More like, “we’ve invented a cure for cancer, but only people who have cancer right now can get it. People in the future are fucked once again and won’t get the cure.”
Loan forgiveness without making education affordable going forward doesn’t solve the problem. It’s pulling up the ladder.
So we should just not let the people currently sick have the cure? 🤔
Even in your analogy, curing any cancer today, even if it doesn’t extend to future sufferers, is an improvement over curing no one. Because fuck cancer, and fuck student loans.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Imagine if researchers said: We’re working on a cure for cancer, and in the process we’ve generated a bunch of unobtanium. We can use it as a one-time cure for a bunch of current cancer patients, or we can use it to continue further research towards a permanent, universally-available cure. Obviously, if we use it all up now, we’ll be back to square one and have to start generating it again before we can work on a long-term cure. Which would you pick?
“Unobtanium” is political will. If we just do a round of bailouts for current loan-holders instead of addressing the root cause of spiraling education costs, we’re just kicking the can down the road. The pressure will be off, a whole generation of 20- and 30-somethings will lose interest in the issue, and it’ll fall off the political radar for another few decades, by which time GenZ+ will be well and truly fucked, since educational costs are only going up and up.
The absolute worst way to address rising education costs is to encourage a bunch of students to take ridiculously large loans and then wipe them off the books. That means: 1) schools can raise prices to the roof because they know students have access to mountains of cash from loans, and 2) students won’t hesitate to take the loans because they’ll probably just be forgiven eventually. Probably. Maybe. Or maybe it’ll be a millstone around their neck for the rest of their lives…but hey, what choice do they have, that’s just what school costs (because governments make sure students have all the money they need for a bidding war to get in).
So it amounts to just transferring huge piles of taxpayer money directly to overpriced schools and predatory banks, with no plan to stem the flow. It’s like trying to help your drug-addicted friend recover with a one-time gift of a brick of heroin. They’ll feel great for a while, and they’ll love you for it while it lasts, but it’s only going to make the problem much worse in the long run.
“Sorry about your cancer. We have to let you die so maybe cancer researchers will be motivated to try harder for a permanent cure.”
Get out of here with that bullshit.
Why not contribute something yourself, or address the arguments they’re making instead of dismissing them out of hand?
The argument is bad and probably in bad faith. If I can paraphrase it in a few lines and demonstrate how ridiculous it is, it’s not deserving of a response.
You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.
Why on earth do you think I’m arguing in bad faith? What do you think my real beliefs & agenda are? Do you know what arguing in bad faith means?
“Sorry about your cancer. We have to let you die so maybe cancer researchers will be motivated to try harder for a permanent cure.”
If the US poured it’s full resources into saving John Doe from Birmingham Alabama, who has cancer, they could probably do it. Of course, then those resources (cash, equipment, researchers & doctors) couldn’t be used to help other people, or to perform research towards an eventual cure for everybody. It would be a bad use of resources, right?
You don’t let John Doe die because you want his death to motivate researchers. But you only have a certain amount of resources, and you have to allocate them in a way that makes sense, and pouring everything into a temporary solution that only affect this one dude (or one batch of student loan recipients) at the cost of a long-term, permanent solution to the root causes of the issue is just…a bad idea.
Why on earth do you think I’m arguing in bad faith? What do you think my real beliefs & agenda are?
I think your real beliefs and agenda are that you don’t want student loan forgiveness for anyone, ever, under any circumstances. Maybe you’re bitter because you didn’t go to school or maybe because you did and already paid off your debt. Maybe you have a chip on your shoulder, or maybe you’re just a troll. I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter, because the argument is reprehensible regardless of your motives:
We should let John Doe in Alabama die because it’s too expensive to save him.
You decided that the financial expense of saving a life is worth condemning a patient to death just like you decided that the imaginary, hypothetical political cost of a change in policy is worth consigning multiple generations to lifelong debt.
You should be ashamed of yourself. But whether you are or not, I’m not interested in debating with you.
We can use it as a one-time cure for a bunch of current cancer patients, or we can use it to continue further research towards a permanent, universally-available cure.
How is this what’s happening? Who said it’s a one-time-only thing? Who said they can’t also research permanently available cure? Wouldn’t proving that removing the debt is a huge boon to everyone cause people to invest more in the idea of a cure?
We should still do good things even if we can’t do all the good things.
I’m on board, as long as we forcefully agree that cancelling the loans is a good thing - it’s just NOT ENOUGH
I spent five figures paying mine off two years ago.
Still 100% support my tax dollars paying for people’s college. In fact, I’d love that instead of the nine wars my tax dollars are paying for instead.
I’d settle for interest free loans tbh…
And then do it for personal homes, too.
I’d settle for universal housing. And universal education. And universal healthcare.
