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Spending on education/tuition is how middle-class Americans ensure the lower class ones stay down there. If spending on schooling was capped the way most things

by Tycho 10y ago

Spending on education/tuition is how middle-class Americans ensure the lower class ones stay down there. If spending on schooling was capped the way most things are capped then there would be much more competition for 'white-collar' jobs. eg. middle class families may spend a little more on food on average but they are not going to spend 'beyond their means' on lavish cuisine in the hope that it will ensure a health advantage, because it obviously won't. The same is largely true of the quality of education available - there's no reason why the outcome (actual learning) should get much better by spending excessively on it. But then you have to factor in the signalling and filtering aspects.

chaostheory 10y ago
The middle class is not spending money on education to keep others 'down'. They're doing it to keep from getting trampled themselves. EDIT: I'm also going to disagree with you on this as well: "spend 'beyond their means' on lavish cuisine in the hope that it will ensure a health advantage, because it obviously won't" Regardless as to whether or not organic and non-GMO food actually has better health benefits, people do not shop at Whole Foods just so they can show off the green bag to everyone else. Unlike say fashion, automobiles, or even gadgets, groceries are not ideal for 'signaling' Believe it or not, most people don't have the luxury (or even the inclination) of sitting in a nice chair with their mean looking cat dreaming up ways of hurting others. Most people are just trying to get by... though obviously this greatly varies from person to person.
- MawNicker 10y ago
  You're making a distinction about their intent but not their effect.
  - chaostheory 10y ago
    Yes, you're right. I strongly feel that it's very important to have more empathy for people regardless of their background. Demonizing people who are different from you with an accusation without merit doesn't help anyone.
    - MawNicker 10y ago
      I agree. It's an aggressive gambit. Fix this or you're X (bad thing) and people will hate you. That being said, people have a tendency to lean on the crutch of intentions. Which is itself just a more subtle gambit. It's acceptance implies that anyone can do anything for which a positive intention is conceivable. In this instance, the result is a blatant signaling game that the middle class necessarily appreciates the consequences of. They jockey for status using the commoditized correlates of worth. They have alienated us each from ourselves. From our actual worth or ability to do anything. Of course they're just trying to ensure what's best for themselves. But they increasingly do so with a grotesque and ruthless ignorance of how it impacts the people around them. Something has to mediate this. Otherwise the incentive is ultimately for everyone to abandon empathy. EDIT: Hmm. I seem to be shadow-banned. I'll reply here: I didn't do that. I did try to identify those things they were doing (intentionally or not) that were damaging and why they were doing them. I did this while acknowledging the nature of the labeling that was taking place. I tried to instill bilateral empathy instead of merely throwing my hands up and calling them name-callers. We can also have empathy for such people. They're not that out of line. The competitive behavior of the middle class is seemingly demonic. Especially from certain perspectives. I don't know where you're getting this demagogue stuff or the bit about the blind application of labels. We're all humans and we're all making observations of our local reality. In this tangent you seem to be perpetrating the no-name-calling philosophy you claim to oppose. EDIT EDIT: Ah. My mistake.
      - chaostheory 10y ago
        No one is accepting the bad consequences of intent. However, you're not going to get any constructive conversation if you're going the route of a demagogue and just blindly applying a very strong, simple label on millions of people. Historically, that never turns out well. If anything this just distracts people from the actual problems that need to be solved. EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of writing things that a demagogue would say. That was meant for Tycho, but I just wanted to make my stance more clear for you. EDIT: My bad. You're right. There was no need to use demagogue; I'm also human as well. Like I said, it's very hard to have constructive conversation with strong accusations flying around. EDIT: I could be wrong but you're not shadowbanned. To prevent conversations from spiraling out of control like they do elsewhere, HN limits replies for certain sized threads with a time limit so people can think straight before replying again.
- Tycho 10y ago
  Trampled by what? A stampede of equally qualified candidates? That's exactly my point. Also I'm not sure my point about food was clear. I'm saying give a poor family an extra $5k to spend for healthier food, and it could make a significant difference. But give them $50k (for food) more and it has no additional health benefit. But give them $50k, $250k, $500k to spend on schooling and suddenly it leads to great differences in outcome.
  - chaostheory 10y ago
