Chilean activist destroys student debt papers worth $500m

[Bereta_Eder]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

mengele monneypenny. what did you go to private school or something?

[Sava]

Go easy on DD. His state doesn't exactly have the greatest education system.

[Bereta_Eder]

If I ever do a road trip across america, I will certaintly pass by mississippi
(not with my current ****ing broke car piece of **** godammit)

[Sava]

If I ever do a road trip across america, I will certaintly pass by mississippi
(not with my current ****ing broke car piece of **** godammit)

traveling paiktis

My childhood home is actually closer to Mississippi than Chicago.

[DinoDoc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

mengele monneypenny. what did you go to private school or something?

what good is knowing how to screw a screw if you're mangele?

Say what you mean, mean what you say!

[MRT144]

It's not like the school has to pay for buildings, professors, people to maintain the buildings, equipment, utilities...

If only there was some way to pay for this all without utilizing personal debt...I'm sure some day in the future we'll figure out how to disperse a net societal benefit across society...

[Felch]

For anything other than a career in sciences, it doesn't matter... especially if we're talking about some button-pushing corporate job.

If anything, a liberal arts major will be better with writing and communication skills.

Oh but nerds with questionable communication skills... how they love to bash those liberal arts majors...

(not directly referring to you, but feel free to include yourself if you wish)

I majored in History when I first went to college, and it was about as intellectually rigorous as Fox News. I did do a lot of writing, but when I went into the work force I found a lot of semi-literate bosses who wanted to "correct" me by ****ing up what I wrote.

[C0ckney]

You make it sound like the "elite" is some sort of cabal that decides who gets to join, instead of just being people who happen to be rich.

well that wasn't my intention and i think it's first necessary to define what we mean by elite. whether we simply mean people who are rich or people who hold the levers of power, or control of public resources, whether we mean local elites, or national ones, rural or urban. it's quite hard to give a general idea of these things in a somewhat short way, especially to those who don't have much knowledge about them (i myself have only scratched the surface).

in some places there was and is (although this is changing) a quasi-fedual system in place, with peasants tied to the land and ruled over mostly by descendants of the original spanish or portuguese conquistadores. lisa st. aubin de terán's memoir 'hacienda' is an excellent description of this world in 1970s venezeula. however in the same country at the same time, the urban situation was modern with many of the social, economic and political tendencies that we would recognise in the west. many of the political upheavals, revolutions and coups which have taken place in south america have their roots in land conflicts, that is to say, attempts to reform land tenure and redistribute the land from the old colonial elite to the peasants.

[regexcellent]

If only there was some way to pay for this all without utilizing personal debt...I'm sure some day in the future we'll figure out how to disperse a net societal benefit across society...

Whatever the answer, I think we can be pretty confident it won't involve simply burning debt documents.

[MRT144]

Whatever the answer, I think we can be pretty confident it won't involve simply burning debt documents.

I think its as good a place as any to start the discussion.

[Sava]

I majored in History when I first went to college, and it was about as intellectually rigorous as Fox News. I did do a lot of writing, but when I went into the work force I found a lot of semi-literate bosses who wanted to "correct" me by ****ing up what I wrote.

I see your point. A bunch of science classes would've solved that problem.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Yeah, your bosses won't assume they know more about science than someone with a degree in science.

[C0ckney]

I agree that change requires the activity of those in the masses. However, other forces can create instability for the elite.

I am not saying that the current globalization is creating some instability, but I think it could be.

In Chile, I think the past two narratives were that people would come in with capital and be embraced by the elite (sorta, and this is the usual, I think) or that a large community would come and be insular for a generation (or so), would grow wealthy as that insular community, and then the 2nd (or 3rd) generation would be embraced by the elite.

Maybe most of the current influx is part of these narratives.

i can agree with all of that.

I just sort of expect they are like me (can be wrong). I am not interested in hanging out with americans (physicists on the other hand...). I don't have a strong class view of things (I have seen this with other americans/europeans here as well, they marry/create friendships without regard to class). I am not at all interested in paying 20k for a subpar education for my children.

i have little contact with the 'expat' community, although it seems that most are very integrated that is to say, speak the language, have local friends and local interests (and interestingly, local prejudices as well, but that's another story...), and those that aren't seem quite uncommon. there are of course other groups of incomers which are insular, the chinese would be a good example, but probably in 20 years or so, you'll start to see them participate more in the wider society.

with the class thing, again from my own experience, it seems that some, especially the younger people, are more open to genuine connection than others, but most ultimately stick to their social group. exchange students for example, may go as far as volunteering in the slums, but wouldn't think of living there (i lived in the slums for 2 years). of course in general people tend to partner up with people of their own class and social group. there are exceptions, i know an american girl who married a guy from the slums, but this kind of thing is quite rare.

For the latter, I have 4 options:
1. Leave within 7ish years before she is set back.
2. Send her to relatives/etc in the US (if I have 3 kids, even purchasing a house in a nice school district would be cheaper than sending them to school here)
3. Homeschool (this is sort of the insular option)
4. Press to have the system changed

If I decide to be 'part' of Chile, the only option is number 4.

JM

that's one of the key differences between the older waves of immigration and the current one. mass travel gives people the option to move around a lot, spend a few years in one country, a couple in another and so on, and really choose where they want to live. most of the immigrants 100 years ago didn't have this option. this is of course a great individual advantage, but it does mean that the new waves won't have so much impact on the countries they move to, as many will leave if they feel they can find a better situation for themselves elsewhere.

[Jon Miller]

I don't think I know that many who are very well integrated, to be honest. They will have some local interests and friends (if they do it is likely because of their chilean SO, people who don't have a chilean SO have a much harder time), of course. It might be because of my lack of interest in getting to know expats though.

I know several examples where the couple met abroad, and the expat came to live with their spouse. They don't get accepted into the 'elite' even if they are educated/skilled/etc, rather it is the class of their spouse (not elite in all the examples I know). In at least one case, the couple are going to go from here to the US where there is more opportunity for them... (because her family has a normal level of connections in the US and his family lives in public housing in Chile)

JM

[Felch]

I see your point. A bunch of science classes would've solved that problem.

A different major could at least isolate me from the retards that flock to those sorts of white collar careers.