Society invests in the education of its people, and the return is a general benefit to society from its people being more educated. It is not necessary for every single individual to give something tangible and obvious back in order for society to benefit from an educated populace. If you apply the criterion that every individual must give something back, it always turns into a requirement that they give back something tangible, usually money or labour, and the next step is to abolish education in philosophy, the arts, and possibly the more theoretical or exploratory parts of science. The result of this is an impoverished society, not an enriched one.

For it to be a good deal for society to pay for education there only needs to be on balance a benefit to society. That leaves room for the arts and all kinds of human curiosity and creativity that doesn’t yield an immediate tangible benefit. We contribute together, not individually, and some contributions are very indirect. Still, societies benefit from the arts, philosophy, and people with curiosity. And this system can tolerate some people not contributing anything much at all. The investment is in quality of life for the society as a whole.

The clue is in the term “Human Resources”. I can’t believe people just accept the existence of this phrase.

Yes, it wouldn’t have occurred to me until I saw this sign.

Republicans have only threatened to invade Mexico, Canada and the UK so far, with a few days to go yet until they take power. They’re basically pacifists.

Edit: Oh, and Panama.

Is Fetterman still left-leaning? I heard he had gone Trumpy.

Maybe what I’m doing right now? I mean, it could be.

Up you go, and soon it will.

Agreed and proboosted.

The difference between taxes and fees is really just that the first is cheaper and goes to people who aren’t incentivized to pocket the money while providing the worst service they can get away with. If you push a libertarian to explain their story in detail, there always comes a point where they introduce government and taxes but try to call it something else.

They don’t have any idea how cost-effective taxes are, compared to paying private companies individually for every single shared resource. It’s the same for healthcare, education, etc.: to pay the government for a decent nonprofit service is always better value.