11-28: An Exciting Debate
Today I had an exciting debate with my classmates. The topic was: "Which is more important, curing stupidity (providing education) A or fighting poverty B ?" I was on the side of fighting poverty being more important than providing education, becoming debater B1. My argument was that people in poverty don't have their basic needs (e. g. food, shelter, healthcare) satisfied. The satisfaction of these basic needs is more fundamental than education. If one is stuck in poverty and is starving, could you just throw him some books and tell him "after you study you will become rich"? We need to solve the problem of extreme poverty, because poverty threatens survival, before we provide education, which purpose is to improve the quality of life. My opponent, debater A1, said that education is a stabler way towards ending poverty rather than the government giving out aids. I argued that education can be seen as a type of investment. Investments do not guarantee success...