A New Aristocracy: Yale Law School Commencement Address (2015) [pdf]

Post by downrightmike » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 1:51 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #25

nytesky wrote: post #6

My school and work experience span working class coal power plant techs (a friend used to climb through exhaust channels) to Ivy League educated lawyers and founders. Most people’s career trajectory will be set by the time they are in high school, so the importance of secondary school education and resources of your parents is paramount. Also, wealth from family of origin allows risk taking, funding for law or medica…

I agree but I am not convinced wealth plays a big role. In France, higher education is pretty much free, and you see probably an even larger lack of social diversity than the US in the most ellitist programs (medecine, engineering, business). In the US there are always ways to finance education if you are a good student. I think family culture, peer pressure and the school pushing you to go the hard path is by far th…

Post by ralfd » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

leto_ii wrote: post #48

toasterlovin wrote: post #10

FWIW, the issue with life experience anecdotes is that they don't control for genetic confounding. Most rich kids have both the environment their parent created for them, as well as the genes their parents gave them. So it's impossible to tell which is more important in determining the life outcomes we see. There is a whole discipline called behavioral genetics that uses twin and adoption studies and, increasingly, g…

I think this line of thinking can take you dangerously close to the realm of eugenics and social darwinism. I recommend Taleb's take on IQ as some food for thought: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-...

Post by C1sc0cat » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 8:39 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #63

C1sc0cat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its the same in France - though those that go to ENA are an order of magnitude more competent than some one who does a PPE at Oxbridge.

ÉNA is a training college for civil servants. It’s more comparable to the Harvard Kennedy School than PPE. If HKS only admitted people who had undergraduate Firsts and two years of top decile work experience to the MPA they’d look pretty great, like ÉNA does.

Post by conceptpad » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 4:05 AM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #35

cm2187 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but I am not convinced wealth plays a big role. In France, higher education is pretty much free, and you see probably an even larger lack of social diversity than the US in the most ellitist programs (medecine, engineering, business). In the US there are always ways to finance education if you are a good student. I think family culture, peer pressure and the school pushing you to go the hard path is by far th…

As a European from a poor-ish lower middle class background, I can tell you that even free university doesn't cut it economically. The thing is, every year you stay at school is a year that you're a financial drain to your family and a year that you're not being an active money earner. For many, it's simply not affordable to be in their formative years until they are 22 (likely even longer if studies take more than 4…