I don’t understand why you need all of that. Let’s say we agree, next you’ll say people deserve clean water and steer the world away from climate disaster and genocide. You <insert group name> want it all!
I actually beat cancer. If they suddenly find a cure for cancer now I am going to be so fucking happy! This comment is about student loans…and fuck cancer.
From the school of “I suffered through [x], so therefore everyone else should suffer, too, even if they don’t need to.”
There’s always going to be a cutoff point where someone has it harder or easier than those that came before. That’s just life. As long as the change wasn’t malicious, just feel good (or whatever is appropriate) for those that benefit from it.
I work in a highly contract-controlled industry, and when things improve there’s always a segment of the group that might be close to retirement or something and gets all pissed that they didn’t won’t realize the benefits of a change that will apply mostly to those that will have longer under the change. They’re the same ones that removed that new employees didn’t suffer under whatever crappy work rules that might have existed before, too.
So yeah…people that paid off their loans, or guys that I work with that paid for some/all of their kid’s college, removed about people catching a break on their loans. STFU and be happy that someone else caught a break.
Can someone tell me what this comic is about?
IDK. Some cringe-lord wants free stuff and wants your taxes to pay for it. Something about cancer.
I have to wonder if my generation [Millenial] had any effect on university enrollments yet. My kids aren’t quite the age to talk about education plans as I had kiddos later in life @30yo (40 now). I’ll be strongly discouraging uni unless it’s completely unavoidable to what they want to do.
I mean the numbers still say that a bachelor’s degree doubles or triples your lifetime earnings over a high school diploma. Moreover, an educated society benefits everyone. College is still the right move at every scale. What we need to do is make it a more equitable system.
Maybe. Depends on how functional you are overall. Turns out I can pass college courses, but not keep a job so well.
I’m really good at getting high paying jobs, but my executive function is terrible. I can’t keep the jobs.
People with good executive function tend to not be aware of it as a factor. For them “getting that job” is the big uncertain hurdle on their path to success.
Not once in my upbringing all the way through college graduation did anyone talk about keeping jobs. It was all about getting the job. I’ve gotten some pretty amazing jobs … and lost them.
This analogy doesn’t really work though. Most people don’t willingly receive cancer. I think the thought process is you chose to borrow that money now it’s your responsibility to pay it back. If you worked an entire year to pay off your student loan debt and another person doesn’t work and their loans are paid off, you worked an entire year for free. Essentially slave labor. Anyone would be grateful when someone beats cancer but watching everyone around you get free handouts while you did what you are supposed to, I can see why people aren’t a fan of the idea. I paid off my student loans during COVID and I never expected any money back but I’d be lying if I said getting that money back now would not be extremely helpful in my life. I’m grateful that people are getting their loans forgiven. College shouldn’t cost remotely what it does.
Most people don’t willingly receive cancer.
When I was a kid, my parents were able to set aside money for my benefit in advance so that when I started college I had enough for tuition, housing, and a car. When I graduated, I even had enough left over for a down payment on a starter home.
I didn’t get to choose this. It was decided for me the day I was born. It was given to me purely by dint of who my parents happened to be and where I lived. In other countries, everyone has access to this level of
public health carecough excuse me cough higher education. But I had to rely on a private system that rewarded people with the means to accumulate financial surplus.Also, my mom smoked when she was younger. But when she started trying to get pregnant, she quit. If she’d continued smoking through the pregnancy, it would have significantly increased my chance to develop some form of childhood cancer. Again, this was not something I got to choose. It was purely a consequence of my parents’ decisions.
This is a shit metaphor. In reality no one should be angry if there is a cure simply because they didn’t have to use it. Some cancer cannot just be beaten so yea, let them have the cure. Move on That’s just childish view on cancer.
Student loans however yes, but for fuck sakes do not just compare such shit to cancer.
Checking my bank balance, and seeing this ugly growth that endlessly consumes while yielding nothing but anxiety and pain. Knowing that this ball of debt is intrinsic to my existence, but that a mutation in its purpose has transformed it from benevolent symbiote to voracious parasite. Talking to specialists and professionals about how to remove it, but hearing how my options are - themselves - often life-threatening or at least misery inducing for months or years at a time, and that there’s no real guarantee the growth can be removed as a result. Hearing how other people who were richer than me got a benign treatment much earlier on and are no longer suffering. Recognizing that there’s a national program to provide treatment in other countries, but we can’t import it because that would mean engaging with evil socialists.
Fuck. You’re right. Nothing like cancer at all.
I like you. Wanna get coffee sometime?
Only if you’re buying.
I don’t get it
Edit:
Ok thanks I get it now.
People with student loans are mad there are loan forgiveness programs.
People with student loans are mad
They’re generally not. But a few well-situated op-ed writers working for newspapers with a vested interest in the private loan industry have expressed a great deal of outrage.
