site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3833 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 18, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

IIRC Catholic schools spend the same as charters for better results(how much of that is selection effects is an interesting question- Catholic schools avoid idiocy like the whole word method so it’s probably not 100%). So delivering education for that price point is definitely doable, public schools do a lot of cost disease.

Secular private schools are expensive probably in part because they’re funding things like chefs in the cafeteria and public-school quality athletics complexes. I’m not sure the difference can fund galt’s gulch- I think you can make a private club gated parallel society compound in the middle of nowhere, but it’s going to entail a big drop in standards of living or a wealthy(like billionaire tier) outside backer.

Well, there are all sorts of costs/benefits to moving out to the middle of nowhere. The real price of doing so isn't the cost of building a fence or housing or whatever, it's the price of moving away from any large center of commerce. Transplant a few thousand people directly from NYC to Podunk and even after improving their housing substantially you'll have hundreds of millions of dollars left over to build whatever else needs to be build, including a school.

Other prices, such as tuition, are also inflated by this--teachers need a place to live, after all. Taxes will be lower. Food will be cheaper. Everything will be better except for the one thing that keeps hundreds of millions of people from doing this--economic opportunity.

So yeah, if everyone kept their same incomes and bought in to such a society, I think you could build and run a comparable private school for a fraction of the price, but the "if" is certainly no settled matter.

One of the costs of middle of nowhere living is lower incomes.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We're talking about whether you can fund a Galt's Gulch for the price of a private school. I think you can, but you probably need to make it much cheaper, because the people funding it will be taking pay cuts to move out and participate in the project.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats