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American society depends on personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare, retirement, and employment. Your child's education is usually an honorable ex

American society depends on personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare, retirement, and employment. Your child's education is usually an honorable exception to this in that it's totally government run and borderline volunteer-run, but funding for that is not adequate to the point where you can reasonably expect it to continue as usual in the midst of a global pandemic. The sooner you can come to terms with this, the better will be the outcome for your child. I recommend looking up resources on sharing childcare and teaching with other parents in addition to your kids' teachers.

throwoutway 5y ago
Research after research comes out pointing to the fact that parents should be directly involved in their children's education. > Your child's education is usually an honorable exception to this in that it's totally government run It is sad that this is the case
- syki 5y ago
  Consider the median in terms of intelligence. For each subject taught in school take the median in terms ability to explain things to a child in a constructive way. Almost everyone falls below the median in multiple categories. Hence what’s best for the child, and society too, is to attempt to organize things in such a way that the child is taught by people above the median in intelligence and above the median in teaching ability in the subject taught by that person. At scale this requires a government solution unless we are ok saying “screw you” to those who are less than rich.
ilteris 5y ago
Agreed, we should all come to terms with this and work towards is the point of my small rant as well. Thank you for clarifying.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  Also, I wouldn't worry too much about standardized tests if you have any insight into the conditions that usually influence the results. I have details in my other comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29805200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29805200 – in short, they can be quite easily influenced by factors extrinsic to knowledge retention even in non-pandemic times; and there have been a lot of those factors recently.
throwawaygh 5y ago
> personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare Pre-retirement: I don't take any personal responsibility for healthcare. It’s not an option. My employer provides me with a menu of more-or-less completely standardized options. Those options even specify how often I should go to general checks-ups and strictly police my access to specialists. I have very little power to control my own consumption of healthcare, aside from the things that almost all countries delegate to individuals: attending my regular check-ups and avoiding the obvious vices. At least in Germany I could get access to a specialist without first finding a doctor who is expert at interacting with automated processes at some actuarial firm. The biggest choice I can ever make is “do I take on a bit more risk so that I can stow away money pre-tax in an HSA”. Post-retirement: Medicare. > retirement All Americans pay into SS and a huge portion of retirees do/will depend mostly on SS income to be able to retire. Even without SS, one in five Americans have a pension. The rest (who can afford to save for retirement) probably have a 401(K) with a small menu of target date funds. There are some tricks you can play on the side, sure, but they’re marginal. The rest is post-tax savings; again, afforded to most individuals in most (all) western societies. > employment I’m not sure how this is different from places like Europe or even China/Russia. In fact, the US is a bit of an outlier to the other extreme. As best I can tell, the US Department of Defense is undeniably the world’s largest social jobs program.
- lmm 5y ago
  > I’m not sure how this is different from places like Europe or even China/Russia. In most developed countries it's illegal to fire someone without good cause.
- johnkpaul 5y ago
  > The rest (who can afford to save for retirement) probably have a 401(K) with a small menu of target date funds If by have, you mean use, my own anecdata is quite the opposite. Everyone I know that isn’t in tech/software, is not contributing to their retirement plans that are offered. Maybe they “have” them with a 0 balance.
jdminhbg 5y ago
> funding for that is not adequate to the point where you can reasonably expect it to continue as usual in the midst of a global pandemic The US spends way more on education per capita than many countries that were able to keep their schools open during 2020-2021: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > The US spends way more on education per capita than many countries that were able to keep their schools open during 2020-2021: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd The US also spends way more on healthcare and has worse outcomes. Those countries also have way different societies, taxation regimes, healthcare, attitudes towards vaccination, and social safety nets. It's hard to find a country that you can fairly compare the US to in all respects.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    > It's hard to find a country that you can fairly compare the US to in all respects. Surely that is the point of making the comparisons: to highlight the differences, omissions, and additions so that they can be addressed.
  - vertis 5y ago
    There may be differences in taxation, but there are more similarities than differences. Every resident/citizen of EU/US/UK/Australia is subject to income tax at some level. The tax rates are even roughly equivalent[1], at least at the low-to-mid end. And yet Australia has universal healthcare (among other things). Universal healthcare isn't perfect, but it is significantly better than sickness or injury causing a risk of bankruptcy (etc). [1]: https://sendmoneyaustralia.com/tax-rates-in-australia-comparison-to-usa-uk/ https://sendmoneyaustralia.com/tax-rates-in-australia-compar...
- pvaldes 5y ago
  One of the problems could be that spends a lot of money also on misinformation and "dis-education". Is not a problem from US exclusively. Sign of the times.
kamaal 5y ago
>>American society depends on personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare, retirement, and employment. All societies in all aspects are like this. Regardless of people like to accept this or not, a person as an individual is always in total ownership of any situation. Sure every once in a while there are bigger problems and the society has to come together. But by and large, we are all on our own. Acknowledging this helps take control of their life, then do whatever is the best for them. People need to be ok, with this concept of 'total ownership'.
- watwut 5y ago
  Some societies make it easier for people to have good outcomes and some make it harder. Pretending it is not so makes it impossible to fix root causes of issues.
- Kbelicius 5y ago
  > Regardless of people like to accept this or not, a person as an individual is always in total ownership of any situation. A person as an individual is rarely in total ownership of any situation. The only thing that we could say an individual has total ownership of is his own actions, which is a totally different thing to what you are saying.

