It’s wild.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I would say people in countries with poor or non-existent public education are more prone. The USA’s public education system was eviscerated in the 70’s I think.

    As early as the 60s, but really the 80s. Through the 70s US had some of the best public education on the planet. The move to privatize education started in earnest under Reagan (in California, as governor), and then further under Reagan (and every president and congress to now).

    Specifically:

    • calling for an end to free tuition for state college and university students

    • annually demanding 20 percent across-the-board cuts in higher education funding

    • repeatedly slashing construction funds for state campuses

    • engineering the firing of Clark Kerr, the highly respected president of the University of California

    • declaring that the state “should not subsidize intellectual curiosity”

    https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ684842.pdf

    • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      How the fuck do you come to the conclusion that you’re spending too much money on education

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        With Reagan, it was because Republicans at the time thought there would be too many educated poor people. One of his advisors (Roger Freeman) said:

        “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat…That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college]…If not, we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people.”

        He was basically worried about a revolution because of it.

        Source: https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/

        There’s other sources if you don’t like the Intercept.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        R E A G A N.

        The Trump era began by ripping out the solar panels on the White House and tricking blue collars into voting against themselves.

        It was, and is, fucking awful.

      • satanmat@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Easy

        They are talking at the dinner table about doing things that are against my self interest. I don’t want those damn kids learning that. Therefore cut education

        Rather that you know the market place of ideas that I espouse; as long as they match what I believe.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That last one hits hard. The state must subsidize intellectual curiosity. Intellectual curiosity gave us everything from electricity to modern governmental theory to the mathematics that would later turn out to allow wireless communications. Curiosity without a point is extremely valuable.

      And it should be noted that even in late medieval Europe the state funded intellectual curiosity. The nobility were the state and many either were curious themselves or would patronize intellectuals

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      And people look at that and say, sure, I’ll vote for this guy.

      It’s a self perpetuating spiral to hell.