Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

"but it actually impoverishes the uneducated masses because they no longer have jobs and cannot afford higher education."

Minimum wage laws mean it is illegal to pay someone a fair wage for menial work. Ergo, the uneducated no longer have jobs. The work must still be done, but as it is illegal to hire a person we automate the process.

Higher education is free. Libraries, Internet, ... MIT has all curriculum on line for free, along with many other schools. Certification is what's expensive, and so long as people are willing to commit to stupid huge loans the prices will keep going up.

As an instructor I am astounded at the percentage of students who just will not do the work. It's not that they cannot afford retraining - there is a host of funding options, and if you're paying list price you're doing it wrong - it's that they want certification without education.

The safety net is being abused. Between outlawing viable poverty and wanting benefits without effort, only a small minority are willing to be productive and gain the benefits thereof.

Stop making this a moral issue. Did 20th century behaviourism teach you nothing? The human stock is only as good as the stimulation it receives.

The reason people have trouble learning is because they are victims of mass culture. When a child is raised on corporate propaganda from age 1 how do you expect him or her to be intellectual?

You phrase these things in moral terms and indicate that the failure lies with those in poverty. But we intellectuals discovered long ago that those in poverty behave in predictable, controllable ways.

Garbage in, garbage out. The public schools have become corporate propaganda systems and the Universities have lost all sense of public duty.

The poor can't educate themselves. They need an enlightened class to protect them (using government) from the powerful forces of propaganda.

You sit in your ivory tower and blame the victims, when you have no idea what it's like to be raised by a television and modern public schools bought and paid for by special interests.

Children are impressionable and stupid. Your classes have to compete for attention with the greatest propaganda machine the world has ever known: the U.S. corporate media.

It's called 'pop culture'!

Or it's "the great wasteland".

Or it's the "message" in "the medium is the message".

But heavily it's the old tried and true of the humanities culture, 'drama' as in 'formula fiction', especially as in the 1000 year old 'morality' plays.

So, I'm reluctant to believe that more of the 'humanities' culture will have a solution.

Or, with high irony, in main results, if not in all intentions, the 'humanities' are a great enemy of humans!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com