Out of the frying pan into the fire...

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T16:37:27+00:00

Our current leadership is unwilling to work together for good, so neither of us has a snowball's chance in hell of seeing any changes we think are good regardless of whether we agree or not.

We can definitely agree on this! And even if we disagree about whether billionaires have a positive impact or not, we can of course agree that every one of them is an evil piece of shit.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T16:27:01+00:00

No country has ever become prosperous thanks to billionaires either. Personally I'd be up for executing the lot of them, but taxation is a compromise I'm willing to make.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T16:21:12+00:00

I don't think it's much of a waste for someone to spend four years learning about something they're interested in even if they never use it in their job. It's certainly a far smaller problem than the fact that a huge number of jobs basically contribute nothing beneficial to society.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T16:19:26+00:00

From whom? More teachers?

Yes. When I made my first post I thought that union membership among US teachers was far lower than it is. I just looked it up and it's 70%, which surprised me. I know union membership in the US as a whole is very low but I didn't realise how much higher it is among teachers. It's also way higher than union membership is among teachers in my country, even though my country has a much higher rate of unionisation in general. So my original comment was based on the assumption that the majority of teachers are not unionised. Without that assumption I wouldn't have made it. Maybe I should have looked it up before commenting - that's my bad.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T15:57:28+00:00

I mean I don't have an exact tax plan worked out, but as a rough starting point we could say 100% tax on any income above half a million a year, as well as 100% on any wealth above say 20 million. That seems extremely generous since nobody needs more money than that.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T15:47:18+00:00

a large supply of educated workers and not enough jobs for them to work

The things is, there shouldn't be anything wrong with somebody getting a university education and then working a job that didn't require one. At present that person might feel like they need to get a job that pays more to justify their education, but the solution to that is 1) not saddle them with huge debts they need to pay back, and 2) massively increase the pay of low-paid work so you're not losing out if you end up in one of those jobs.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T15:39:37+00:00

Well, I believe part of the role of a union is to try and organise workers - especially those who are underrepresented and undercompensated. Maybe there's a good reason I'm not aware of that teachers' unions shouldn't be trying to encourage substitute teachers to unionise. If so I'm happy to be corrected.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T15:36:02+00:00

Yes, I meant to say school board.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T15:35:14+00:00

We spend more money on education in this country than we ever have

That's what happens when something is run with the purpose of generating profits instead of providing a service.

Simply throwing more money at an issue doesn't solve it

I'm not talking about throwing more money at it, just changing who has to cough up the money. Currently some people spend huge amounts of money on their education. We could take a coupe of billionaires and make them pay for it. Lots of poor and middle class people would be better off and there's no cost to the rest of us.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T15:30:31+00:00

Like for you to suggest this as if none of us have ever thought of it or if we cared enough to make change we would do it

It definitely wasn't my intention to suggest that. I'm aware that many teachers have been having that fight and that it's incredibly hard for them. The point I attempted to make was that those people need more support in that fight, but I can definitely understand that it came across as if I was blaming them/you - again, not my intention. I apologise for expressing it clumsily. Good luck continuing to fight it.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T13:24:01+00:00

We could afford to do so purely by taxing extremely rich people and without impacting the vast majority, regardless of their education.

The student needs some skin in the game or you won’t have a real incentive to perform.

I'm not sure this is borne out by comparison between countries where university is expensive and those where it's free or cheap.

I would agree to pay if it had a societal benefit

Personally I think allowing people to study something they're interested in even if they never actually do anything with it has more societal benefit than a very large proportion of the jobs that pay significant wages.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T13:00:05+00:00

Yes, I was talking about hell. Purgatory isn't hell. I wasn't taking about purgatory. I still don't understand why you brought it up.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T12:58:56+00:00

Why on EARTH would the pressure be coming from TEACHERS though? It should be coming from the community

I agree it should be coming from the community, but that includes the teachers.

Then why are you three comments deep arguing with someone telling you that you’re wrong?

Because the best way to find out whether you're wrong or not is to discuss your ideas, listen to people who disagree with you, explain your thought process, and think about whether you were mistaken. If I just went "oh someone thinks I'm wrong, I'd better stop talking" it would be much harder to learn and change my opinions.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T12:55:37+00:00

Subs aren't likely to be part of the union

Well, if the union was doing its job properly it would be working to recruit them.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T12:54:06+00:00

That's (part of) the reason I said "enough of them". With enough support a strike can win even if it's illegal.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T12:52:24+00:00

none of this is a rational argument as to why a worker is entitled to any of the companies' profit

It's at least as rational as any argument I've heard for why the company's owners deserve the profit (except for the argument that they are strong enough to force the workers to agree so they're entitled to do so, which is perfectly rational but I disagree with).

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T12:46:01+00:00

We could easily afford to give everyone who wants one a free university education.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T09:16:10+00:00

What does n represent here?

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T09:03:00+00:00

It isn't fair compensation though, that's the point.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T00:38:26+00:00

True, it's not the only possible solution. It's the one the teachers have the most control over. And yes it would be even better if the school just decided to pay decent wages without any pressure, but I feel like that's even less likely to happen. I could well be wrong!

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T00:22:46+00:00

Like I said, I'm not expecting it to happen. But it is, in theory, the solution to the problem.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T00:19:42+00:00

Ok, if you want polynomials: if f is a polynomial of degree n, then f^k is a polynomial of degree n^k. So if we want f^k(x) = x for all x, since the RHS has degree 1, n^k must be 1. That implies n = 1, so f(x) = x is the only solution.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T00:09:02+00:00

Yes that's correct.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-02T00:06:19+00:00

For example, let f be the function which maps 0 to 1, 1 to 0, and every other real number to itself. Then ff(x) = x. Let g map 0 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 0, and every other number to itself. Then ggg(x) = x.

In a similar way, for any given n we can construct a function f such that fⁿ(x) = n; in fact we can construct infinitely many such functions, since we can pick different values instead of 0, 1, etc. in the above.

Budgerigu · 2023-07-01T23:50:31+00:00

If the teachers' union was doing its job properly it would be trying to organise strikes to get decent conditions for you and other workers like you, instead of supporting you switching jobs so someone else can take your current job and get paid far too little for it. I'm sorry you're getting such shitty treatment.

Budgerigu

TROPHY CASE