zlacker

>>tedsan+(OP)
This is so much money with which we could actually solve problems in the world. maybe even stop wars which break out because of scarcity issues.

maybe i am getting to old or to friendly to humans, but it's staggering to me how the priorities are for such things.

>>deknos+6a1
For less than this same price tag, we could’ve eliminated student loan debt for ~20 million Americans. It would in turn open a myriad number of opportunities, like owning a home and/or feeling more comfortable starting a family. It would stimulate the economy in predictable ways.

Instead we gave a small number of people all of this money for a moonshot in a state where they squabble over who’s allowed to use which bathroom and if I need an abortion I might die.

>>CSSer+xk1
Eliminating some student debt is a fish. Free university is the fishing rod. Do that instead.

>>nejsjs+Sw1
Free to the student sounds nice, but who pays for it in the end? And does an education lose a bit of its value when anyone can get it for free?

>>_heimd+a02
Your mind works in a very different way than mine.

Elsewhere, you worried that getting millions of people put of crippling debt due to a broken education finance system might tick up inflation.

Here, you worry that making society more educated via university training might decrease the economic value of a degree.

Where is the humanity? Of course some extreme of inflation is bad, and of course we want people to be employable. But artificial scarcity seems like a bad way to go about it.

(And I don't think we have a surplus of engineers in the country, judging by what I perceive to be the gap in talent between china and US, and the moaning by tech about the need for H1B).

>>unethi+A82
(Follow-up from my other reply)

> But artificial scarcity seems like a bad way to go about it.

What artificial scarcity are you talking about here?

I'm not trying to say we need artificial scarcity, university should be a market like any other product or service.

Personally I tend to go even further away from most when it comes to scarcity in the job market too - I'd rather have open borders than immigration systems that limit how many people can come here and compete for jobs.

>>_heimd+Db3
>I'm not trying to say we need artificial scarcity, university should be a market like any other product or service.

Whats a truly competitive market place where all competitors, broadly speaking, are playing on the same playing field and the best business wins?

There's been nothing but waves of consolidation across nearly all industries for the last 40 years. Competition is scarce, it seems.

>>no_wiz+vo3
Totally agree, we haven't really had capitalism for most of my life. It is possible though, and most of US history included at least mostly free markets.

I was a software consultant for many years. I'd put that on the list of truly competitive marketplaces. People were either willing to pay me to do a job or they weren't, and I would have to adjust my prices and terms to try to increase or decrease my workload.

>>_heimd+Ev3
That’s one, and I suppose marketing firms to some extent also fit.

But these are small niches that don’t make a whole sector, and arguably it’s on the fringes comparatively to everything else

Broadly speaking the so called free market is only in its name

>>no_wiz+WQ3
For sure, I'd argue that's mainly because any industry that centralizes or grows big enough to really matter finds itself the subject of new government oversight and regulation. As soon as the government becomes involved, for better or worse, its no longer a free market.