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How it feels (discuss.online)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

Well, I only brought them up because it was a relevant event that I am aware of. While I also agree that getting a master's degree in pottery is not exactly an ideal career path for most people.

It's not like she's given up on pottery, it's just that it's no longer 1300 BC and there are no viziers that pay excellent money for ceramics.

She is also running a business in her spare time and working on developing a name for herself and forming an art studio and collective with other people, and it's possible that the knowledge and experience that she has gained will not only help her be successful, but will also help her help her friends be successful in this because there is money to be made in custom artwork and tchotchskis.

I also know a truck driver that got a law degree, and they worked their ass off, they got burned out on law, and now they just sit on their butt and drive a truck back and forth from California to Atlanta, 48 weeks out of the year.

What I mean to say is that a one-size-fits-all system of student loans and college fees is not really an appropriate way to handle the task, the obligation, the opportunity of educating Americans.

I want people, if they so choose, to be truck drivers and ceramists and beauticians and anything else. I- but I also want the price to fit the education and for the system to allow for artists. I want there to be artists and "non-financially viable" education and life paths that still make financial sense when it comes to education fees.

And I also want there to be a pressure release valve for when a person makes a mistake, so that their lives, their potential future, are not destroyed by the consequences of their mistake.

We treat education as if it actually is a functioning part of our capitalistic society that can operate under the same rules that profit-driven businesses do, instead of treating it as a social good that benefits us regardless of what kind of society we live in.

Education should be treated more like libraries and fire departments instead of banks and bookstores.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    I dated someone who makes bank making ceramics for rich people. But they live in a city full of rich people who will pay $5000 for someone to make them 20 custom ceramic coffee mugs. I doubt Utah has that type of customer base.

    i also have another friend who wants to work in the art world... but they refuse to understand that their degree from no name university means they will never get hired in that field but they keep naively applying to jobs that require ivy league degrees to get an interview.

    Who is going to pay for that valve though? someone has to eat those costs. I mean, also even if education was cheap, plenty of people would also still waste it and screw up their lives.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I mean, you are right, it has to be paid for, and that payment is a pain, and it's $1.6 trillion dollars, and as prosperous as America is, we can't casually brush aside $1.6 trillion dollars worth of outstanding debt.

    But at the same time, I feel like if the financial constraint was not the defining factor that after people go through a process of self-discovery and attempting, you know, underwater basket weaving, or ceramics or whatever, and finding out that it's a dead end for them, they might end up going back to college and getting a degree in law, or going to a trade school, or finding some other path to where their capabilities and the needs of society interact in a financially successful way.

    I want people to have more choices, more options, and the more choices they make, the higher likelihood that they will find something that is wildly successful for them.

    I want people to succeed.

    Iwant people to do something that is wildly successful for them, and when they do they will generate tax revenues for the country far in excess of what it cost for them to make that mistake.

    That's the purpose of social programs and society itself, in my opinion.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    My life experience has shown me that people who succeed do succeed... and those that don't blame everyone else for not giving them enough. And that is often regardless of where they come from or what they studied or own much debt they took on.

    I would like them to succeed too... but we can't save people from themselves. What a lot of people in this thread don't seem to be able to acknowledge is that many many people... as soon as you forgave them their debt... would just go and pile it back on again and make the same crappy choices and end up in the same situation all over again.

    social programs are very effective when they are setup correctly and they provide future forward incentives... not 'fix your mistake' incentives.

    You also have to understand that the social contract and incentives break down when you visible reward awful behavior and punish good ones. If people feel like their loans will be forgiven anyway... they won't be incentivized to become successful. Why not just party it up and wait for the government forgiveness to kick in? then repeat the cycle? I mean you think if your friend just gets her loans forgiven she will magically be successful in life? I doubt it. Maybe she would, but there are plenty of people who would take that forgiveness and just pile the debt right back on and demand that debt also be forgiven.

    limited loan forgiveness phased in over time makes a lot more sense and avoids the moral hazards.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I've told this story before elsewhere, but, like, I graduated high school a year ahead of my class. I was the valedictorian.

    Four months after I graduated high school, while I was still a 17-year-old teenager, I found myself homeless, because my mom is a dick.

    My dad attempted to jumpstart my life for nearly a decade after that. The women I loved attempted to jumpstart my life for nearly a decade after that.

    My friends put themselves out of their way to jumpstart my life for nearly a decade after that until it finally clicked.

    I have been bailed out of being a miserable piece of shit more times than I deserve.

    I know that I am still a miserable piece of shit on the inside, but thanks to the help of all of the people that kept coming to my rescue, I am a moderately successful miserable piece of shit.

    If the world has conspired to give that to me, I also want the world to give that to all of the other pieces of shit out there, in hopes that, even though we are all pieces of shit, that eventually we will break down into fine, healthy compost that will nourish seeds of some other plant that isn't a piece of shit.

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