Slashdot Mirror
Education Via Video Games
An anonymous reader writes "According to Wired/AP, food stamp recipients will now receive video games instead of brochures and pamphlets, in an effort to educate them on how to get the most benefit. One wonders why someone that can't afford food would have spent money on a computer on which to play these games."
Link : The Legacy
Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do!
This reminds me of that one bash.org quote:
Things I've learned about war from videogames: If you find yourself mortally wounded by an enemy sniper be sure to let him know that he is a faggot.
"According to Wired/AP" - never thought I'd see that. o.O
Are they going to supply the XBOX and Television too?
Sign me up!
i read the same article on google news. it seems to be more of a public education issue. btw, where in america ISN'T a computer these days. even the ultra poor have pc access.
Sounds idealistic? Yes, it does. But lets also not forget that this UN body last year fed more than 100 million people.
Food Force will be free, either as a CD or as a download from the internet. The WFP is also looking at distributing it in schools as an educational tool
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Minimum System requirements:
Athlon 64 3400+ or equivalent processor
512 MB of RAM
Radeon X800 or equivalent video card
Seriously though, if the game works on a P90, then one could expect even the poorest of poor to afford a computer to run it since even much faster machines are practically given away everywhere all the time.
What happens when you die in this video game?
Just give em a copy of the Oregon Trail and teach em how to hunt. This way, they don't need welfare, they're self sufficient, the deer and bear population is controlled, everybody wins. They will learn invaluble lessons, like: You can kill 1000 pounds of elk but only carry twenty back to they wagon. Saved my life many a time, helped me preserve those musket rounds.
Doom 4 - Hungry as Hell
You only need to buy a computer once.
Seriously, I could walk down the street to the Goodwill and drop $10 on an old monitor or a PC, but they wouldn't be pretty. For $100 I could buy a decent P-II system used. That's not too bad for something which I can use to help me get a job. Heck, it's less than some unemployed people I have known spent on beer in a month.
Believe it or not, computers don't all cost $4000, have an "Alienware" logo on them and come with artificially intelligent graphics cards from a company called "Skynet".
sell their computers and electronic eq as a condition for benefits?
JUUUUUUUST kidding, folks.
Seriously, though.
"Players in the Price Makes Sense have to use their math skills to figure out the best food deal; for instance, that six servings of eggs at $1.20 is cheaper per serving than five servings of chicken at $2.00."
The error in the reasoning here is that 6 servings of eggs probably means more cholesterol than 5 servings of chicken, oh and it's a certainty that 5 servings of chicken fills you up far more than 6 servings of eggs. Based on what fills you up, the 6 servings of chicken at $2.00 is the best deal.
This brings me to the major question of my post... how credible is the "education" this game offers?
Oh, and if I have a Gameboy Advance and I'm on welfare, and this game only plays on the PS2, am I SOL? o_O
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Another food-game story from the BBC:
"The game itself is somewhere between a game like Tomb Raider and a lecture from the WFP," explained the game's designer, Mike Harrison.
Those funky, funky people...
"Because so many young adults played such games as kids, they ought to be able to learn more easily from them, too, said the project's director"
This kind of education game is a good idea for very young children (before the age that cynicism gets the better of them), but adults?? If I was hard up, I would feel very patronised if I received a computer game telling me to store perishables in the fridge.
"They played a medieval-themed game called Squire's Quest, developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine's Children's Nutrition Research Center. Kids win by getting promoted from squire to knight. But the real goal is to get them to eat more fruits and vegetables."
"Unfortunately, most of them are still trying to work out how to give the Kerrek a cold one."
World Food Programme (WFP) seeks to capitalise on the popularity of video games to educate youngsters (target audience of children aged between eight and 13 years old) about hunger and the work of the aid agency, and not to those who cannot afford food.
a sp:
There could be better ways to do this, since educating using games seems to be a flawed idea.
From http://www.game-research.com/art_myths_of_gaming.
Not long after the birth of computer games the first hopes for the potential of learning through games were expressed. Wouldn't it be great if the enthusiasm exhibited when playing games could be used for good, sound learning? Since then, several commercial games showing various degrees of success have been labelled 'edutainment' - a combination of the two words education and entertainment.
However, neither the education nor the entertainment part has been very successful in these titles- combining the two has turned out to be a tough job. According to the proponents of learning through games the main potential lies in the ability of games to increase motivation through the interactive nature of games, putting the player in control of the learning and the game's options for adjusting the level of difficulty. However, it seems that most edutainment games have problems living up to these reasons for using games in the first place.
