• aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I guess I didn’t know what outcome(s) you would like or expect?

    The actual outcome I would like is for people to take a break from looking at what the current system is and trying to provide an abstract, philosophical foundation from which to justify it.

    Contrarily, I think “I should get free education and not have to pay for it or provide any effort at reciprocity” sounds and feels super entitled and shitty.

    Perhaps contrarily, I think it sounds liberating…and better than our current system of “I should go into non-dischargeable debt to obtain credentials to get a job at evil corp and then have to pay 20x the amount of the loan to get out from under the debt”.

    But my point isn’t that you have to go to a complete opposite system either, my point is that the way that it works today – speaking abstractly as this whole diversion began – isn’t the only way it could work despite everyone’s insistence that it has to be that way because of “society” or whatever.

    Not everything is transactional. Not everything is a zero-sum game. When you teach people things, you often learn something yourself.

    The people replying to me in this thread have a tendency to snap into a absolutist perspective. But if you cannot even dream of something different than debt slavery and other shitty institutions and even your thought experiments are all exercises to justify crappy systems in the abstract, then the greedy goblins have already won a total victory because they have already captured your imagination in addition to everything else.

    In order to be able to improve anything, you have to first be able to imagine that improvement is possible.

    • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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      20 hours ago

      I guess we are almost there, but I don’t know what the dream option is that you’re aiming for.

      One individual cannot just say “go to hell, I’m taking an education and running” without breaking the social contract. What is the angle you want, because all you’ve said that I’ve read is “be open to the thought experiment” but I don’t know what that means to you. Tangibly, not in the non-committal abstract.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        I don’t make educational policy dude, I’m a random guy on social media. What I want is irrelevant.

        As far as the social contract, when did anyone sign one of those? Because I look around nowadays and certainly see a lot of people breaking it with absolute impunity.

        • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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          18 hours ago

          I know you don’t make policy, but here we are exchanging ideas. I’m having. Heard time getting at your point, but I don’t think that’s because you don’t have one. I think it’s because we are almost lined up but still talking past each other.

          There are certainly people who break the social contract, but reciprocity is pretty deeply ingrained in each of us. There’s like a whole chapter in “Influence” by Robert Cialdini on reciprocity and I thought it was compelling.

          • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            I think I’ve made my point clear several times over. I don’t actually have much interest or an agenda about some specific type of educational policy.

            Maybe ask professors their opinion on what the policies should be? Though I’m sure their opinion doesn’t matter much because American educational policy is set by politicians and capitalists – though I repeat myself.