Some people seem to exist in a bubble where they believe that nothing bad will ever happen to them or their loved ones, so paying to improve society has no benefit to themselves.

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Hendrikto 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Even if you never personally needed health insurance (which is unrealistic), you’d still benefit from a better, safer, less cut throat society.

Same with education. I am more than happy to pay taxes for an education system, even if I do not personally have children.

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catlikesshrimp 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There are both private and public health care systems. Private care is a complicated scam, the small print is tens of times the contract.

Public health systems vary with country. Private advocates say public sucks, until it is their turn to be scammed.

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mothballed 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What's 'paid' to the median child in education is a pittance compared to what the payers suck back out of them in old age during social security.

Public education is largely a scam to put 'original sin' of debt of children to society so when they grow up there is some plausible explanation that "we're a society" and they must feed into the pyramid scheme.

	▲	ChrisMarshallNY 15 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> What's 'paid' to the median child in education is a pittance compared to what the payers suck back out of them in old age during social security. I'm not sure what nation you're from, but here, in the US, we pay a fairly significant part of our wages towards something called "Social Security." If we pay a lot, during our working time, we can draw more, after retirement (and it is nowhere near a living wage -it was never meant to be). In my country, we pay for education with property taxes.
	▲	czl 15 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I hear you on intergenerational stuff. I just don’t think “public education is a scam” fits what most kids actually receive. Kids are not only getting classroom time. They inherit a whole baseline that previous taxpayers built: safer streets, clean water, courts that mostly function, vaccines, roads, libraries, stable money, and the accumulated tech and culture that makes modern jobs even possible. That bundle is huge, and it starts paying out long before anyone is old enough to “owe” anything. Also, adults are not literally trapped. People can move, downshift, opt out of a lot, or choose different communities. Most don’t, even when they complain loudly, and to me that’s a pretty strong signal the deal is at least somewhat reasonable. Not perfect. Not fair for everyone. But not a cartoon pyramid scheme either. If there’s a real fight worth having, it’s making the burdens and benefits less lopsided across generations, not pretending the whole social investment in kids is fake.

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DiscourseFan 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But charitable causes perpetuate the problems by creating an industry around them rather than trying to find solutions for them. You can’t trust industry to solve civil problems like healthcare or housing, since they shouldn’t be problems in the first place. Its like trying to trust the free market to keep people from raping and killing each other—people will rape and kill with or without the market! Some level of coercion is necessary that free market principles cannot employ.

	▲	sarchertech 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This isn’t about free market vs single payer healthcare. These kids are from poor countries. Unless you’re arguing for rich countries to offer literal worldwide healthcare.