7 ms·

>the question is at what cost? The world will be a wonderful place when schools have all the funding they need and the Air Force must hold a bake sale to pay f

by grecy 3y ago

>the question is at what cost? The world will be a wonderful place when schools have all the funding they need and the Air Force must hold a bake sale to pay for new fighter jets. The US spent $8,000,000,000,000 on the "war on terror" [1], while 21% of adults are illiterate [2] [1] https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar [2] https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statistics https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statisti...

Fbnkigffb66tfbj 3y ago
> $8,000,000,000,000 It's a lot more readable to just write $8 trillion. Writing out all the zeros doesn't make your point any more convincing.
- chthonicdaemon 3y ago
  $8 trillion is ambiguous and forces me to understand whether you're using long or short scale (particularly for me, coming from a long scale culture, it trips me up often) [1]. I've often wondered though why scientific notation or SI prefixes have never caught on for currency. 8 T$ or $8e12 feel both shorter and less ambiguous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion
  - grecy 3y ago
    > 8 T$ or $8e12 feel both shorter and less ambiguous. To be honest, I wrote it out longhand because I think it's important not to make it feel shorter or somehow less significant. It is an enormous sum of money that humans are not equipped to comprehend, so anything we can do to covey the scale more clearly is important. A single trillion is an absurd amount. Now make eight of these: https://www.rogerebert.com/scanners/what-does-one-trillion-dollars-look-like https://www.rogerebert.com/scanners/what-does-one-trillion-d...
smsm42 3y ago
You are implying the cause of illiteracy is the lack of funds. It is not so - in fact, the very worst schools often spend per pupil the same as the very best ones, or at least very close to it. Throwing money at the problem is not the solution - it would cause the worst schools spend even more and keep churning out ignoramuses. The bad schools are bad not because they can't find money to become good but because the whole system there is broken and it can't be fixed by just giving the same incompetent, ignorant and apathetic people more money to waste.
- nolongerthere 3y ago
  The literacy issue and lack of proper education can almost always be traced back to the local family life, specifically single parent households. Households that don’t have two present parents are unlikely to be able to afford the time to enforce school attendance and homework. If you want to fix the education problems, start by fixing the breakdown of the family unit. Put another way, the reason some schools spend twice as much money but have worse outcomes is because the children in those schools are starting from much farther back. There isn’t a reasonable amount of money you could throw at the problem school to solve the issue.
- jwiz 3y ago
  Well, as my highschool friend said 30 years ago, "I think teachers should be paid more...just not these teachers." If they paid teachers more, they'd have better teachers, though.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Not really, bad teachers often start good. Then after getting senority\tenure they ??? and become bad. But the rules don't allow you to get rid of them. Even if you could, they stick together. of course I write the above as if we can objectivly evaluate teachers. I'm not sure if we can. I had my share of what I thought were good and bad teachers: in the end I'm a successful engineer which matters far more than how I felt about any teacher. What we really know is overall they were good enough, but not how any individual played a part
  - 3y ago
WalterBright 3y ago
It's much more expensive to lose a war.
- bruce511 3y ago
  Well, in this specific context, not really. It would be hard to argue that Afghanistan lost that much. Although I guess they "won" (if you call what happened winning. ) But the "war on terror" wasn't a "traditional war". It wasn't like some landing by foreign forces at Venice Beach. It was a manufactured political construct that served political purposes. It handily created a jobs program called the TSA. Which is grossly over equipped to confiscate shampoo. All the world has airport security. Very few places have (or need) TSA levels of intrusion. The "war on terror" was indeed lost. It was lost when the US became "terrified". In all of the troubles the IRA couldn't do that to the UK. Endless bombs just resulted in "carry on". In the US the war continues all the time. The TSA bears witness to this. But at this point it employs so many people, doing meaningless, unskilled work, that you may as well treat it as a jobs program.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  We still lost with nothing to show for it but debt for generations, millions of unnecessary deaths, and the TSA. Enjoy the debt service, “support the troops,” and millimeter wave backscatter scans without your shoes.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    The US hasn't been invaded since 1942. That's what we have to show for it.
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      Your first sentence is correct but I don't think the second tracks. US is surrounded by massive bodies of water and has no land border with a hostile nation. Invading it is not very practical. The tendency of civilian population to carry weapons may be a bigger deterrent to invasion. It can sound cheeky but perhaps the biggest thing you have to show for it is overall more free and less murdery world thanks to people wanting to prosper and stuff. Going to war is suddenly unappealing (unless you are very small and have nothing to lose, but then you do less damage comparatively).

