5 ms·

- Free healthcare - Free high quality education There is no free anything. Perhaps if you called it 'free-at-the-point-of-use-but-definately-paid-for-by-someo

- Free healthcare - Free high quality education There is no free anything. Perhaps if you called it 'free-at-the-point-of-use-but-definately-paid-for-by-someone-else' it would clarify why such nice things are difficult to achieve in the real world.

mandmandam 5y ago
Laughs in 'rest of the developed world'. Free education and free healthcare more than pay for themselves; not just psychologically and morally but economically.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > Laughs in 'rest of the developed world'. Don't be a dick. > Free education and free healthcare more than pay for themselves… I didn't say they didn't. But they do require someone to pay for it. And those someone's aren't normally the kind of people attracted to a frontier, libertarian concept like building a new city.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Eh I’m not sure on the education piece of healthcare even. For education I mean that’s a no-brainer controversial one. Is it worth it for society to spend resources to train more writers or art history majors? Not sure it is. At least it isn’t obvious to me. While I’m a proponent of UHC as well I think we do have to look at why people need healthcare. Is it because they are obese and just don’t care? If so more healthcare isn’t a good thing unless they also change underlying habits which lead to the need for healthcare in the first place. And also obviously someone is paying for these things. “Laughs in the rest of the developed world” is a really immature comment, especially as we start to see universities in that developed world start to sneak back in fees for things. There is no free lunch. Everything costs something. Maybe we are taxing billionaires or w/e is in vogue right now but it still costs money. By making it “free” we also separate out useful market elements - like instead of going to school to be an art history major maybe for free, maybe you should bear some of the burden for a less useful degree than say computer science where there is a need, or plumbing or electricians. “Liberal arts educations are valuable etc” yea read a book or use the Internet. If you’re not willing to do that freely on your own a university isn’t helping you there and I really doubt the costs are justified.
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    > Is it worth it for society to spend resources to train more writers or art history majors? Yes. Do you know why ? Because there's barely anyone doing that, relative to the total amount of students. Not only is it a small amount of people, despite the STEM circlejerk, humanities are some of the more important subjects we could teach. A country without writers or historians sounds like a hellscape to me. >yea read a book or use the Internet This is not how teaching works. > Is it because they are obese and just don’t care? If so more healthcare isn’t a good thing unless they also change underlying habits which lead to the need for healthcare in the first place. Costs have been rising recently because of that, yes, but pretending it's an exclusive choice is ridiculous. You can have universal health care _and_ fight off obesity, or smoking, with success. > By making it “free” we also separate out useful market elements - like instead of going to school to be an art history major maybe for free, maybe you should bear some of the burden for a less useful degree than say computer science where there is a need, or plumbing or electricians. Fuck the market. You don't get to pick what people study because they don't fit your closed world view. Once again, screw your STEM circlejerk. I'll happily laugh in the rest of the first world.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
Oh no, my 400€ taken from my salary help cover for an entire society and prevents me from going into life-crippling debt when taking an ambulance! The US is the only country with such wealth that is unable to set it up, and pays more than double than any european country with free healthcare per inhabitant. The real world is calling, and it's telling you the US's approach to health care is more fitting of a third world country.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  I couldn't agree with you more - I'm not an American either. Perhaps you could take 5 minutes to ponder the assumptions you make about the nationality op anonymous posters.

mandmandam 5y ago

Laughs in 'rest of the developed world'. Free education and free healthcare more than pay for themselves; not just psychologically and morally but economically.

throwaway210222 5y ago
> Laughs in 'rest of the developed world'. Don't be a dick. > Free education and free healthcare more than pay for themselves… I didn't say they didn't. But they do require someone to pay for it. And those someone's aren't normally the kind of people attracted to a frontier, libertarian concept like building a new city.
ericmay 5y ago
Eh I’m not sure on the education piece of healthcare even. For education I mean that’s a no-brainer controversial one. Is it worth it for society to spend resources to train more writers or art history majors? Not sure it is. At least it isn’t obvious to me. While I’m a proponent of UHC as well I think we do have to look at why people need healthcare. Is it because they are obese and just don’t care? If so more healthcare isn’t a good thing unless they also change underlying habits which lead to the need for healthcare in the first place. And also obviously someone is paying for these things. “Laughs in the rest of the developed world” is a really immature comment, especially as we start to see universities in that developed world start to sneak back in fees for things. There is no free lunch. Everything costs something. Maybe we are taxing billionaires or w/e is in vogue right now but it still costs money. By making it “free” we also separate out useful market elements - like instead of going to school to be an art history major maybe for free, maybe you should bear some of the burden for a less useful degree than say computer science where there is a need, or plumbing or electricians. “Liberal arts educations are valuable etc” yea read a book or use the Internet. If you’re not willing to do that freely on your own a university isn’t helping you there and I really doubt the costs are justified.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  > Is it worth it for society to spend resources to train more writers or art history majors? Yes. Do you know why ? Because there's barely anyone doing that, relative to the total amount of students. Not only is it a small amount of people, despite the STEM circlejerk, humanities are some of the more important subjects we could teach. A country without writers or historians sounds like a hellscape to me. >yea read a book or use the Internet This is not how teaching works. > Is it because they are obese and just don’t care? If so more healthcare isn’t a good thing unless they also change underlying habits which lead to the need for healthcare in the first place. Costs have been rising recently because of that, yes, but pretending it's an exclusive choice is ridiculous. You can have universal health care _and_ fight off obesity, or smoking, with success. > By making it “free” we also separate out useful market elements - like instead of going to school to be an art history major maybe for free, maybe you should bear some of the burden for a less useful degree than say computer science where there is a need, or plumbing or electricians. Fuck the market. You don't get to pick what people study because they don't fit your closed world view. Once again, screw your STEM circlejerk. I'll happily laugh in the rest of the first world.

ohgodplsno 5y ago

Oh no, my 400€ taken from my salary help cover for an entire society and prevents me from going into life-crippling debt when taking an ambulance! The US is the only country with such wealth that is unable to set it up, and pays more than double than any european country with free healthcare per inhabitant. The real world is calling, and it's telling you the US's approach to health care is more fitting of a third world country.

throwaway210222 5y ago
I couldn't agree with you more - I'm not an American either. Perhaps you could take 5 minutes to ponder the assumptions you make about the nationality op anonymous posters.