As for "it would have already been done," that accepts the illogical lie that this system of not paying people to go to college produces the people who would have done it. Just like the lie that cancer must be hard to cure, even though all we have working on it are childish escapist freaks who don't earn a living until they are 30 years old. As for dismissing the fact that only superior athletes are getting incentives that are consistent with human psychological motivation, your education leaves you incompetent to make analogies. All that matters is the superiority of the talent, not what the talent is in. Thinking that High IQs will study for "the love of learning" is as dysfunctional, insulting, and subconsciously parasitic as thinking that athletes will play for "the love of the game." The pros tried that before the 50s and most of the best college athletes refused to turn pro. Similarly, I met a Bioscience grad student who got paid $600 a week plus free tuition, but what about all the potential grad students whose talent was lost because they weren't paid that for undergraduate studies? Significantly, only one of her 14 classmates was born in America. All 15 would have been Americans if we immediately and materially rewarded them like we do superior athletes, from childhood on. What's worst of all about this insult to intelligence is that we would get people mentally superior to the grad students we have now. "Deferred gratification" is a bullying insult meant to put superior minds in their place as Cash Cows for the corporations. Let business and society think long-term instead of burdening the people who actually produce all of what the others benefit from
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So society is upside-down in demanding that the talented sacrifice instead of the other way around. And this propaganda about college also induces jealousy, hatred, and contempt with its lie that those with intellectual talent have it easy and rewarding.