In her book Dataspill - Innføring og analyse (translation: Computer games - introduction and analysis) about games Eva Liestøl analyses five different games. She finds that the one game that does not let the player choose his own path through the game world is the edutainment title. She doesn't press the issue but if you look at other edutainment titles, you find the same pattern - educational titles seem to take over the control and narrow down the game universe to make it fit with the intentions of the producer. These intentions are often to convey some specific information about a topic. Closing the game universe and conveying specific information does not fit well with traditional game dynamics, where simple and general rules are the backbone. In stead, educators have to a larger extent turned to the adventure genre, where it is easier to focus on information, but they have found out that even here it is hard to convey the necessary depth of an educational topic.
Furthermore, very few studies have delivered hard evidence that games can be used for learning. Typically the research has been directed at putting learning into games and then assuming that this learning somehow came across to the player. But the ambition should be higher than this. It is not enough to have 'some kind of learning' in games. To truly say that games are great learning tools we must prove - or at least make probable - that games are better than other learning alternatives. And here we are still a long way from the goal - so the dream of games as great educational tools, remains a dream. (- Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen)
As computer literacy becomes almost a necessity in order to get a decent job, I would hope that low-income families invest in their children's future by having a computer at home. It's a lot better way to spend limited money than cable television.
Our society provides food stamps to help the hunger issue in the United States. Providing food stamps (for food) to the poor seems to be a reasonable way of helping - tax payers and administrators feel good (and approve) systems that buy food, but usually not ones that buy booze, PC's, or provide funds to the poor for discretionary spending. If the food stamps provide some relief, or eliminate food bills, then the poor have more money for computers, a nice Christmas, beer, and other items that generally contribute to better quality of life.
If you believe in helping the poor, and provide the help through food and food stamps, don't complain that they use the little bit of money that they DO have for items that you don't endorse - whether that is bus fare to the public library to access a computer, or a 6-pack of beer.
Bill: Nice to meet you, John. I'm Bill.
John: I create video games. How about you?
Bill: I work in the government welfare system. So how's business, John?
John: Not so good, Bill. People just aren't interested im my games with ones like Doom 3 around. Still, your job sounds fulfilling?
Bill: Well, John, it could be... except that we're trying to get over the message to people on welfare about how they need to maintain a balanced diet, especially for their kids. We're not doing too well getting the message across, even with a 25 million dollar advertising budget from the government...
John: Jeez, Bill. And there's me, unable to get my game "Kitchen Invaders" published, with a 22-year old nymphomaniac, single, lingerie-modelling daughter too...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Even low income households can obtain a low end PC these days. I for one am in that boat. Except over years I have been able to build a up a very nice system.
There is a few non-profit organizations out there that help low income individuals, or organizations with obtaining computers.
It's easy as going to a thrift store now and building lowely Pentium system for cheap. Or grabbing parts from the curb. (Done that few times too).
And even if you don't have a PC, most likely you know someone that does, or have access to one.
Even for consoles, you may have little income, but you are allowed to spend the basic needs money (least here) on whatever you wish, as long as it's not illegal substances.
misundstood by most, hated by some, loved by few.
I'll bite. My karma is high enough to take a few hits.
Such people need at best a training course as to how to save money, and at worst probably need to go hungry for a few days to knock some sense into them. I don't know what the problem is, but it needs to be fixed because it is an epidemic (in America at least).
I live in a poor neighborhood because, well, I am poor. I am getting through college and doing it on a tight budget. I don't worry for the future because I am getting out with a solid chemical engineering degree and have a fair padding of cash from working despite loan payments. I intend to stay where I am exactly long enough to get a job, then go live some place safe.
I live in a shit hole. My apartment is a piece of crap, but the rent is cheap (for Boston). Across the street from me is a massive block of beautiful apartments. These apartments all have rent much cheaper then mine because they are apart of a project. There are these beautiful apartments filled with 'poor' people. Now, the idea would be solid if it wasn't for the fact that they are living like kings while I work hard to make ends meat. My car is a POS rust bucket with no radio that barely runs and can get me to work and back. Half the cars across the street have fucking rims that literally cost more then my entire car. My car doesn't have rims, the wheel bolting is exposed.
