We're gonna tax the 0.1% to pay for that. The people that have been taking advantage of our cronyist system and breaking everybody else's backs for the last forty years. Yes, it's wealth redistribution. Yes, it's class warfare. We're not going to be ashamed of that.

You could even call this "The New Agreement" with the American people. So catchy!

The fact that the top 1% have so much money IS wealth redistribution. Then when you propose to tax them to pay for benefits for poorer people, they scream socialism and class warfare.

The solution is not to write off these people as genetically incapable of going to college, but instead to focus on figuring out why the high school system failed them.

Like, "Not everyone is destined to have a job" isn't a solution anyone should accept.

mike pence and avwall believe the immortal gods control our fates and he is blessed to be blessed and other people are unfortunately cursed to live ****ty lives and there's nothing anybody can do about it

Einberts posts about coal miners becoming computer scientists are beyond parody, especially the "layers" one.

We're drifting off topic and there should probably be a containment thread for automation/UBI etc, but yeah. I think a problem a lot of people are not reckoning with is what Marxists would call alienation. It's not enough to supply a basic income. People need to have purpose.

I dont know what the answer is, but I have a clearer idea of what it isnt. I think there's no single answer and it will involve a lot of different stuff. Improved education for sure, but thats about 5-10% of the puzzle imo.

You don't understand the math. I suggest you listen to this.

http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org...ety-net-future

You are talking about a social program many times larger than social security and Medicare combined.

I agree but let's not lie and promise them all computer science jobs.

A 50 year old without High school is just not going to be getting a high tech job.

Other solutions are required.

This is the same as posting "not everyone should be subject to gravity". There is no economic or social theory in existence which would provide for 100% employment.

The idea that poor people are just genetically destined to their position is not a new one. It's an aristocratic idea that's more than 400 years old and is used to reinforce the myth that our capitalist society is actually meritocratic.

John was never a Maverick. F that guy.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2...tn-orig-js.cnn

Lol literally nobody is saying this.

Look up strawman.

That's the thing though. There isn't one perfect answer that solves this problem completely. But universal education is just a no-brainer. We always focus on the costs but what about the opportunity costs of all the people who want to get an education but don't because they don't want to go into debt? That is a great opportunity cost to society in terms of lost GDP and lost taxes, and lost demand for businesses. Doing nothing and letting the problem just get worse and worse is no answer.

That's exactly what people are saying!

Now look up false equivalency

You hear these ideas all the time in this forum. Sometimes the phrasing is "there has to be skin in the game." Other times the phrasing is "you can't let somebody get something for nothing." But it's all the same stuff. It's the distillation of old aristocratic ideas about society that came over into America but have never been acknowledged or dealt with. This is why you have people who support Universal Health Care who vote for Republicans. This kind of class-based thinking which rests on a layer, if you will, below our normal everyday political conversation, has now been weaponized using Fox News and Breitbart and Rush Limbaugh. We have to acknowledge this and deal with it if we want people to actually support progressive policies.

There's a theoretical limit to the number of college graduates this nation can produce, agreed.

But what you're telling me is that we are very close to that limit, that the main thing preventing us from having a more educated workforce is simply that a huge number of poor people are inherently incapable of being educated. I think that's ****ing absurd given the state of high schools in Southeast DC or rural Mississippi. I don't think we're anywhere near maxing the potential of those students, or that college costs aren't holding them back from getting a degree.

Also, I think it should be noted that the people pushing this view are also the same awval-type guys who claim to be the spokespeople for working-class white America. Like, don't ever talk about condescending liberals when the other side is arguing that Joe Sixpack is fundamentally incapable of learning to do calculus or read Hemingway.

There are other jobs in the New New Deal besides just computer science anyway. Maybe they learn how to install solar panels.

Jesus Christ. Nobody is saying anything like that. You and einbert are really failing at reading.

Of course anyone can learn calculus if they start along the normal educational progression.

As I've posted SEVERAL times I am talking about 50 year old guys who finished grade 9 then met to work in the mine.

Put them to work rebuilding the country's crumbling infrastructure?

As someone who grew up in blue-collar PA, I just want to say that this won't work with these people.

"Put them to work on green energy!"

-They consider that type of stuff as ridiculous. You're talking about people who don't believe in climate change, so why would they ever install solar panels? lol They want coal and manufacturing jobs and if not, they're perfectly content to live off the government welfare system.

Hell, their optimism is off the charts right now. I talk to people all the time who legit believe Trump is going to bring back the glory days of steel and coal. These guys are never going to just "learn" how to work with computers. Hell, most of these guys probably can't even read at a high school level. The thought that they are going to suddenly pick up philosophy 101 or something and change their viewpoint is fairy tale land.

It makes me sad, since these are like "my people", so to speak, but I don't know man. These guys tend to look down on college and have a general disdain for any job you don't use your hands for. If you're making something (construction/mining/steel plant/landscaping/demo etc.) it's good. If you use your brain for it, i.e. anything college related, it's just liberal city-slicker junk.

Ok now we are building ideas within reality.