[nradov]

Fixing potholes properly so that they stay fixed requires some specialized equipment. It's not the kind of stuff that everyone can keep in the corner of their garage. I certainly don't want random neighbors doing it because they'll end up making the situation worse for everyone.

[quacked]

Jesus Christ, this is like trying to convince the blind men that the elephant exists. What, do you think it takes a lifetime of practice to operate specialized equipment? They send a crew of high school dropouts and semi-fluent immigrants to do the potholes in my street and the potholes are fixed just fine.

You can walk on to a pothole crew and be considered a functional crew member inside a single season. Sure, I don't want you fixing my potholes because you don't know how to do it, but if I happened to live next to those pothole guys, I'd be happy with my neighbors fixing my potholes. Now, let's assess the difference between them and you: they have at least a few hundred hours of pothole repair practice, and you don't. It's too bad that you're incapable of learning how to do that.

I bet you think that good grades are important, don't you? Without grades, you never know what kind of unqualified whack job might start Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Whole Foods, Uber, Dell, Dropbox... that's why we need those pothole guys to only ever work on potholes- you never know what kind of whack job might start jackhammering your street and "making the situation worse for everyone else".

[zozbot234]

> They send a crew of high school dropouts and semi-fluent immigrants to do the potholes in my street and the potholes are fixed just fine.

That's not really fixing the potholes, they're basically putting a band-aid on it and calling it a day. "Fixing" a pot-holed street in a long-term sense may require literally rebuilding that piece of the street from the ground up.