liberty (in this case, school choice) to the bureaucracy help achieve the greater good?

So first of all, I didn't downvote you, so I hope you're not replying thinking I did. It's the crux of the article that more "personal freedom" in that regard doesn't help. Also, comparative studies between US educational outcomes and Nordic countries tends to find better averages and less disparity than here. The choice between which is "better" is a moral argument.

My comment re: greater good vs. market-efficient is yes, it isn't market-efficient for some values of the words "market efficient," but for the values that these people hold, it is "better" for their definition of "greater good." Btw, I did invoke my own definition of "greater good" above, one which you may disagree with.

> "The choice between which is 'better' is a moral argument."

I wouldn't disagree with you on this. But I just couldn't see how forbidding students to choose school would imply, quoting the OP of this thread, to "sacrifice individual preferences in favor of the 'greater good'". I guess it is less of a concern for Nordic countries who have genuinely good public school systems. If schools perform equally well, then perhaps people would not be uncomfortable with the fact that an AI rolls the dice to decide who goes to which school. But this is definitely not the case for the US public school system. If the goal is equality > excellence, you'd more often than not get equally bad results than "better averages" + "less disparity". Not to mention that restricting the freedom of choice gives rise to a bureaucratic system that feeds itself and cannot be hold accountable to what it does.

Think about this, if one is not so fortunate to be living in an affluent neighborhood, chances are that the schools are mediocre or bad, teachers teach to the test and don't care if students learn or not, dropout rates high, and college admission rates low, and if one still wants to go to college in this condition, they better get the heck out of there. School choice could potentially give them a chance to study in a better school and go to college.

The danger lies not in this legal case itself, but that it further empowers the government to interfere and exert more control on how an individual live their life and spend their money. On the end of the spectrum, you'll get totalitarian states. I hope that is not what the West is heading to.

I would speculate (without exact justification) that this is because Americans are nowadays heavily indoctrinated in neoliberalism.

Though Europeans are catching up there too.

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