this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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I am surprised nobody said 'education'. Every dollar spent there generates two dollars of worth. Educated people have fewer children and pollute less. Educated people don't vote as many morons into power. I sincerely believe many problems of the world could have been prevented with educating everyone involved.
Education, specifically primary and secondary education for girls, is highly effective at reducing poverty. It deserves be highly prioritized for investment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_education
True. Also sex ed and 'life education' like spending advice or household tips for people who struggle to live alone. I'd probably have a board of various teachers advising me on where to spend how much and track the results with studies to be able to correct course.
Depends what areas of education you mean. I think the most important areas people need to know more about in order to better the world as a whole are literacy, numeracy and world issues (war, current politics, climate change, etc).
Spending $100B to make university free would just accelerate a new problem that the world is facing: overeducation. Now it's harder to get a job without a college degree as a minimum, especially above minimum wage, even though the skills gained in the degree are not what is actually in demand or being used in whatever job someone ends up with.
Granted that's mainly a problem in the USA at the moment, and with $100B you could also fund a lot of R&D so people studying STEM end up in STEM jobs bettering the world.
It needs to be heavily targeted towards mandatory education, particularly K-12 or equivalents, and have a strong focus on critical thinking, scientific skepticism, technical literacy, entrepreneurialism, and the methods and models of social programming that are commonly used (how to identify, resist and avoid them).
This will help create generational change which is great for the future, but sadly does nothing to solve the pressing issues we face right now.
Agreed. Education does not = academia. I’d argue that right now the incentives for academia for the sake of academia is far higher than for education, learning, or skill building. There’s something systematic there. I can’t tell where $100B would be the most effective but getting 20 years olds MBAs ain’t it.
Very true...