[lionkor]

This is such a shitty American take (or any of the countries that somehow decide the USA is a good model to follow), it's kind of baffling that this is a popular opinion and explains a lot of the social issues (or near lack of social system) you guys have.

You know that technically, people are allowed to have fun and not strive to be a billionaire, right? Its everyones right to pick a path they want, and enjoy, and if they end up providing a service with it, or just contributing to art or science, thats good for humanity and for society.

In fact, this works, if you look at capitalist countries with social support systems, free universities (or very cheap), and so on.

> unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree

Obviously everyone should make some money for themselves and pay taxes, but you're acting like the system falls apart if a couple ten thousand art students decide to live a bit more frugally and instead add to the local culture.

It's embarrassing that we are all part of the same species. Life can be so fantastic when your society accepts that you can just go study whatever you want, and then take a job in that field (or not). Individual success doesn't need to be measured ONLY by your contribution to the tax pool.

If you tax the rich and a couple large companies, spend a little less on harassing poor countries, your entire society can lean back and live a significantly better life. Instead you focus on reducing culture, removing any fun that isn't AI driven corporate data gathering slop, denying poor people health care, denying poor people an education, and leaning back and saying "well, they should try harder to contribute to society".

[tyleo]

I think folks would agree with you in valuing arts and humanities, just that they shouldn’t do it on someone else’s dime. I suspect you’d find that a widely held belief and not just an American one.

It’s hard out there and I have some non-college educated family who also struggled in life wondering why we should pour money into degrees people can’t pay off when they received no help themselves.

[atomicthumbs]

This sort of attitude is how you get a culturally impoverished nation.

[tyleo]

Yeah, I don’t know why people worry about feeding themselves when they could be reading books and looking at art instead.

[rightbyte]

> do it on someone else’s dime.

Money is just a social construct and the amount of tax dollars spent on classes in progressive tea pot clay handcraft is minuscule.

Non-tech academics were more or lessed forced into getting degrees by the job market.

There were no choice involved on part on the victims of a systematic issue, which is, gatekeeping access to middleclass jobs by the parents' bank account size with usury lending as some sort of pressure release valve.

[tyleo]

> Money is just a social construct

I'm not sure what you're trying to say but it hardly matters if "X is social construct" if having it is the difference between struggling and not.

TBH this is the exact thing that frustrates people who get screwed by the system, "Silly peasants! Don't they know that money is just a social construct!"

[rightbyte]

I am trying to say that the game is rigged and the profitability of different university studies is a very bad indicator of anything.

I don't know what to say to those "screwed by The Man" to make them feel better.

[beej71]

> amount of tax dollars spent on classes in progressive tea pot clay handcraft is minuscule.

Seriously. Our debt goes up by $1T every 7 months, but I'm sure dropping even all student loans from all education won't stop it.

I guess I get way more value from having artists in society than most people do. I get a lot of value out of city parks and libraries, too, both perpetual money-losers.

[nradov]

And yet many of our greatest artists never attended college at all.

[rightbyte]

Computer science is not about computers anympre than liberal art studies is about singing etc ...

[nradov]

OK but what's your point? Colleges usually classify performing arts like singing and fine arts like painting or sculpture as separate from liberal arts.

It would be good if more colleges offered majors suited to students interested in building commercial software rather than the theory of computation. Something like a "Bachelor of Fine Arts in Software Development".

[arenaninja]

Why not gather up with other like-minded individuals and fund scholarships and grants if you feel strongly about this? I disagree that taxing the rich is our way out of this. There's a reason the starving artist is a cultural trope.

Not only that but the higher ed industry has abused the hell out of this program. I'm close to people who were studying degrees they will never come close to paying and now they're $100k+ in the hole. The reality is that degree shouldn't have been available to them.

[lionkor]

> Why not gather up with other like-minded individuals and fund scholarships and grants if you feel strongly about this?

Because I live in a country where University is nearly free (like 200-300 bucks per semester). If the third strongest economy in the world can do it, I don't think it's necessary for the other top economies to pull it off without activism or private funds.

[LPisGood]

The reality is the degree should have been entirely funded by the government’s coffers. Funding arts and humanities education is so cheap and provides so much relative societal benefit that it’s a no brainer.

[nradov]

OK but how many? There has to be some upper limit. It's hardly fair to ask citizens who went to work or joined the military out of high school to pay taxes to fund free education for an unlimited number of liberal arts scholars.

