this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 50 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Headlines like this are a good reminder of my prime directive: Don't donate money to political parties. Both Harris and Trump have billionaires in their corner and they don't need your money.

Instead, donate to your friends' mutual aid requests or invest it in your own stocks and investments. These candidates aren't going to do anything meaningful to change your station in life, but they will make a trillion dollars appear out of thin air overnight to avoid a major drop in the stock market and your $10-$20 could mean the difference between skipping a day of food and eating for someone you know and love.

[–] solsangraal@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 months ago (4 children)

they will make a trillion dollars appear out of thin air overnight

that's the federal reserve, which does what it wants and doesn't answer to anyone, including the president

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Thank you for adding information to my post. Have a nice evening.

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 5 points 2 months ago

NO KINGS, NO GODS, ONLY FEDS.

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[–] callouscomic@lemm.ee 41 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Average cop starting pay is significantly more than teachers. Which one requires the education? Which one contributes more to society?

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 2 months ago (5 children)

My firefighter/emt job I'm at 54 hours a week starts at $41k a year. That's after getting all the certs and all the ongoing training and emt refresher classes etc. Most of us work two jobs.

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[–] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (16 children)

Cops should be paid a lot, but the danger should be part of the job and risk. I'm thinking specifically of those Uvalde cowards who did nothing and let kids get killed. Their job should be the risk, to take the bullets, so as to save and help the innocent. That's the risk they should take, and get paid well specifically for that.

Many of our cops are overweight lazy traffic cops who give poor people speeding tickets who are late for their shitty job they can't afford to be late to. Or parking wrong, or whatever.

Teachers deserve a lot more too, way more for different reasons obviously. Unless they're forcing some religious nonsense poison into the minds of growing kids, fuck that.

[–] Lexam@lemmy.ca 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Unpopular opinion, teachers should make top dollar. A teaching position should easily be in the six figures. It should attract and demand the best people in their fields.

[–] Default_Defect@midwest.social 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

AS long as they're held accountable for actually teaching at that payrate, I'm all for it. I had too many teachers that did the bare minimum to make sure we could pass the standardized test and that was it. I hated science in high school because of it and can't get enough of it now that I can learn it from people that give a shit.

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

As long as they’re held accountable for actually teaching

the bare minimum to make sure we could pass the standardized test

It's possible these two attitudes are related somehow.

[–] Default_Defect@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago

Maybe, but some classes that could have been a slog were enjoyable because of those teachers at least trying to NOT make it purely memorization. For example, my biology(?) teacher assigned us 2 hours worth of copying down words and their definition every night. She ended up getting injured or sick and got replaced by a substitute and he had us make a model of a cell out of food and/or candy for homework. Same class, same semester, guess which one I can actually remember now because it wasn't insufferably monotonous.

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In America, we have collectively decided that we prefer our teachers to be poor and starving, that way our kids stay stupid and can be good little wage slaves.

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

"iT's A vOCaTIoN" (you should work as a volunteer!)

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Stop corporations from buying homes and prices will normalize.

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[–] Got_Bent@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We would have to first value education, and that counts for parents and home life as well.

Instead, we're at war with education trying to water it down as much as possible if not outright eliminate it.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

We do value education. Look at how much people are willing to pay for private school when they can afford it.

We just don't value education of other people's children. That wouldn't be a good competitive advantage for our own spawn.

Or so many people think. I personally love the idea of education for everyone as it means fewer people resorting to crime with no other option. But an educated populace is a threat to many powerful institutions, so they convince their sheep to vote against it.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I have no kids, but I want strong education....

Because I don't want to live in a society where everyone's fucking stupid

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

If everyone thought like you, we'd have a much better country.

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

Everyone's pay.

[–] obinice@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

...in the USA.

A key piece of information missing from the title, which made it a waste of my time.

I don't live in that country, and while I feel very much for the plight of any foreign education system in distress, I must focus my energy on things upon which I can affect positive change.