Now, not even this would bother me if it wasn't for the fact that I fucking have had to fund the project with my tax dollar. The socialistic systems are flat out broken. I know it is a little cruel, but I wish the capitalist poke in the ass was harsher because these people are just bleeding the system.
Social programs should be reserved for exactly two types of people. People who were born with mental/physical disabilities that do not allow them to go take their share, and people who received mental/physical disabilities through no fault of their own. Everyone else should get just enough food and medical coverage to live, a basic education, and nothing else. Hell, through in a safety net of a year or two for people who get unemployed. If there is not anything wrong with you, you should get your ration of just enough food to not starve. Is that an uncomfortable life? Hell yeah. I have been there. Do something about it. The problem is a cultural problem. Maybe if people were uncomfortable enough the culture would change. Judging by the fucking base rocking my house from across the street right now (7 am BTW) the current method isn't working.
That is the problem about being poor that "rich" people don't get. Not even if they had a "poor" period (typically they claim they had no money while being a student). Why don't they get it? Because they don't need to replace anything in that time. The bed the "rich" kid got from home when he wen't out of the house will last him a couple of years till he finished study and has found a job.
The poor kid's bed is already at the end of its live. Same with washing machines (Is it only in holland that the kid moving out gets the old one while the parents buy a new one?) a tv, a car, furniture, anything.
Poverty really starts to show its teeth when things start breaking down. The washing machine breaks and you don't have the money to replace it, worse you now need to use the laundromat wich is more expensive preventing you from saving up for a new one. It also takes more time, time you can no longer spend improving your lot.
Social services in the Netherlands are beginning to get this. That it may be all very nice to give just enough money to survive and perhaps a little bit more but that it ain't enough for those who can't get out (remember that unemployment is good for business, full employment would mean it is a workers job market. See bubble on what happens then) of their situation. So they now make it possible under certain circumstances to get washing machines, fridges and other household equipment.
The above poster if obviously a "rich" person who doesn't get it. He mentions that having a car makes you rich. He forgets that a car may be essential for having a job. Public transport is great if you work in a office block and work 9-5. If you clean that office then you may find that all the buses stop running after 5. Or that your work is in a factory in the middle of nowwhere and the shift starts at 6. Long before their is anykind of public transport service. Even if your shift neatly fall in public tranportation times that may make it impossible to do overtime if your shift ends 5 minutes before the last bus.
So he got it exactly the wrong way around. Being able NOT to have a car shows your "rich".
So get a cheap old car? Cheap old cars break down more often and consume more fuel. Worse, in high paying jobs you may have "flexible" hours. Factory shifts tend to rely on everyone being on time.
A tv is the only form of information/entertainment the poor can "afford". Go to the library and read a book? Check opening times of the local branch library. Oh the city branch has evening opening times? And how do you get there?
Being poor is constantly being constrained by money for a long time (10yrs+). That is where the real problems occur that are hardest to spot and hardest to get for politicians. "Rich" people just don't get it. They can't, it would be like expecting men to understand the feelings of motherhood.
Sadly goverment is formed by the "rich". Even the "socialist" goverments, just check on how many of even the most socialist parties had to survive at or below the poverty line during they youth for long periods.
So please ignore the above poster. He ain't got a clue, he is just a little rich boy who doesn't realize how good he has it. Being poor is not having no money this month. Being poor is not having enough money for live. Think of it as a company operating at a loss. No problem so long as you can make up for the loss by the profits in the past, kinda like Sun is doing now. But if you never had profits you can't do that. Human beings don't go bankrupt, they just slowly die. Poor people live significantly shorter then "rich" people.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One wonders why someone that can't afford food would have spent money on a computer on which to play these games
Am I the only one that found this particular element of the comment particularly condesending?
Maybe they got a computer because someone out there realized that technological knowledge is important for under privelaged kids to have, and that gaining access to said technology would be beneficial?
Having seen this particular program at work in my community, I've been impressed. They have the kids learn how to build computers, install all the software, and learn how to use common applications. At the end of the summer, they get to take a computer home with them. Pretty sweet.
I'm also in the same graduate department as James, so this is a bit of a shameless plug. However, he's put a ton of time and effort into it, and it is pretty neat that they are providing resources to kids that need them.
Now, these probably aren't your Quake 3 running machines, but who cares.
Just one possible solution...
- Sighuh?
"But lets also not forget that this UN body last year fed more than 100 million people."
So? While important, feeding people is only keeping them alive. One could argue that just feeding them is a good way to establish and maintain a fuzzy, feel-good beurocracy.
