I realize that we are in kind of a funk hole of capitalist hellscape, but there are things that are just public goods. To send and receive letters and packages safely and reliably is a public good that is important to many. Preschool aged children having educational programming is also important. - ThreadSky

brennanml.bsky.social • 74 days ago

I realize that we are in kind of a funk hole of capitalist hellscape, but there are things that are just public goods. To send and receive letters and packages safely and reliably is a public good that is important to many. Preschool aged children having educational programming is also important.

Reposted from Kath Barbadoro

sesame street isn't supposed to make money. the post office isn't supposed to make money. not everything is supposed to MAKE MONEY

Comments

stephenblackmoore.com•74 days ago

Oh, sure. If you want "society" or "civilization" or "basic understanding of human interactions for toddlers" and "consistent communication between people"

God, you are so woke, Brennan.

philospher77.bsky.social•74 days ago

The difference between the Post Office and commercial carriers was driven home to me when I had moved to a small town in Texas A job had FedExed me some plane tickets for an interview, and I was anxiously waiting for them to arrive. They didn't, and when I called about them, I found out...

philospher77.bsky.social•74 days ago

that I needed to drive to Dallas, over 80 miles away, to get them from the FedEx hub, because they didn't deliver to the very small town I lived outside of. The post office, on the other hand, did deliver mail daily. If you want it to be profitable, it would have to cut the same services as FedEx

geekydad.bsky.social•74 days ago

That program is some of the most educational things that child may get for the whole day. From the count or even Elmo teaching them to share and be friends...all are important!

thejimperor.bsky.social•74 days ago

The news used to be like this, too. It was Andy Griffith’s job to make money, and Walter Cronkite was performing a public service. Now they both have to make money and obscene amounts to boot

brennanml.bsky.social•74 days ago

I'm sure there are some doctoral candidates who could do some serious crunching about what having children arrive in kindergarten able to count to twenty and recite the alphabet does for our overall economy, but can we just point to the last 54 years and say that Sesame Street is a public good?

peterclines.bsky.social•74 days ago

I think the problem is the Zaslavs and Musks of the world honestly don't understand the public good. In their minds it's just some meaningless slogan like "save the whales" or "Merry Christmas."

brennanml.bsky.social•74 days ago

On a fundamental level they can't understand it because they have never truly benefited from a public good. When you have immense personal wealth, what does Sesame Street even do that your hired nannies and personal tutors didn't? If people want their kids to learn, just send them to a private PreK.

brennanml.bsky.social•74 days ago

It's like that one Treasury Department guy during one of the Trump shutdowns who was informed in an interview that government employees were surviving by visiting food banks, and he was all, "why don't they just sell stock or take out a small loan?" He just fundamentally didn't understand.

peterclines.bsky.social•74 days ago

Years back on the bad site I did a whole long thread about how the super-rich literally do not live in the same world as us (based partially on my own dealings with one such person). They're effectively aliens when it comes to understanding how the rest of us live.

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