[kartan]

> This isn't just a part of an anti-government or even anti-education strategy

Big corporations should be paying way more taxes. It would be a good way to avoid creating such undemocratic centers of power. Education is a human right: Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

* https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

[mistermann]

Did the UN declare that we are obligated to provide free post-secondary education, or am I misreading that?

[atmosx]

Uneducated population doesn’t understand the repercussions of their choices and can be easily controlled through FUD. There have been regimes (e.g. Portugal’s military dictatorship) who made lack of education an official policy.

[molmalo]

Your post sparked curiosity in me, and I googled it... but according to Wikipedia, the Portuguese dictatorship expanded literacy to cover most of the population, and also made a:

> strong investment in secondary and university education, which experienced in this period one of the fastest growth rates of Portuguese education history to date. [1]

So, it seems like Wikipedia contradicts your statement...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estado_Novo_(Portugal)#Educati...

[atmosx]

The above claim comes from this article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...

More specifically (quoting relevant paragraph):

--

In truth, there was a lot of ignorance back then. Forty years of authoritarian rule under the regime established by António Salazar in 1933 had suppressed education, weakened institutions and lowered the school-leaving age, in a strategy intended to keep the population docile. The country was closed to the outside world; people missed out on the experimentation and mind-expanding culture of the 1960s. When the regime ended abruptly in a military coup in 1974, Portugal was suddenly opened to new markets and influences. Under the old regime, Coca-Cola was banned and owning a cigarette lighter required a licence. When marijuana and then heroin began flooding in, the country was utterly unprepared.

--

That said, you are correcting wikipedia says the exact opposite which is interesting.

[657df026-caa]

While that is true in this specific instance, history is pretty rife with dictators slaughtering entire classes of educated people. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are the first example I have off the top of my head.

[mistermann]

This implies educated people can't also be easily controlled. It may require different specific tactics, but I see little evidence that they can't also be controlled, generally speaking.