It doesn't address the issue of keeping them safe , which is more important and where the UN falls to its knees repeatedly. See the massacre just a couple of days ago.
The UN is not the end-all, freedom and economic development is.
Cant.. stop.. must... type reposte...
As a fellow poor person, who worked his way through a CS degree (and masters), I have to disagree with you guys.
The problem is not that poor people are spending their money on entertainment systems before neccesities. This is not something I observed the vast majority of my fellow downtrodden doing during my formative years, although I will admit that it did go on to a small extent.
No, the problem is that poor people exist in the first place.
In a civilized western democracy, nobody should be so poor that they do not have access to a PC. This creates a barrier to getting otherwise able bodied and intelligent people into work. Ask yourself this- how many potential doctors and nurses are sitting on your housing project because they dont have the finances to compliment their intelligence?
Welfare should be a safety net, but that net should be high enough to give eveybody a chance to contribute to the greater good, for all our sakes.
You want to moan about the poor leeching your taxes? They dont take nearly as many of your tax dollars as the corporations who avoid trillions (yes- trillions) of dollars of taxes every year.
Heres an idea- why dont working people pay the same tax, corporations pay the tax that the actually owe, and the resulting extra revenue be channeled into making our society a nicer place to live. This would include allowing people the opportunity to have the funds to do something constructive, and find decent employment.
If someone I love gets really sick I want their doctor to be somebody who got his education and employment, because he was intelligent, motivated, interested in medicine, and he then had to compete against EVERY other person with the same interests and abilities.
If someone I love gets really sick I DO NOT want somebody to be looking after them just because he could afford the $100000 to get throught medical school and the academic competition wasnt really up to much.
Discuss...
Idunno about you guys, but I have definitely skimped on the food budget from time to time in my younger days in favor of upgrades to the computer. A week of rice'n'beans instead of real food => one more bank of ram.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
I don't know even about very young children. I'm getting the idea that the only ones who make "educational games" are the ones too fucking unskilled to make a proper video game.
Can games teach people stuff? Well, yes. I've learned a lot of history stuff from games like Europa Universalis, or to a lesser extent Civilization. Or at least got the curiosity to read more about that from other places.
Or "Die Gilde" ("Europa 1400 - The Guild" for you 'merkins) gives you a historical report of what happened IRL in that year after each game year. I've learned more late medieval trivia from it than from any other game.
But here's the scoop:
1. It must be fun as a _game_. Civilization was a bestseller in its own right. It didn't need to masquerade as "educational software" to get any sales at all. Ditto for Die Gilde, at least in Germany. Europa Universalis has a steep learning curve, but also got quite a few people addicted on its own merits.
2. Don't lecture or preach. It must first and foremost be a game, not a piss-poorly disguised beating people up with a clue stick. People instinctively resist being lectured.
3. Don't be patronising. Stuff that basically says, "see, we know you're a fscking retard who doesn't know how to put stuff in a fridge. We also know you're an idiot who can't figure out the cheapest crap to buy." serves no purpose other than humiliating someone. If anything, it'll make them resist the lecture even more.
And I'm thinking the same could be applied to software for small children. A game should be written to be first and foremost a _game_, and only incidentally also education.
E.g., there are a ton of _fun_ ways to make someone exercise their maths or logic skills. Economic sim games have done that for ages. Puzzles are also a good means to that end. (And god knows even the worst maths puzzle is still better than yet another "jump puzzle".)
So it's not like they _have_ to be crappy _and_ patronising games to be educational. It's just that the people making them seem to be into patronizing their gamers. And in most cases also utterly unable to make a proper game anyway.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Coming from slashdot, I'm not surprised that the bulk of posts are written from atop a high horse.
Being poor is not something that people wallow in. It is simply a state that people find themselves in. Most people do not strive to be poor. If the have a computer, they likely bought / got it prior to their current state of affairs.
Sometimes the effects are gradual. Sometimes there are mass lay-offs that occur that shut down entire towns. Mines, automotive factories, etc. can create instant poverty by closing shop. It's not pretty, and considering that a large percentage of people live paycheck to paycheck, it's not surprising that people don't know how to live 'poor'.
Snide comments about why people are poor are not solutions to poverty. They only prove that you lack a serious understanding of how the real world operates.
It is unfortunate that there will always be people out there looking to take advantage of a situation.
No, not that sort of adult. Sorry to dissapoint.
