Skip to main content
Post a Comment

A Response to Starving the Future (NY Times)

In response to an article on the growth of China and India regarding education:

The debate is often framed as a business choice; it is a quality of life and equality choice. 

 Many of the choices for a better America are obvious, but the people making the decisions are often the same people that benefit from the 'broken' system:

  • Reduce inequality (taxation, change laws that favor the powerful and wealthy)
  • Increase education, making it independent of financing
  • Provide nationalized healthcare
  • Rein in the healthcare industry
  • Rein in corporate power over government and politics
  • Reducing inequality goes a long way. Often, suggested solutions for problems are merely band-aids, since the underlying problem is often a matter of resources.

Lower inequality means:

  • Better health, reduced obesity
  • Less crime, less violence
  • Better educational outcomes
  • Better economic performance for all, not just a few

Correlation is not causation, but working toward a better life for Americans, while reducing inequality, can keep America strong.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky My rating: 5 of 5 stars I finished reading this crying. It is a work of neurobiology, social science, anthropology, and history, but ultimately it is a work of great humanity, suggesting ways that humans, our groups, our systems, and our societies can be made better. View all my reviews
Post a Comment
Read more

Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition

Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition by Geert Hofstede My rating: 4 of 5 stars A detailed and fascinating review of Hofstede's dimensions, by the researcher himself, showing broad high-level insights into history and culture, although a bit tedious, as it often describes in detail relationships many of us implicitly understand. View all my reviews
Post a Comment
Read more

The Right to Write - NYTimes.com

In an article,  The Right to Write - NYTimes.com , I commented on the right to write, since writers are sometimes questioned on the validity of their writing, e.g., Harriet Beecher Stowe with Uncle Tom's Cabin: One, people always have the right to write, but readers concurrently have the right to reject said writing. Much personal criticism of depictions from writers is whether the depiction seems valid or plausible, but even that is an exercise in empathy, since it requires one to experience that depiction ideationally.  Two, there is a streak in Americans, and maybe anyone, that states that you cannot understand 'my pain', usually the death of a child or some horrific personal lose. Over a longer term I have sensed that people most easily accept empathy if it is expressed by someone with similar experiences, an aspect I believe is part of human nature. I find both irksome, since they deny empathy.
Post a Comment
Read more