Coberst, you make some good points here.
When the success or failure of a country is measured in dollars, it utterly fails to take into account the country's reason for existing in the first place: people. The human element is lost on spreadsheets.
When education is looked at as nothing more than a spreadsheet liability, it fails not only on the human level but also on the financial level.
It seems so obvious as to not need to be said, but more and better education directly translates into greater earning power, greater productivity, and therefore, greater GDP.
As I see it, there are few things more important to a country's success (both on a human level and on an economic level) than education. Somehow, that connection is lost on politicians, given the increasingly sorry state of public education in this country.
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| What is the logical consequence to our planet when the world economy must grow every year? |
One only need look around to see the answer, as I'm sure you were implying. Increasingly scarce and increasingly unaffordable resources: oil, minerals, fresh water, timber, the list goes on and on.
At some point, the system becomes incapable of sustaining the ever-greater demands placed on it, and collapse results.
There are a number of experts who believe we have already passed that point.
Quote:
| Describing the status quo as natural and universal is an effective means for maintaining the status quo. |
On another topic, as you may have seen elsewhere on this site, this is also the chief argument against gay marriage. Tradition, in and of itself, is supposed to serve as counter-argument enough when uppity gay people start talking about wanting the right to legally marry.
"Gays can't get married because marriage is between one man and one woman. It's always been that way; it's tradition!"
Of course, it's NOT always been that way, it's just been that way for a while.
Before the current tradition, marriage was traditionally (and legally) between one man and one woman of the same race and religion.
Before that, marriage was traditionally (and legally) between one man and as many women as he could afford to support.
No doubt there was a great outcry from traditionalists each time the "tradition" was changed, but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
Tradition is, among other things, a feel-good way of describing a fear of change, and insufficient basis alone for making laws.