I also got quite a few upvotes and agreeable comments. So it's not all black :)

Remember that in Star Trek, before the starfleet, there was the eugenics war/third world war/great war. Maybe we could skip that one.

Why should that not be the goal for everyone, rich and poor?

And why are so few rich and so many poor?

I think the March of Capitalism has been (at least in part) to make the luxuries of yore become commodified middle-class must-haves.

150 years ago, only the lords could afford a wash-up man, a laundry man, a cook, a tailor, a night out at the theater. Now we have airfryers, instant pots, fast fashion, washing machines, dishwashers and Netflix.

What does that look like for a Humboldtian education?

Do not confuse the purpose of higher education with trade schools, and do not assume that trade schools are merely for blue-collar jobs.

Don't worry, we're fast approaching that again.

Whats the goal now

It might be a false choice. Why not find a way to balance, as best you can, both broad experiences and diving deeply into their primary gifts?

Kids go through changes in how they perceive their engagement with activities. At a very young age, they have little self-consciousness and will happily spend lots of time engaging with things they cannot do well. As they get older, frustration sets in sometimes when they cannot do something perfectly the first time they try it. I think some of the music programs, like Suzuki, try to take advantage of this by getting kids up-to-speed on the violin (or whatever) before they enter the phase where frustration dulls their interest. No parent really wants their kid to enter the cycle of repeatedly trying and quitting activities because of frustration. It eventually leads to a sort of apathy and lack of willingness to engage with things they perceive might be frustrating. This is a hard line to walk sometimes. I guess I'm just saying that you sometimes need to "push" them to remain engaged so that they can work past the frustration. It is a skill to learn that you have the ability to overcome the difficult initial learning curve of a lot of activities, sports, etc. If you can help imbue them with that skill, it can lead them to have a love for learning -- or a least not a fear of trying new things, which ultimately is the skill that can enable them to "flourish broadly," in my opinion.

This is a solved problem already.

We already have trade schools. Do not assume they are merely for blue-collar jobs.

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Maybe. Maybe education should be about focusing you in a field, at least the higher you go. But you can focusing on the field learning about how to operate there, of just getting the skills needed to work.

When I was at university (and the years after) some people where saying that university should give you the skills to hold a job, mostly talking about programming in that case (computer engineering degree).

But as AI has shown us those skills (programming) are the first to stop being useful. Learning engineering, architecture, how to think programmatically, ... all these skills are the ones that will survive the culling.

Trade schools. Done. Higher education should remain higher education. Wanting to turn higher education into trade schools is silly when we already have trade schools.

The main focus of education as a taxpayer supported activity is about the perpetuation of the state. The fact that a healthy state relies on a healthy economy is a constraint that helps shape the aims of public education. Other constraints are about culture, values, and understanding the government to the degree that the government can count on having a future generation of legislature.

One of my favorites on this topic, the 1963 "A Talk to Teachers", by James Baldwin.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/baldwin-talk-to-teac...

Think about it on a micro level. Do you work better when your coworkers are thoughtful, or when they're thoughtless?

Now multiply that by a billion, and that's why it's good for the economy.

>But “education” as a public, taxpayer supported activity is about the economy

It sounds harsh and maybe a bit gauche, but it's true. A literate and numerate citizenry helps the nation advance. That's the selling point for widespread public education. Airy ideals sound great, but that's also how ideology slides into the public school.

> What do these words even mean, and why should taxpayers pay for that?

Yeah why would you want your neighbours to be smart and well rounded when they can be dumb and obedient corporate drones instead.

We're already seeing the effect of this "nothing is useful unless it makes ME money" mentality, I personally don't want more of it

> What do these words even mean, and why should taxpayers pay for that?

Let's close social security, healthcare, pensions, it's expensive and a net negative to the economy. All we need is AI and defense actually!

Society has an interest in its citizens not being single minded sociopathic worker drones. A democracy especially functions best when its citizens know history, philosophy, literature, art... The kinds of things that help us understand and make sense of each other.

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