by grecy 3y ago

Fbnkigffb66tfbj 3y ago

> $8,000,000,000,000 It's a lot more readable to just write $8 trillion. Writing out all the zeros doesn't make your point any more convincing.

chthonicdaemon 3y ago
$8 trillion is ambiguous and forces me to understand whether you're using long or short scale (particularly for me, coming from a long scale culture, it trips me up often) [1]. I've often wondered though why scientific notation or SI prefixes have never caught on for currency. 8 T$ or $8e12 feel both shorter and less ambiguous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion
- grecy 3y ago
  > 8 T$ or $8e12 feel both shorter and less ambiguous. To be honest, I wrote it out longhand because I think it's important not to make it feel shorter or somehow less significant. It is an enormous sum of money that humans are not equipped to comprehend, so anything we can do to covey the scale more clearly is important. A single trillion is an absurd amount. Now make eight of these: https://www.rogerebert.com/scanners/what-does-one-trillion-dollars-look-like https://www.rogerebert.com/scanners/what-does-one-trillion-d...

smsm42 3y ago

You are implying the cause of illiteracy is the lack of funds. It is not so - in fact, the very worst schools often spend per pupil the same as the very best ones, or at least very close to it. Throwing money at the problem is not the solution - it would cause the worst schools spend even more and keep churning out ignoramuses. The bad schools are bad not because they can't find money to become good but because the whole system there is broken and it can't be fixed by just giving the same incompetent, ignorant and apathetic people more money to waste.

nolongerthere 3y ago
The literacy issue and lack of proper education can almost always be traced back to the local family life, specifically single parent households. Households that don’t have two present parents are unlikely to be able to afford the time to enforce school attendance and homework. If you want to fix the education problems, start by fixing the breakdown of the family unit. Put another way, the reason some schools spend twice as much money but have worse outcomes is because the children in those schools are starting from much farther back. There isn’t a reasonable amount of money you could throw at the problem school to solve the issue.
jwiz 3y ago
Well, as my highschool friend said 30 years ago, "I think teachers should be paid more...just not these teachers." If they paid teachers more, they'd have better teachers, though.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Not really, bad teachers often start good. Then after getting senority\tenure they ??? and become bad. But the rules don't allow you to get rid of them. Even if you could, they stick together. of course I write the above as if we can objectivly evaluate teachers. I'm not sure if we can. I had my share of what I thought were good and bad teachers: in the end I'm a successful engineer which matters far more than how I felt about any teacher. What we really know is overall they were good enough, but not how any individual played a part
- 3y ago

WalterBright 3y ago

It's much more expensive to lose a war.

bruce511 3y ago
Well, in this specific context, not really. It would be hard to argue that Afghanistan lost that much. Although I guess they "won" (if you call what happened winning. ) But the "war on terror" wasn't a "traditional war". It wasn't like some landing by foreign forces at Venice Beach. It was a manufactured political construct that served political purposes. It handily created a jobs program called the TSA. Which is grossly over equipped to confiscate shampoo. All the world has airport security. Very few places have (or need) TSA levels of intrusion. The "war on terror" was indeed lost. It was lost when the US became "terrified". In all of the troubles the IRA couldn't do that to the UK. Endless bombs just resulted in "carry on". In the US the war continues all the time. The TSA bears witness to this. But at this point it employs so many people, doing meaningless, unskilled work, that you may as well treat it as a jobs program.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
We still lost with nothing to show for it but debt for generations, millions of unnecessary deaths, and the TSA. Enjoy the debt service, “support the troops,” and millimeter wave backscatter scans without your shoes.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  The US hasn't been invaded since 1942. That's what we have to show for it.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    Your first sentence is correct but I don't think the second tracks. US is surrounded by massive bodies of water and has no land border with a hostile nation. Invading it is not very practical. The tendency of civilian population to carry weapons may be a bigger deterrent to invasion. It can sound cheeky but perhaps the biggest thing you have to show for it is overall more free and less murdery world thanks to people wanting to prosper and stuff. Going to war is suddenly unappealing (unless you are very small and have nothing to lose, but then you do less damage comparatively).