3 ms·

That's an interesting take, but I have a question for you: which is better, benefiting society by benefiting the greatest number of students, or benefiting soci

That's an interesting take, but I have a question for you: which is better, benefiting society by benefiting the greatest number of students, or benefiting society by perhaps spending a little extra on our Einsteins and a little less on our bozos? Society reaps greater benefit from its outliers. I am not sure starving them of education in the name of equality is the way to go for anything but mediocrity. A very fair mediocrity, mind you, but still mediocre. And after all, we want equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, no matter what; to see any other result would be viewed as evidence of a systemic -ism. This is perhaps the reason behind the shuffle of the last few years from equality to equity.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Conversely, I can make an argument that a situation where we focus on benefiting elite students ends up creating a society with an empty middle class, which means there's no large base of moneyed consumers to buy innovations and products that elites create. This could result in innovation stagnating as an underclass of cheap labor is able to compensate for the labor-saving efficiency that technology brings. Then there's the social argument that states should be created for the benefit of the governed. There's a greater debate here about the gini coefficient and its effect on the economy and society, but I don't have an answer to this.