[Hendrikto]

Even if you never personally needed health insurance (which is unrealistic), you’d still benefit from a better, safer, less cut throat society.

Same with education. I am more than happy to pay taxes for an education system, even if I do not personally have children.

[catlikesshrimp]

There are both private and public health care systems. Private care is a complicated scam, the small print is tens of times the contract.

Public health systems vary with country. Private advocates say public sucks, until it is their turn to be scammed.

[mothballed]

What's 'paid' to the median child in education is a pittance compared to what the payers suck back out of them in old age during social security.

Public education is largely a scam to put 'original sin' of debt of children to society so when they grow up there is some plausible explanation that "we're a society" and they must feed into the pyramid scheme.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> What's 'paid' to the median child in education is a pittance compared to what the payers suck back out of them in old age during social security.

I'm not sure what nation you're from, but here, in the US, we pay a fairly significant part of our wages towards something called "Social Security."

If we pay a lot, during our working time, we can draw more, after retirement (and it is nowhere near a living wage -it was never meant to be).

In my country, we pay for education with property taxes.

[czl]

I hear you on intergenerational stuff. I just don’t think “public education is a scam” fits what most kids actually receive.

Kids are not only getting classroom time. They inherit a whole baseline that previous taxpayers built: safer streets, clean water, courts that mostly function, vaccines, roads, libraries, stable money, and the accumulated tech and culture that makes modern jobs even possible. That bundle is huge, and it starts paying out long before anyone is old enough to “owe” anything.

Also, adults are not literally trapped. People can move, downshift, opt out of a lot, or choose different communities. Most don’t, even when they complain loudly, and to me that’s a pretty strong signal the deal is at least somewhat reasonable. Not perfect. Not fair for everyone. But not a cartoon pyramid scheme either.

If there’s a real fight worth having, it’s making the burdens and benefits less lopsided across generations, not pretending the whole social investment in kids is fake.