[nickpp]

Then the alternative was better education and more focus during one's formative years.

It's not my fault the kids skipping class, having fun and making jokes during teacher's lessons are now paid less than me.

Society offers plenty of opportunities but not to people who did noting to prepare themselves to take advantage of them.

[reaperducer]

It's not my fault the kids skipping class, having fun and making jokes during teacher's lessons are now paid less than me.

If that's how you think people become poor and desperate, I can only surmise that you've never had anything bad happen to you ever.

Never got sick. Never had a family member hurt. Never been the victim of crime. Never fallen on a wet floor. Never had a house fire. Never had your car break down. You always had plenty of food, plenty of money, plenty of infrastructure near you. Never had to worry about the condition of your home, or whether you'd even have a home tomorrow. Someone else paid for your education, your transportation, your entire life when you were growing up.

Consider yourself blessed. And please never run for office.

[nickpp]

Yes, life has hardships, but please do not tell me they are the ones controlling its course and your choices don't matter.

For hardships you can buy insurance with money or time (family, friends, various organisations) but your choices are entirely your responsibility and there is no way to insure yourself against making the wrong ones.

[pietrovismara]

If it really is just a matter of the effort one puts into education, then answer this. If everyone studied with the same exact amount of effort, would we have a world without waitresses, warehouse workers, low wage jobs?

Obviously not. This society relies entirely on the fact that a good portion of the population can be blackmailed into doing the bad jobs, while the other small portion enjoys the fruits.

If nobody could be forced to take shitty jobs, how would most of the current industries exist?

[Chris2048]

> would we have a world without waitresses, warehouse workers, low wage jobs?

The latter is impossible to answer since "low wage" is relative, much like if everyone had millions of $ for every $ they owned, the currency would simply devalue.

That said, in a nation full of skilled, competent workers, the nation would be more productive overall (more "fruits" to go around), and more competitive abroad - so it's not a zero-sum game in that sense.

> waitresses, warehouse workers

I couldn't care less if waitressing disappeared, I prefer self-serve places; what value is lost?

If no-one wanted to be paid low wages to work in warehouses, either a) warehouse worker wages would go up, or b) an alternative solution would be found, or c) the business is no longer viable and collapses.

> can be blackmailed into doing the bad jobs

and even the people with good jobs probably wouldn't work if they weren't paid. In that sense are they blackmailed too?

> If nobody could be forced to take shitty jobs, how would most of the current industries exist?

By paying more for those jobs, or replacing them. Alternatively, by those industries not existing.

Do you think most industry cannot exist but for the subsidy of paying low wage

Can you give me an example of a healthy industry were the most critical workers are low paid?

[nickpp]

The fewer people interested in taking those "shitty jobs", the more they would get paid. Then the jobs would cease to be shitty.

This is what we should push for, not artificially and undeservedly reward those jobs more and thus trap ever more people into them.

My grandmother was illiterate. That condemned her to a hard life of struggle and hard work. But she stayed on my father's ass to study. My father stayed on my ass and I am staying on my children's. The lesson was so strong, three generations are benefiting.

[pietrovismara]

I fully agree that education is fundamental for everyone to have, but not simply to allow everyone to have a good job. Just because it would make society so much better for everyone.

For this reason I'm also convinced that every single kid should have access to the same high quality education, independently from how much their family pushes them to it.

I'm also convinced that people should have the chance to get back on studies at a later point in life, because it's a delusion to think that every kid will understand the need for education in their teenage years.

[nickpp]

You are forgetting defaults and motivations in humans. By default, my kids would spend all day playing Minecraft. They do not have the motivation to do anything else.

I have to stay on their ass and push them to study. I am motivated to do that because I know how crappy low-level jobs are (I had one). Otherwise my default would be to let them do whatever they want. I love them!

A society which removes the motivation for its members to better themselves is a failed society.

[freedom42]

You got some reasons. But the picture as a whole is different. Many can't make enough money to take care of their loved ones. Many are not lucky to have a grandma that pushed their dad to study. Also one doesn't need to be burned by fire to know it's dangerous.

[nickpp]

Yes and as a society we should increase the number of such "grandmother events", not to remove the very reason mine existed in the first place. A society without competitiveness will fail.

And I don't know a better way to teach most people that fire is dangerous than a controlled burn...