throwoutway 5y ago

Research after research comes out pointing to the fact that parents should be directly involved in their children's education. > Your child's education is usually an honorable exception to this in that it's totally government run It is sad that this is the case

syki 5y ago
Consider the median in terms of intelligence. For each subject taught in school take the median in terms ability to explain things to a child in a constructive way. Almost everyone falls below the median in multiple categories. Hence what’s best for the child, and society too, is to attempt to organize things in such a way that the child is taught by people above the median in intelligence and above the median in teaching ability in the subject taught by that person. At scale this requires a government solution unless we are ok saying “screw you” to those who are less than rich.

ilteris 5y ago

Agreed, we should all come to terms with this and work towards is the point of my small rant as well. Thank you for clarifying.

quadrifoliate 5y ago
Also, I wouldn't worry too much about standardized tests if you have any insight into the conditions that usually influence the results. I have details in my other comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29805200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29805200 – in short, they can be quite easily influenced by factors extrinsic to knowledge retention even in non-pandemic times; and there have been a lot of those factors recently.

throwawaygh 5y ago

> personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare Pre-retirement: I don't take any personal responsibility for healthcare. It’s not an option. My employer provides me with a menu of more-or-less completely standardized options. Those options even specify how often I should go to general checks-ups and strictly police my access to specialists. I have very little power to control my own consumption of healthcare, aside from the things that almost all countries delegate to individuals: attending my regular check-ups and avoiding the obvious vices. At least in Germany I could get access to a specialist without first finding a doctor who is expert at interacting with automated processes at some actuarial firm. The biggest choice I can ever make is “do I take on a bit more risk so that I can stow away money pre-tax in an HSA”. Post-retirement: Medicare. > retirement All Americans pay into SS and a huge portion of retirees do/will depend mostly on SS income to be able to retire. Even without SS, one in five Americans have a pension. The rest (who can afford to save for retirement) probably have a 401(K) with a small menu of target date funds. There are some tricks you can play on the side, sure, but they’re marginal. The rest is post-tax savings; again, afforded to most individuals in most (all) western societies. > employment I’m not sure how this is different from places like Europe or even China/Russia. In fact, the US is a bit of an outlier to the other extreme. As best I can tell, the US Department of Defense is undeniably the world’s largest social jobs program.

lmm 5y ago
> I’m not sure how this is different from places like Europe or even China/Russia. In most developed countries it's illegal to fire someone without good cause.
johnkpaul 5y ago
> The rest (who can afford to save for retirement) probably have a 401(K) with a small menu of target date funds If by have, you mean use, my own anecdata is quite the opposite. Everyone I know that isn’t in tech/software, is not contributing to their retirement plans that are offered. Maybe they “have” them with a 0 balance.

jdminhbg 5y ago

> funding for that is not adequate to the point where you can reasonably expect it to continue as usual in the midst of a global pandemic The US spends way more on education per capita than many countries that were able to keep their schools open during 2020-2021: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd

quadrifoliate 5y ago
> The US spends way more on education per capita than many countries that were able to keep their schools open during 2020-2021: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd The US also spends way more on healthcare and has worse outcomes. Those countries also have way different societies, taxation regimes, healthcare, attitudes towards vaccination, and social safety nets. It's hard to find a country that you can fairly compare the US to in all respects.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  > It's hard to find a country that you can fairly compare the US to in all respects. Surely that is the point of making the comparisons: to highlight the differences, omissions, and additions so that they can be addressed.
- vertis 5y ago
  There may be differences in taxation, but there are more similarities than differences. Every resident/citizen of EU/US/UK/Australia is subject to income tax at some level. The tax rates are even roughly equivalent[1], at least at the low-to-mid end. And yet Australia has universal healthcare (among other things). Universal healthcare isn't perfect, but it is significantly better than sickness or injury causing a risk of bankruptcy (etc). [1]: https://sendmoneyaustralia.com/tax-rates-in-australia-comparison-to-usa-uk/ https://sendmoneyaustralia.com/tax-rates-in-australia-compar...
pvaldes 5y ago
One of the problems could be that spends a lot of money also on misinformation and "dis-education". Is not a problem from US exclusively. Sign of the times.

kamaal 5y ago

>>American society depends on personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare, retirement, and employment. All societies in all aspects are like this. Regardless of people like to accept this or not, a person as an individual is always in total ownership of any situation. Sure every once in a while there are bigger problems and the society has to come together. But by and large, we are all on our own. Acknowledging this helps take control of their life, then do whatever is the best for them. People need to be ok, with this concept of 'total ownership'.

watwut 5y ago
Some societies make it easier for people to have good outcomes and some make it harder. Pretending it is not so makes it impossible to fix root causes of issues.
Kbelicius 5y ago
> Regardless of people like to accept this or not, a person as an individual is always in total ownership of any situation. A person as an individual is rarely in total ownership of any situation. The only thing that we could say an individual has total ownership of is his own actions, which is a totally different thing to what you are saying.