    > Trampled by what? A stampede of equally qualified candidates? That's exactly my point. From my understanding, your point is that people are doing this with malice with the conscious intention of hurting other people. That's very different from survival. I still also feel that's a baseless accusation. > But give them $50k, $250k, $500k to spend on schooling and suddenly it leads to great differences in outcome. The flaw in your logic is assuming that all or even most education is equal. Of course, because even if you don't take into account 'signalling' not all education is equal. Spending 160k on a technical diploma mill (yes these exist and they target the poor) is obviously going to net vastly different results from spending the same money on an Ivy League institution. In reality, the Ivy League university is probably going to cost a lot less if you're poor. (For the record, I attended a public uni). This is even more evident when you start looking at education outside of the US.
    - Tycho 10y ago
      This has got nothing to do with 'survival.' Nobody is going to starve because they didn't get a university degree. We're talking about relative status within a class system. More specifically menial jobs vs. nice jobs. Not all education is equal but there's no particularly good reason for the runaway costs. Quite simply, the middle class are willing to tolerate ridiculous tuition costs because it lets them stay ahead of the poor.
      - chaostheory 10y ago
        > This has got nothing to do with 'survival.' The meaning of survival will vary from person to person. imo 'survival' for the middle class means not living paycheck to paycheck or having to work multiple part time jobs i.e. having a 'nice' job. While it's possible to achieve this without a degree, it's also a lot more difficult to do so without a degree. Again regardless of what survival means for different people, my point stands: most people don't value education in order to 'keep the lower class down', they value it so they can 'get by' > Not all education is equal but there's no particularly good reason for the runaway costs. There IS a good reason for it. Given the success of 40k and up a year diploma mills that target the poor; everyone, including the poor, has access to easy credit when it comes to funding education. Hence the runaway education costs. http://blog.credit.com/2015/07/are-student-loans-causing-college-tuitions-to-skyrocket-120860/ http://blog.credit.com/2015/07/are-student-loans-causing-col...
danharaj 10y ago
The distinction between middle class and lower class is such a strange one to me. The majority of the middle class still rely on employment to survive. Yes, they make more and therefore have more stuff, but their relationship to the economy as a whole is not fundamentally less precarious than the lower class. They're all working class.
- Tycho 10y ago
  don't you think blue-collar and white-collar employment are fundamentally different? it's true that in both cases you need a paycheque to survive, so they are perhaps more similar to each other than to truly self-sufficient life styles or the FUM class (fuck-you money), but that doesn't eliminate the important distinctions that remain between them
  - HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
    Not really. I remember some years back waiting in line at a boat dock and mentioning to my friend the parade of new shiny boats towed by new shiny trucks. His reply was, "look who owns all those expensive boats: plumbers and electricians. They're the ones who make the real money." The "irony" that a friend of mine who is an EE with an MBA and manages group at a large corporation was looking into getting a low-voltage electrician's license was not lost on me.
    - otoburb 10y ago
      The sticking point for your friend is that apprenticeship or equivalent and relevant electrical experience requirements tend to be full-time.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  The whole schmeer is wildly incoherent and will never make any sense. I've done the "real estate because schools" thing; that school system imploded because of the local gentry interfering with it. That system also had a 33% dropout rate while the valedictorian went to Harvard medical. You have to use public schools as a resource for getting your kids educated. Teaching is semi-de-professionalized because of careerism and magical thinking. My youngest went on the basically teach time management to lost little children at an expensive private university. Now she's shut of the whole education system. Turns out training dogs is a better business model.
jasonthevillain 10y ago
> how middle-class Americans ensure the lower class ones stay down there I'm seeing this attitude a lot and it befuddles me. I've heard a lot of wild theories on _why_ poor people stay poor, but never rooting for them to stay poor. That's a lot different than trying to help your own kids get ahead.
- MawNicker 10y ago
  > That's a lot different than trying to help your own kids get ahead. Wow! Really? Who exactly are they getting "ahead" of? And what is the other person being made except for behind?
  - nthj 10y ago
    I always took that expression to mean “having cash in the bank on the day before payday"; maybe that's not how it was coined, but it's certainly possible for a person to get ahead of his own situation without comparing himself to another.
  - Retra 10y ago
    Most children don't have any merit or security unless they do something to earn it as they become adults. They are getting ahead of where they would be if they did nothing.

