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I love PBS and the importance of education.
8 years ago
"Justice Is Fairness
Discipline is Honor
Honesty is Nobility"
-Taladrian
Discipline is Honor
Honesty is Nobility"
-Taladrian
PBS is a great educational network, I often go to it for documentaries and compared to a lot of private corporate funded news venues, PBS, NPR etc which are on par or at least close to BBC, and other such news and information venues. Though I tend to like some independent venues too as long as they don't sink into conspiracy theories which a lot of Americans seem like they have a bad habit of falling into more than usual.
I think education is hugely important for the public good of the nation, they are some who believe the free market will solve everything which isn't true, which I think they are certain things that market forces simply don't favor. In Healthcare for example we've seen many incidents of private companies jacking up the prices of essential medicines where it's much cheaper in most other industrialized nations, Similar can be said of public education, when well funded with good quality teachers and staff, you can have a fine education system(just look at the Finnish model, or even Canada is doing better than ours). Still public education would help society and the economy in the long run, so would a universal healthcare system of some type, a healthier, educated population means a healthy, innovative population to stay ahead of our competitors, and with different cultures in this country, they are many ways to think up an idea.
Educational media and funding it where it isn't exactly the most profitable, if you search Youtube for 5 seconds, a retarded funny vine video gets way more views than an educational video this is an example of why the free market isn't always the best at everything, it has its place but one thing to consider, the free market mainly focuses on what people want and not necessarily what they need. Have you seen History channel? It's all about ancient aliens and pawn shops or Hitler than it is about history in general because that's what the advertisers and people want but that's not really what they need in terms of learning history, there's more to history than Hitler or whatever which I used to be a fan of the history channel but no longer watch it much anymore. People who believe in a pure free market make the same mistake as Communists do, they both believe that humans would make rational decisions at all times, but that's never the case, since we are flawed.
However, I think in a democratic country, people in charge should have experience and be educated in whatever field they're responsible for, I admit I have technocratic tendencies but someone who's say minister of health should have a background of being a doctor or something or minister of education should be a former teacher so they'll have a better idea of what their field, that someone's ignorant opinion is in no way equal to an educated person's opinion that actually has facts to back it up, though ignorance can be the left or the right doesn't matter what side it is, everyone has bias, but with education you can better curb it. The difference is between a smoothbore musket and a rifled musket, sure the rifled musket isn't 100% accurate however it would be closer to the mark much more often than a smoothbore.
Anyway, here's John Green's case for PBS and public education.
I think education is hugely important for the public good of the nation, they are some who believe the free market will solve everything which isn't true, which I think they are certain things that market forces simply don't favor. In Healthcare for example we've seen many incidents of private companies jacking up the prices of essential medicines where it's much cheaper in most other industrialized nations, Similar can be said of public education, when well funded with good quality teachers and staff, you can have a fine education system(just look at the Finnish model, or even Canada is doing better than ours). Still public education would help society and the economy in the long run, so would a universal healthcare system of some type, a healthier, educated population means a healthy, innovative population to stay ahead of our competitors, and with different cultures in this country, they are many ways to think up an idea.
Educational media and funding it where it isn't exactly the most profitable, if you search Youtube for 5 seconds, a retarded funny vine video gets way more views than an educational video this is an example of why the free market isn't always the best at everything, it has its place but one thing to consider, the free market mainly focuses on what people want and not necessarily what they need. Have you seen History channel? It's all about ancient aliens and pawn shops or Hitler than it is about history in general because that's what the advertisers and people want but that's not really what they need in terms of learning history, there's more to history than Hitler or whatever which I used to be a fan of the history channel but no longer watch it much anymore. People who believe in a pure free market make the same mistake as Communists do, they both believe that humans would make rational decisions at all times, but that's never the case, since we are flawed.
However, I think in a democratic country, people in charge should have experience and be educated in whatever field they're responsible for, I admit I have technocratic tendencies but someone who's say minister of health should have a background of being a doctor or something or minister of education should be a former teacher so they'll have a better idea of what their field, that someone's ignorant opinion is in no way equal to an educated person's opinion that actually has facts to back it up, though ignorance can be the left or the right doesn't matter what side it is, everyone has bias, but with education you can better curb it. The difference is between a smoothbore musket and a rifled musket, sure the rifled musket isn't 100% accurate however it would be closer to the mark much more often than a smoothbore.
Anyway, here's John Green's case for PBS and public education.
People who believe in a pure free market make the same mistake as Communists do, they both believe that humans would make rational decisions at all times, but that's never the case, since we are flawed.
I'm sorry but that is nonsense. No one who has ever defended the idea of free market capitalism has ever said that human beings always make rational decisions. What defenders like Adam Smith have argued is that humans are predictably and reliably motivated by self-interest and the free market is the most productive way to use the motive of self-interest by channeling it through exchanges of mutual benefit.
The free market actually does improve the quality of education in many cases as exemplified by the American university system. Almost all of the most highly rated universities in the world are located in the US in part because they function in a free market setting. You are correct that when it comes to media outlets, people are more likely to invest in entertainment over education. So what? Are you suggesting that we make educational programming compulsory for people to watch? It doesn't matter how much money the federal government throws into PBS or anything else, you still can't force people to watch it. What good does it do to have more educational programming if people still choose not to watch it or support it? Government funding isn't going to change people's natural preferences. And, as already stated above, PBS isn't going to disappear without federal funding since it's already mostly funded by private donors and local governments.
We already have a compulsory education system for every US citizen that is need of serious reform. Maybe we should worry about improving that instead of PBS losing a small fraction of its revenue coming from a source that has no business being involved in it to begin with.
As long as these situations are fudged, growth will not be as good as it could be
Ever since 2009 or so though the History channel has devolved into retarded "reality" shows, and the irony is that their conspiracy shows or Ancient Aliens has the most real history you'll ever see on the channel anymore. You'll never see the great, wonderful documentaries they used to do on things like Queen Elizabeth or Napoleon or the Civil War anymore.
This, unfortunately, appears to be an example of the "free market" ruining something that was good. I am not an anarcho capitalist but I do believe that the free market is a good thing. People get to choose how they make their money and choose what they spend it in. I think things work out best when people are allowed a great deal of freedom in these decisions. I think a good argument can be made that some regulation is needed for things that are in the vital national interest, but overall the least you can have the better. So beyond it being somewhat annoying and distasteful, there's nothing really "wrong" with what the History Channel has done, even though I'd certainly prefer them to do something else. What is wrong is that we don't have a population that actually values education anymore, beyond getting themselves ahead or getting in with the right group, and that is why natural demand for these kind of shows is diminished.
The thing is, you are thinking only of the medium of TV though, which is a dying medium. More and more people don't watch TV and just watch stuff online, using models like Netflix that let them choose what they want to watch and when. The result of this is that people involved in commercial TV are competing over less and less viewers and try harder to appeal more to the "least common denominator."
But I guess what I want to say is that, even if PBS disappeared from TV, you would still have high quality stuff out there and people would watch it, because more and more people aren't looking to TV for their entertainment needs anymore, and certainly not for their educational needs. I am somewhat concerned that there isn't as much of an incentive anymore to create intelligent, high quality programming as there used to be. Unfortunately this is symptomatic of a problem our culture has with values and a lack of a sense of any kind of virtue to be found in the proper education and expanding of the mind.
And yeah, the History Channel has snowballed into a joke. Such a shame.