I'm not saying it has to be of a financial benefit. I've always felt that the best product of society is the spare production, both in time and resources, that is necessary to allow that society to continue to learn, grow and prosper. When it comes down to it, though, part of that society has to create more than they need or want to allow that to happen, and that's in the nature of an investment by that society. All investment carries risk, but you look to minimise that risk. Th current educational system, I sometimes feel that this has been forgotten - that it is by the toil of others that education is possible. You say it's good for society, and I agree in most cases - but what good to society is an educated individual not fulfilling all the promise that that education brings with it? And you only need so many experts in latin before they stop being experts and become insurance salesmen.

I'm probably being boring and pompous and a whole host of other things, including retarded, but for a lot of the graduates we have today, the cost/benefit ratio doesn't work out for me.
( DarkSon a time and date will follow this username on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 15:47, 1 reply)

But I didn't say that it was good for society.
I mean: it probably is, but that's not what carries the weight. It's a public good - that is, a good that I think a properly functioning society ought to preserve just because it's good.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 16:19, closed)

how can waste ever be good?
( DarkSon a time and date will follow this username on, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 16:27, closed)

It isn't.
But I'm denying that it's waste.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Oct 2010, 20:48, closed)