The Role of Government and Society In Fostering Growth

Nothing exists in a void, so to begin, I will be examining the question of how to prevent dangerous driving habits in American teenagers. “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe,” Carl Sagan once said, and it remains the pivot by which not just questions, but the importance of their asking may be outlined. I argue that in avoiding these dangerous habits, we must avoid the habits of education and household affairs that preceded them. I suggest that we expand the scope of primary education beyond the rigid, standardized testing which has by all metrics failed to advance the quality of education our children get by replacing the grading system with a more skills or needs based system designed to cater to the needs or the individual and find their strengths in order to bolster them rather than force modes of thought which may or may not succeed. Second, I suggest that we expand our local, state, and national transit systems and move away from an automobile-centric mode of existence as it may provide a means to mitigate dangerous teen driving, provide a meaningful transition to green-jobs for those in the automobile industry, and prop up the family lives of the working class through decreased need to take out exorbitant loans and thereby limit financial stress which has been linked to difficulty in school. Lastly, I believe that we should conceive and push for the full automation of all driving within the next few decades in order to decrease all road accidents, improve traffic, and provide better results for disaster relief efforts.

I believe that in our current system, we educate primarily to fill the labor gaps in largely unskilled positions in an economy increasingly dominated by “Gig” work and “Disruptive” entities like AirBnB, Uber, and even their ideological predecessor, McDonalds. Our schooling mirrors that in the similar lifelessness of the curriculums, the mind numbing tedium of the classwork, and the sheer unending deluge that even small children are subjected to. Nowhere in these public classes is there any room for the kind of critical thinking, creative nurturing that could produce the next truly innovative mind. Instead, the fear of 0% or D or god forbid an F drives robotic work and study habits that could only ever lead to the kind of inattentiveness and dangerous driving that might otherwise be avoided if we could give these kids something to be passionate about. Wouldn’t you be less inattentive if there were joyful, exciting, and challenging things in your day to day life? Moreover, imagine your weekdays were, with the exception of a small summer respite, contextualized entirely around tribal sports, the threat of being deemed scholastically unfit by your elders, and all simultaneously while being berated for your inattentiveness and general dangerous disregard for a place which has only shown regard for you in that you may one day work for it.

And how can this be any clearer than a place where, when most finally make it out of the proverbial meat grinder that is our education system, they are faced with the task of finding transportation. Easy enough for those who can afford to live in cities or within short distances of the rest of their lives, but for so many it is absolutely necessary to take a loan which represents around half of what a full time, minimum wage worker might make in an entire year if, say, they spent absolutely nothing on rent, food, or happiness in general. We need to stop acting like the automotive industry is a timeless entity which must never pass from this world. We must grow up and give our citizenry a robust public transit network that can accommodate their needs. This of course, cannot be done overnight but that is a good thing. By creating new infrastructure, we may provide useful labor to large amounts of people. By shifting from a focus on automotives, we can improve the green-cars that already exist and develop efficient railways and bus systems to offset emissions in the meantime. All of this, of course would also drastically limit the amount of people on the road and thereby necessarily alleviate some of those dangerous driving habits made by teenagers.

Even then, we could do better. To do so, I recommend transitioning into 100% automated driving in all personal vehicles in the next couple decades for safety and efficiency reasons. By doing this, we can exponentially limit road incidents and fatalities, increase transit efficiency, and be better prepared for national disasters at a moments notice through shared maps and GPS updated routing. By doing this, we can alleviate the onus of attention and danger from the average person and in fact improve their lives by giving them more free time to enjoy a society which actually values them.

Dangerous driving habits in teenagers are a terrible reminder of our failings in America, and even if I have not convinced you, I at least hope that we may begin to question exactly why that is in a more holistic way moving forward. I believe that when one stubs their toe on a rock, they would simply waste their time to admonish the rock. Instead, I suggest that we reconsider our surroundings. I suggest that we path a new course, more truly dedicated not only to the well being of our students but our society as a whole. We can continue to criticise these lacks in attention and the fatalities that result, but until we take a deep look and fix the underlying causes of these tragedies, we will never be able to fix the symptoms that must always show up. In going back to school to study economics, I want nothing more than to fix these things, and I truly hope I can.