by Tycho 10y ago

chaostheory 10y ago

The middle class is not spending money on education to keep others 'down'. They're doing it to keep from getting trampled themselves. EDIT: I'm also going to disagree with you on this as well: "spend 'beyond their means' on lavish cuisine in the hope that it will ensure a health advantage, because it obviously won't" Regardless as to whether or not organic and non-GMO food actually has better health benefits, people do not shop at Whole Foods just so they can show off the green bag to everyone else. Unlike say fashion, automobiles, or even gadgets, groceries are not ideal for 'signaling' Believe it or not, most people don't have the luxury (or even the inclination) of sitting in a nice chair with their mean looking cat dreaming up ways of hurting others. Most people are just trying to get by... though obviously this greatly varies from person to person.

MawNicker 10y ago
You're making a distinction about their intent but not their effect.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  Yes, you're right. I strongly feel that it's very important to have more empathy for people regardless of their background. Demonizing people who are different from you with an accusation without merit doesn't help anyone.
  - MawNicker 10y ago
    I agree. It's an aggressive gambit. Fix this or you're X (bad thing) and people will hate you. That being said, people have a tendency to lean on the crutch of intentions. Which is itself just a more subtle gambit. It's acceptance implies that anyone can do anything for which a positive intention is conceivable. In this instance, the result is a blatant signaling game that the middle class necessarily appreciates the consequences of. They jockey for status using the commoditized correlates of worth. They have alienated us each from ourselves. From our actual worth or ability to do anything. Of course they're just trying to ensure what's best for themselves. But they increasingly do so with a grotesque and ruthless ignorance of how it impacts the people around them. Something has to mediate this. Otherwise the incentive is ultimately for everyone to abandon empathy. EDIT: Hmm. I seem to be shadow-banned. I'll reply here: I didn't do that. I did try to identify those things they were doing (intentionally or not) that were damaging and why they were doing them. I did this while acknowledging the nature of the labeling that was taking place. I tried to instill bilateral empathy instead of merely throwing my hands up and calling them name-callers. We can also have empathy for such people. They're not that out of line. The competitive behavior of the middle class is seemingly demonic. Especially from certain perspectives. I don't know where you're getting this demagogue stuff or the bit about the blind application of labels. We're all humans and we're all making observations of our local reality. In this tangent you seem to be perpetrating the no-name-calling philosophy you claim to oppose. EDIT EDIT: Ah. My mistake.
    - chaostheory 10y ago
      No one is accepting the bad consequences of intent. However, you're not going to get any constructive conversation if you're going the route of a demagogue and just blindly applying a very strong, simple label on millions of people. Historically, that never turns out well. If anything this just distracts people from the actual problems that need to be solved. EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of writing things that a demagogue would say. That was meant for Tycho, but I just wanted to make my stance more clear for you. EDIT: My bad. You're right. There was no need to use demagogue; I'm also human as well. Like I said, it's very hard to have constructive conversation with strong accusations flying around. EDIT: I could be wrong but you're not shadowbanned. To prevent conversations from spiraling out of control like they do elsewhere, HN limits replies for certain sized threads with a time limit so people can think straight before replying again.
Tycho 10y ago
Trampled by what? A stampede of equally qualified candidates? That's exactly my point. Also I'm not sure my point about food was clear. I'm saying give a poor family an extra $5k to spend for healthier food, and it could make a significant difference. But give them $50k (for food) more and it has no additional health benefit. But give them $50k, $250k, $500k to spend on schooling and suddenly it leads to great differences in outcome.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  > Trampled by what? A stampede of equally qualified candidates? That's exactly my point. From my understanding, your point is that people are doing this with malice with the conscious intention of hurting other people. That's very different from survival. I still also feel that's a baseless accusation. > But give them $50k, $250k, $500k to spend on schooling and suddenly it leads to great differences in outcome. The flaw in your logic is assuming that all or even most education is equal. Of course, because even if you don't take into account 'signalling' not all education is equal. Spending 160k on a technical diploma mill (yes these exist and they target the poor) is obviously going to net vastly different results from spending the same money on an Ivy League institution. In reality, the Ivy League university is probably going to cost a lot less if you're poor. (For the record, I attended a public uni). This is even more evident when you start looking at education outside of the US.
  - Tycho 10y ago
    This has got nothing to do with 'survival.' Nobody is going to starve because they didn't get a university degree. We're talking about relative status within a class system. More specifically menial jobs vs. nice jobs. Not all education is equal but there's no particularly good reason for the runaway costs. Quite simply, the middle class are willing to tolerate ridiculous tuition costs because it lets them stay ahead of the poor.
    - chaostheory 10y ago
      > This has got nothing to do with 'survival.' The meaning of survival will vary from person to person. imo 'survival' for the middle class means not living paycheck to paycheck or having to work multiple part time jobs i.e. having a 'nice' job. While it's possible to achieve this without a degree, it's also a lot more difficult to do so without a degree. Again regardless of what survival means for different people, my point stands: most people don't value education in order to 'keep the lower class down', they value it so they can 'get by' > Not all education is equal but there's no particularly good reason for the runaway costs. There IS a good reason for it. Given the success of 40k and up a year diploma mills that target the poor; everyone, including the poor, has access to easy credit when it comes to funding education. Hence the runaway education costs. http://blog.credit.com/2015/07/are-student-loans-causing-college-tuitions-to-skyrocket-120860/ http://blog.credit.com/2015/07/are-student-loans-causing-col...