Go to Garage Games and check out Bridge Construction Set, available both for Windows and Linux.
With many Linux distros that use KDE, you can get several "edutainment" games such as Kiten (Japanese), KVerbos, Klettres, Ktouch, KFlashcard, Kstars.... They are OK, but rather limited. I hope they will become better, one day perhaps KPercentage will have grown enough to teach (for instance) 9 years of basic school math to anyone.
The best educational game I have played though was back in Windows 95 days, a Swedish game developer from my home town Uppsala had made a geography game that fit on one floppy. You could learn names and locations of continents, countries, states, capitols etc, the quiz was usually by pointing and clicking on maps when presented by a name.
I believe they later went on to make the Backpacker series. I have never played any of them, but appearently they are great successes. The sort of game parents can pick up at any supermarket for their kids and not worry about voilent content and so on...
if I ever get the time I hope to do a similar geography game in Java on Sourceforge.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Most of this arrogant posts on this thread are from slashdotters who do not realize that their own chances of becoming poor in the future is much better than their chances of getting rich. And that is sad considering that the poor are so much greater in number than the rich.
Here are some numbers for the arrogant posters to digest: one third of all recent tax returns (single AND joint filers) have gross incomes of less than $20K, and almost 50% of them are less than $30K.
THe problem is that corporate propaganda has convinced most Americans that they are on the verge of getting rich. But the house always wins, numbkulls.....
Why not take the SAFE way, the prudent way, as they do in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Canada, etc etc, and RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
but the article says:
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
One wonders why someone that can't afford food would have spent money on a computer on which to play these games.
You're kidding, right?
In high school/college I worked summers at a convenience store in my tiny, hick Kansas town. A few of the things I witnessed while working there:
- I saw a lady try and buy dogfood with food stamps.
- I saw a lady purchase two 16oz Pepsi bottles, and insist they be rung up seperately. Each one rung up for about $1.05, and she paid for each one with $2 in food stamps. She then took the change received back from each one and bought a pack of smokes.
- I can't tell you how many times people would try to buy beer with food stamps. The best part was when they'd get all pissed off when we wouldn't do it, and talk about how we couldn't tell them how to spend "their money".
Not to go Right Wing Facists on anyone, but I would guess than 9 times out of 10, people on food stamps don't have a history of making wise purchase decisions.
With this new program, families will be able to buy their bread, milk & USDA cheese, as well as an upgrade to a BFG-9000.
OK, I don't think I should even try to touch on that comment about affording food versus affording a gaming console/computer. I hope most realize how things work in this thing called reality. If you don't, go to a "bad" neighborhood and check things out for a while. Check out the inside of a project. My current theory after being a contractor for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority for the past few months is the more DirecTV dishes on a house, the poorer the occupants. It really is strange. Not that I think liberties should be squelched, but no one should have a right to TV if they cannot even afford housing. Additionally, not to encourage piracy, but these dish-using people need to learn how to share if they must have them at all.
I am feeling fat and sassy
I hear a lot of you talking like living in poverty is a terrible thing, and that the poor die a lot quicker... the reason for this is that they are making terrible decisions. Here are some handy tips:
Don't get knocked up at fifteen and you won't have to worry about feeding a child at sixteen.
You can fill out a job application if you can read.
Hanging out with drug dealers will get you shot, either by the drug dealer or the other drug dealer.
No one will hire you if you have an attitude that you don't need to work, or if you can't be bothered to show up for work, or if you can't speak the King's English.
Life is rough. There is no doubt. But you have to be competent to be hired. That is how the whole of civilization works.
Poverty and government assistance are there to get you back on your feet... they are not there to feed you for a lifetime. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people that think that living in the projects and not worrying about an education is an acceptable LIFETIME proposition.
Free education. What do you do with it? Nothing. Free food. Housing is $30 a month. Yes, you have nothing of your own. Yes, the place you live in stinks, and is full of drug dealers... but let I remind you that drug dealers don't work for a living either. They just threaten people and stand around. If everyone is bored and in each other's business, and no one can read or find a way to find a job, then you just have idiots stealing from each other.
Look, if you can't be forced to get your butt to work and get a job like the other 90% of humanity, then you only get JUST ENOUGH TO SURVIVE. You don't get to thrive for failing.
Sorry about the breaks.
So far I've seen mostly comments about poverty. First I'll sumarize what i've seen commented so far about educational games themselves.