[lionkor]

How is that unfair? They still have to work, you know? Free education doesn't mean that you get free money to play with, it means your college or uni is paid for. You still have to work to live, and that's not something anyone can change easily.

> joined the military out of high school to pay taxes to fund free education

If you think that's fair, and that changing it would be unfair, I'm not sure there's a basis for discussion. I think it isn't fair to make people go to the military so they can afford an education, in fact that sounds like something from a backwater 3rd world dictatorship that is struggling to get their military staffed, not a first world country.

[LPisGood]

The military industrial complex is a massive socialist jobs, housing, education, and healthcare program. For some reason it’s one of the only ones people on the right support.

[bluGill]

You are allowed to have fun. Do what you want I don't care. I don't even know you.

However if you want me the taxpayer to pay for the fun it needs to be a good investment for me. Otherwise I want to use my money to have fun myself.

[LPisGood]

Having people highly educated in the arts and humanities is a good investment, albeit not a financial one.

[bluGill]

I don't know. There seem to be a large number of people in the arts and humanities who are communists. Which I consider a terrible investment.

[nagaiaida]

dang, and here some us were doing it for free like suckers

[Zetaphor]

There's so many more things my taxes are being used to fund that I think the majority would agree are a symptoms of waste and corruption, that focusing on people getting a degree in the arts is laughable. The current cost of this war could have paid for decades of healthcare or education.

[mlrtime]

The post is full of inaccuracies. USA has more Art degree graduates as a % of population than Germany, almost double. It is incredibly difficult to get a subsidized art degree in Germany.

Only under 0.4% of the total yearly graduates receives a subsidized state art degree

[lionkor]

Getting an art degree in Germany costs you around 600 euro a year, same as a comp sci degree, a medical degree, etc.

Not sure why you need that subsidized. That's why it's difficult to find subsidies, it simply doesn't make any sense at all for 50 bucks a month (which includes, by the way, free public transport, bus and train).

[ryzvonusef]

I'm not an american, my profile clearly states I'm from the 3rd world.

My father grew up dirt poor, and a basic associate degree (gotten via his saving from a factory job plus a partial scholarship he won) changed his entire trajectory from being a random labourer to an white collar office worker with enough funds to educate his own kids, especially his daughters.

My father and my siblings helped fund my education, a privilege I'm very cognizant of, and I'm very jealous of countries with free education.

But as someone living in a country with a very poor economy and an even poorer tax base, I also have very realistic expectations in terms of what tax money purchases and what reasonable expectations one should have.

I desperately want an expansion in the education base of my country, but also realise the current tax payer base has limit on how much they can pay to purchase this expansion.

And this fact also extrapolates to rich countries, they may have more money but at the end of the day the math is the same, there is a limit to how much they wish to indulge.

In fact I'm currently applying for a chance to win a PhD abroad, which would clearly be funded by foreigner tax payers. I would be at the whims of their largesse to get paid to study, and if I don't win, it's clearly because they do not wish to expand this indulgence to me, a bitter fact I must accept with grace and move on.

I may cry and moan about it, but one has to be realistic about these things.

[selimthegrim]

I don’t understand how IK got elected so many times and not once did he attempt to increase taxpayer base. Is that Jehangir Tareen’s fault?

[ryzvonusef]

bro i'm not touching local political drama with a 10 foot pole

[_DeadFred_]

My country (the USA) just cut taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent by a trillion dollars over the next 10 years

https://itep.org/year-one-of-trump-republican-tax-policy-con...

It is not a matter of being realistic with limited funds. Tax income is not an act of God that we are helpless to control. We chose to lower the tax floor versus having a civil, functioning, improving society where people have something to work toward, optimism that their life will be better, and an ever improving nation. Instead we want social Darwinism pushing people down instead of raising them up (benefiting us all), and people too busy fighting for scraps to improve anything.

I don't recognize post 2000s America. And I don't recognize post 2000s 'conservatives'. They definitely aren't trying to conserve American values nor the American dream. They don't care about fiscal health (see above tax cuts). They don't seem to care about anything. They claim they look out for 'the tax payer' but only in a breathless, we have to do something about this right now, low information high propaganda informercial style reactionary jerking about bullshit kind of way, not in a 'we are building a strong civilization' long term, thoughtful thinking kind of way.

[frogperson]

Very well said. i wish I could give you 1000 upvotes, or better yet a real vote.

[mlrtime]

Message aside, I'm surprised your post is tolerated here. If this same tone was used against the HN group think it would be [deleted]. Be a little more respectful if you want to win minds.