danharaj 10y ago

The distinction between middle class and lower class is such a strange one to me. The majority of the middle class still rely on employment to survive. Yes, they make more and therefore have more stuff, but their relationship to the economy as a whole is not fundamentally less precarious than the lower class. They're all working class.

Tycho 10y ago
don't you think blue-collar and white-collar employment are fundamentally different? it's true that in both cases you need a paycheque to survive, so they are perhaps more similar to each other than to truly self-sufficient life styles or the FUM class (fuck-you money), but that doesn't eliminate the important distinctions that remain between them
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
  Not really. I remember some years back waiting in line at a boat dock and mentioning to my friend the parade of new shiny boats towed by new shiny trucks. His reply was, "look who owns all those expensive boats: plumbers and electricians. They're the ones who make the real money." The "irony" that a friend of mine who is an EE with an MBA and manages group at a large corporation was looking into getting a low-voltage electrician's license was not lost on me.
  - otoburb 10y ago
    The sticking point for your friend is that apprenticeship or equivalent and relevant electrical experience requirements tend to be full-time.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
The whole schmeer is wildly incoherent and will never make any sense. I've done the "real estate because schools" thing; that school system imploded because of the local gentry interfering with it. That system also had a 33% dropout rate while the valedictorian went to Harvard medical. You have to use public schools as a resource for getting your kids educated. Teaching is semi-de-professionalized because of careerism and magical thinking. My youngest went on the basically teach time management to lost little children at an expensive private university. Now she's shut of the whole education system. Turns out training dogs is a better business model.

jasonthevillain 10y ago

> how middle-class Americans ensure the lower class ones stay down there I'm seeing this attitude a lot and it befuddles me. I've heard a lot of wild theories on _why_ poor people stay poor, but never rooting for them to stay poor. That's a lot different than trying to help your own kids get ahead.

MawNicker 10y ago
> That's a lot different than trying to help your own kids get ahead. Wow! Really? Who exactly are they getting "ahead" of? And what is the other person being made except for behind?
- nthj 10y ago
  I always took that expression to mean “having cash in the bank on the day before payday"; maybe that's not how it was coined, but it's certainly possible for a person to get ahead of his own situation without comparing himself to another.
- Retra 10y ago
  Most children don't have any merit or security unless they do something to earn it as they become adults. They are getting ahead of where they would be if they did nothing.