4 ms·

When someone says tuition is free or that healthcare is free what they mean is that using these services doesn’t cost out of pocket expenses and doesn’t lead to

by sykh 8y ago

When someone says tuition is free or that healthcare is free what they mean is that using these services doesn’t cost out of pocket expenses and doesn’t lead to debt. In this sense those services are free.

patricius 8y ago
Well, if we can redefine free to mean "I will let someone else pay for it" or "I will pay for it at some later date", then sure...
- senorjazz 8y ago
  Why are you being facetious? You know very well what they mean and what is meant by "free education". If someone says to you "I am giving this to you for free" do you then then argue "it is not free, someone had to pay for it" :-\
  - patricius 8y ago
    Because when someone writes "the state pays your tuition", it hides the fact that people pay your tuition. Or, depending on your view, you yourself will pay for your tuition through taxes. A lot of people forget, when making a statement like that, what is called free is not in fact free. And when you give something away, we presume that it is not something you have stolen. But the money spent at the point of consumption (i.e., when studying) is forcibly taken from people. <Insert standard libertarian arguments here>
    - Systemic33 8y ago
      It's a cost on society, not on the individual pupil, just like how the education is a gain to the society at large, while the individual effort of the individual may seem negligble. So of course it's free. You are not paying. And you don't pay it over taxes, society does. Think of it this way: If you didn't go to university, and just learned on your own, then you still pay the same taxes if you reach the same income level. So taking a university does not increase your taxes. Ergo free.
      - patricius 8y ago
        > It's a cost on society, not on the individual pupil, just like how the education is a gain to the society at large, while the individual effort of the individual may seem negligble. What is society in this sense but a collection of many individuals that pay, through taxes, to a common pool? Perhaps society gains, perhaps it does not. We can never know. The services are still paid for. > So of course it's free. You are not paying. And you don't pay it over taxes, society does. Think of it this way: If you didn't go to university, and just learned on your own, then you still pay the same taxes if you reach the same income level. So taking a university does not increase your taxes. Ergo free. If I learned on my own, I would just receive less public services for the amount of money I pay in taxes. It doesn't make it more free that my taxes do not increase. It would just make the amount of services that I do receive more expensive.
        guitarbill 8y ago
        You must be American. People have laid out how this "free" services, like education or healthcare, can lead to a more productive, fairer society (e.g. less people off work sick, because they go and get treatment sooner, and recover sooner). Or why do you think tech companies offer good health care? Out of the kindness of their heart? No, because having people worry about basic needs and not get medical treatment when they need it is counter-productive. But it seems like all you care about is how many taxes you pay, and how much you get back for it. Fair enough, if you're selfish and have no compassion for your fellow countrymen and the next generation that much, we won't be able to sway you.
        patricius 8y ago
        > You must be American. I'm Danish :-) > People have laid out how this "free" services, like education or healthcare, can lead to a more productive, fairer society (e.g. less people off work sick, because they go and get treatment sooner, and recover sooner). I can point you to countless articles, anecdotes and videos showing the exact opposite. > Or why do you think tech companies offer good health care? Out of the kindness of their heart? No, because having people worry about basic needs and not get medical treatment when they need it is counter-productive. I don't disagree on your statement about basic needs, and as your own example illustrates, these can be served by the private sector. But the reason most companies in the US offer healthcare to their employees goes back to the time of FDR, when it was illegal for a while to compete on wages but not on benefits (if I remember correctly). > But it seems like all you care about is how many taxes you pay, and how much you get back for it. Fair enough, if you're selfish and have no compassion for your fellow countrymen and the next generation that much, we won't be able to sway you. I care about the taxes everyone pays. It seems paradoxical to me to claim, for example, to care about the poor and at the same time make everything expensive through taxation.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  Also see what I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577 The vast majority of people who pay(ed) for actually pretty much everything are all dead. Because the reason for our exorbitant productivity in all sectors producing the essentials for live (compared with a base level thousands of years ago) is accumulated knowledge, culture and tools created by people long dead. So relax, the expenses have long been paid. We are enjoying the inheritance mostly - and network effects of a huge human network in space and in time (that's the larger part). Let us use those network effects - they are not attributable to individuals. Nobody is taking anything away from you since you are not responsible in any way for those network effects. Nobody individually is, we are just darn lucky. People who sit in central network positions even more so, they can control and create A LOT of wealth - by controlling the human network. Which they did not create - just filling positions is not "creating the network". The idea and the culture where all developed by all of us (and the dead), and the state and the laws provide the structure that support it all. Your productivity is the way it is because yo benefit from your location in this network! If you want to see what you alone can achieve go alone into the forest. Don't take any tools with you, even a hammer is high tech (steel!). About "network effects": Compare what a million unconnected humans could achieve (a million mud huts? a million basic stone tools?) with the network output.
- sykh 8y ago
  It’s not a redefining of terms. People abuse language and speak in ways that aren’t necessarily technically correct. For instance many times a person will say “fine” when asked how they are doing even if they really aren’t doing fine. Here fine is mostly used as an acknowledgement of the other person's greeting. I gave an interpretation of what people really mean by “education is free”. If you wish to argue that people who say this phrase don’t mean what I say it means then do so. I might be wrong. But don’t get all pedantic on the dictionary definitions of words. We are talking about what people mean when they say something not what it logically ought to mean. It appears surprising to you that not everyone is precise in what they say. Sometimes people say what they mean and sometimes they mean what they say. But lots of times they don’t. If this is a surprise to you then I implore you to reconsider your understanding of the nature of human communication.
  - patricius 8y ago
    > It appears surprising to you that not everyone is precise in what they say. Sometimes people say what they mean and sometimes they mean what they say. But lots of times they don’t. If this is a surprise to you then I implore you to reconsider your understanding of the nature of human communication. I am aware what people mean when they call a public service free. I meant to remind people that the cost does not disappear, which is not obvious to everyone.