First, someone posted the link to http://lrnj.com/, which is a 2D role playing game, for learning japanese. I've tried this game. This game is a good idea. Unfortunately, the game started out too hard for it to be any fun (for me), since I know nothing about japanese yet, and really had no interest untill i got the game. If you have enought interest in japanese that you know a little bit of it already, i'm sure it's great.
Next, someone posted http://www.game-research.com/art_myths_of_gaming.a sp , which is a article basically saying that that educational aren't educational and aren't any fun. I see a few reasons for this.
#1 there have only been a few educational games made. If I was to take a small random sampling of all games (not just popular games, all games), I bet they would probably suck too. What's the odds of picking doom3 out of a list of thousands of games?
#2 People who make "educational" games, often will have other agendas that may interefere with the fun of the game. For example, people who have the desire for "games to be educational", are often the same people who will wish that "games were non-violent". Obviously a game could become bad quick by mixing agendas. Also, their other agenda may take priority over the educational content of the game. In other words, it's not educational games people have problems with, it's the people who are the type to make them, which people have problems with.
#3 High risk games, don't get large budgets. When have you seen a educational game with grpahics that competed with quake3 (or whatever was currently popular at the time of it's release)? never? That's because the majority of the work spent on a game is in the graphics/artwork...
hmm. I've talked long enough. Maybe I'll stop here. The short version is:
We need cheaper ways of aquiring good artwork.
Maybe I'll write this out more and post it as a article.
There is the difference between a poor college person and a poor person. The poor college person generally gets the necessities and spends on luxury only what is left. Generally poor college students do this because they realize fucking up a $40,000 a year investment is a very bad idea. Even if you are not paying a cent and doing it all through scholarships, you still don't want to fuck it up.
The other half is the chronically poor. Some of those people are poor because they truly are victims and have a mental of physical ailment. We are a rich enough society where we can afford to take of these people and make their lives reasonably comfortable and find them a job to suit their abilities. The other people are people for on reason or another made and continue to make stupid decisions. These are the idiots with rims worth more then my car, speaker systems worth more then a months rent, and with sets of name brand clothes worth more then my interviewing clothes. These people should be given just enough to live, an education if they want it, and nothing else. I don't want to subsidize someone's car upgrades or 100 dollar sneaker fetish.
Taxing or not taxing corporations is silly because what you don't seem to realize is that YOU pay the tax regardless. The corporations don't grow money out of air. Whatever you tack on to their expenses is just passed down the line. If the price of raw iron ore goes up, steel makers don't suddenly just make less profit. They up the price and make the customer pay the difference to maintain their profit levels. The entire idea of taxing a corporation for revenue is flawed to begin with because it ignores the fact that the consumer will ALWAYS pay that tax. If you want to beat the elite with taxes, don't tax the corporation, tax their income. This is the only way to stop them from simply passing the buck. So, am I angry that the piss pot we call the 'corporate tax laws' are routinely examined by corporations to find any way out paying the maximum amount? No. It just means the stuff I buy is cheaper. If you want evidence of this, simply examine England's gas prices for the prices of gas in the US. More taxes doesn't mean less profit, it just means you pay out the ass for gas. So, would taxing corporations put more money in government coffers? Sure. Of course, it would also be taking money out of my pocket by making everything cost more. You might as well skip the foreplay and just tax me directly then.
If you want to use taxes on corporations realize what the taxes will really do. They will make whatever item that corporation sells more expensive. So, you should use taxes to attach consequence to selling certain products. IE, in the words of Nadar, tax what you don't like and there will be less of it. This differs form the Democrat's motto, "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, give it subsidies."
Now, as to what we should do with taxes, we should offer two thing to the capable poor. First, give them just enough food to live and nothing else. Second, they can get a high school education at any time regardless of age. The rest is up to them. Millions of poor Americans each year find a way to scrounge up the money to get into a state college. I don't have any desire to pay someone's way through a private college at $40,000 a year because they are too lazy to go out and take the free scholarship money and loans sitting there. I managed to do it with not a single cent to my name, so can everyone else.
Why not take the SAFE way, the prudent way, as they do in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Canada, etc etc, and RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH.
gee tax $0 net income hmm... The rich are rich because they know how to dodge taxes legitimatly. How can you tax me if I make nothing and my corporation buys me a house? I can't give you 60% of the house so you must be SOL.
Thos ewho make 40k -100k shoulder most of the burden of social services whiel those who actually make 100k plus, evade liek crazy.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."