[–] aisteru@lemmy.aisteru.ch 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I mean... It's probably also true in Europe

[–] rowdyrockets@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Ah yes Europe, my favorite singularly governed country.

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[–] amanda@aggregatet.org 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Teachers are fairly decently paid where I live but the job is shit so nobody wants it. They don’t employ enough teachers so everyone is being worked to death, and they keep adding new admin tasks, reporting tools, standardised tests, etc that makes everything worse. Also they keep doing stupid reorganisations all the time.

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[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm amazed it's not triple.

[–] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago

Triple would just mean they would have a chance with proper savings and enjoying the perks of having disposable income while continuing to educate and create the future members of a society, that's asking too much.

[–] quantumantics@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Let me pop in as a high school teacher in the US. I make decent pay, but it took me over a decade climbing the pay ladder to reach this point. It's only been in the last five years that I've made enough to afford the mortgage on a house (well, prior to all of the rate hikes, but that's another issue entirely). But there's another problem: You're expected to put in 10% of the value (even with first-time buyer incentives) as a down payment (I last looked with any seriousness in '22). I have yet to be able to put away 5% of the average costs in my region, much less 10%. Every time I start building back up, other costs drain most or all of that within a year or two. Unless the housing market bursts big time, I'm not likely to be able to afford a home anytime soon. Note: I would rather keep renting than take a variable-rate mortgage; the last three years have seen previously affordable mortgages with variable rates go sky-high.

[–] papertowels@lemmy.one 4 points 2 months ago

FYI, it's a long shot because there's not much availability, but HUD homestore will give teachers half off the list price of a house in its "good neighbor program" (aka in a rougher neighborhood ) if you stay there for 3 years.

In addition, I think you need lower down payments for houses in general through HUD.

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The wild thing is that it gets even worse at the college level. Adjuncts get like $25k per year. It's not much better for temporary faculty, etc. It's a steep pyramid with admins and football coaches far away at the top.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

My side gig is teaching at a major university as part of a third-party contract with outside businesses. I'm still university faculty, so have to do all the HR training, maintain my credentials, etc, but my pay is a little different...

The university literally doesn't pay us for the classes. The syltudents have to pay a $215 "lab fee" directly to us that's split between me and the business. So I get paid $107.50 person student per semester while the University gets paid about $3,000. Our business provides the staff, facilities, course materials, and even the liability insurance, so the university's only real expenses are having the course listed and taking the tuition money.

My official title at the University is "Lecturer : Unpaid"

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[–] mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hey Americans.

Shouldn't exactly teacher be capable of sustaining the American lifestyle? Since they are prompting (read advertising /s) the values to the pupils, your children on an level matching doctrine?

Just for a reference. Full-time teachers with an academic degree earn the same amout of an IT-ler in Germany. Though our education system is one of the worst in Europe. So you should elect another idol from europe tbqh.

I know that Lemmy will blindly support this claim. My point is why did I never heard such obvious claim in the Internet yet? If you are about to reply: Go influence your politics please. We are directly influenced by your decisions.

Anyhow, I am not capable of replying to replies and assume others chime in.

Much love, A European Citizien.

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[–] Zier@fedia.io 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Public school teachers need to be paid properly. We need to move huge chunks of funding from the National Defense to Public Schools. Not private schools, for profit schools or 'school vouchers' but public secular schools. We don't need that much military to defend a nation of uneducated idiots, we need smart Americans.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago

We need people smart enough to abandon nationalism.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

No problem! Every kindergartner knows, the teacher lives at school!

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I am somewhat shocked that teachers could start affording houses if you doubled their pay. Maybe like a house in a shitty neighborhood in conjunction with a partner… maybe. I don’t really know but if I had to guess I would say it’s like $40k income for teachers and $150k family income to afford a house.

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[–] coffee_with_cream@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

US Teachers should have optional free on-campus housing. Single dorms & free high quality cafeteria food.

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

The general problem with housing as a job benefit is that it makes you even more dependent on that particular job. It's the same problem as with employer-provided health care.

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