by sykh 8y ago

patricius 8y ago

Well, if we can redefine free to mean "I will let someone else pay for it" or "I will pay for it at some later date", then sure...

senorjazz 8y ago
Why are you being facetious? You know very well what they mean and what is meant by "free education". If someone says to you "I am giving this to you for free" do you then then argue "it is not free, someone had to pay for it" :-\
- patricius 8y ago
  Because when someone writes "the state pays your tuition", it hides the fact that people pay your tuition. Or, depending on your view, you yourself will pay for your tuition through taxes. A lot of people forget, when making a statement like that, what is called free is not in fact free. And when you give something away, we presume that it is not something you have stolen. But the money spent at the point of consumption (i.e., when studying) is forcibly taken from people. <Insert standard libertarian arguments here>
  - Systemic33 8y ago
    It's a cost on society, not on the individual pupil, just like how the education is a gain to the society at large, while the individual effort of the individual may seem negligble. So of course it's free. You are not paying. And you don't pay it over taxes, society does. Think of it this way: If you didn't go to university, and just learned on your own, then you still pay the same taxes if you reach the same income level. So taking a university does not increase your taxes. Ergo free.
    - patricius 8y ago
      > It's a cost on society, not on the individual pupil, just like how the education is a gain to the society at large, while the individual effort of the individual may seem negligble. What is society in this sense but a collection of many individuals that pay, through taxes, to a common pool? Perhaps society gains, perhaps it does not. We can never know. The services are still paid for. > So of course it's free. You are not paying. And you don't pay it over taxes, society does. Think of it this way: If you didn't go to university, and just learned on your own, then you still pay the same taxes if you reach the same income level. So taking a university does not increase your taxes. Ergo free. If I learned on my own, I would just receive less public services for the amount of money I pay in taxes. It doesn't make it more free that my taxes do not increase. It would just make the amount of services that I do receive more expensive.
      - guitarbill 8y ago
        You must be American. People have laid out how this "free" services, like education or healthcare, can lead to a more productive, fairer society (e.g. less people off work sick, because they go and get treatment sooner, and recover sooner). Or why do you think tech companies offer good health care? Out of the kindness of their heart? No, because having people worry about basic needs and not get medical treatment when they need it is counter-productive. But it seems like all you care about is how many taxes you pay, and how much you get back for it. Fair enough, if you're selfish and have no compassion for your fellow countrymen and the next generation that much, we won't be able to sway you.
        patricius 8y ago
        > You must be American. I'm Danish :-) > People have laid out how this "free" services, like education or healthcare, can lead to a more productive, fairer society (e.g. less people off work sick, because they go and get treatment sooner, and recover sooner). I can point you to countless articles, anecdotes and videos showing the exact opposite. > Or why do you think tech companies offer good health care? Out of the kindness of their heart? No, because having people worry about basic needs and not get medical treatment when they need it is counter-productive. I don't disagree on your statement about basic needs, and as your own example illustrates, these can be served by the private sector. But the reason most companies in the US offer healthcare to their employees goes back to the time of FDR, when it was illegal for a while to compete on wages but not on benefits (if I remember correctly). > But it seems like all you care about is how many taxes you pay, and how much you get back for it. Fair enough, if you're selfish and have no compassion for your fellow countrymen and the next generation that much, we won't be able to sway you. I care about the taxes everyone pays. It seems paradoxical to me to claim, for example, to care about the poor and at the same time make everything expensive through taxation.
ItsMe000001 8y ago
Also see what I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577 The vast majority of people who pay(ed) for actually pretty much everything are all dead. Because the reason for our exorbitant productivity in all sectors producing the essentials for live (compared with a base level thousands of years ago) is accumulated knowledge, culture and tools created by people long dead. So relax, the expenses have long been paid. We are enjoying the inheritance mostly - and network effects of a huge human network in space and in time (that's the larger part). Let us use those network effects - they are not attributable to individuals. Nobody is taking anything away from you since you are not responsible in any way for those network effects. Nobody individually is, we are just darn lucky. People who sit in central network positions even more so, they can control and create A LOT of wealth - by controlling the human network. Which they did not create - just filling positions is not "creating the network". The idea and the culture where all developed by all of us (and the dead), and the state and the laws provide the structure that support it all. Your productivity is the way it is because yo benefit from your location in this network! If you want to see what you alone can achieve go alone into the forest. Don't take any tools with you, even a hammer is high tech (steel!). About "network effects": Compare what a million unconnected humans could achieve (a million mud huts? a million basic stone tools?) with the network output.
sykh 8y ago
It’s not a redefining of terms. People abuse language and speak in ways that aren’t necessarily technically correct. For instance many times a person will say “fine” when asked how they are doing even if they really aren’t doing fine. Here fine is mostly used as an acknowledgement of the other person's greeting. I gave an interpretation of what people really mean by “education is free”. If you wish to argue that people who say this phrase don’t mean what I say it means then do so. I might be wrong. But don’t get all pedantic on the dictionary definitions of words. We are talking about what people mean when they say something not what it logically ought to mean. It appears surprising to you that not everyone is precise in what they say. Sometimes people say what they mean and sometimes they mean what they say. But lots of times they don’t. If this is a surprise to you then I implore you to reconsider your understanding of the nature of human communication.
- patricius 8y ago
  > It appears surprising to you that not everyone is precise in what they say. Sometimes people say what they mean and sometimes they mean what they say. But lots of times they don’t. If this is a surprise to you then I implore you to reconsider your understanding of the nature of human communication. I am aware what people mean when they call a public service free. I meant to remind people that the cost does not disappear, which is not obvious to everyone.