Just a guess, but I would suppose that in an information rich world, it pays for people to be intellectually satisfied even if they don't work in an "intellectual" field. A waiter with a theater degree may be more content, and therefore more effective/productive, than a waiter who wishes he could get a degree but can't.
In what way would the waiter be more effective/productive? Would the theater degree enable him to write down orders more accurately or bring food more quickly?
You seem pretty worried about the waiters, so here's a hypothetical direct benefit of educating them: Maybe the theater degree will offer the waiter more opportunities for self-fulfillment outside of work. Consequently he won't be consumed with bitterness and resentment of the people he waits on, perhaps people educated in some worthier endeavor he couldn't, or wouldn't, pursue. And he won't spit in your food.
People that are unsatisfied with their lives are more likely to commit crimes. Depending on how much they think they have to lose, they may commit wildly irrational crimes as well.
> > So the primary purpose in giving people economically worthless education is to prevent them from committing crimes?
>So it's economically worthless to decrease the number of criminals in society?
He didn't say that it was economically worthless to reduce the number of crimes. He asked if the primary purpose of economically useless education was crime prevention.
We haven't established that such education actually does reduce crime, but let's assume that it does. It still doesn't follow that we should do it as there may be other ways to reduce crime.
So, what are the good arguments for economically worthless education? We've got lots of folks who seem to think that it's a good thing, but they're not producing coherent arguments, just rage and non-sequitors.
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Just a guess, but I would suppose that in an information rich world, it pays for people to be intellectually satisfied even if they don't work in an "intellectual" field. A waiter with a theater degree may be more content, and therefore more effective/productive, than a waiter who wishes he could get a degree but can't.
In what way would the waiter be more effective/productive? Would the theater degree enable him to write down orders more accurately or bring food more quickly?
You seem pretty worried about the waiters, so here's a hypothetical direct benefit of educating them: Maybe the theater degree will offer the waiter more opportunities for self-fulfillment outside of work. Consequently he won't be consumed with bitterness and resentment of the people he waits on, perhaps people educated in some worthier endeavor he couldn't, or wouldn't, pursue. And he won't spit in your food.
Maybe the theater degree will offer the waiter more opportunities for self-fulfillment outside of work.
This is a private benefit, not a public one.
And he won't spit in your food.
So the primary purpose in giving people economically worthless education is to prevent them from committing crimes?
Who said "primary purpose"? I was just trying to address your concerns about the college-educated waiters of the world.
People that are unsatisfied with their lives are more likely to commit crimes. Depending on how much they think they have to lose, they may commit wildly irrational crimes as well.
I consider lower crime rates a public good.
So the primary purpose in giving people economically worthless education is to prevent them from committing crimes?
So it's economically worthless to decrease the number of criminals in society?
> > So the primary purpose in giving people economically worthless education is to prevent them from committing crimes?
>So it's economically worthless to decrease the number of criminals in society?
He didn't say that it was economically worthless to reduce the number of crimes. He asked if the primary purpose of economically useless education was crime prevention.
We haven't established that such education actually does reduce crime, but let's assume that it does. It still doesn't follow that we should do it as there may be other ways to reduce crime.
So, what are the good arguments for economically worthless education? We've got lots of folks who seem to think that it's a good thing, but they're not producing coherent arguments, just rage and non-sequitors.