Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#161

Post by MisterBastahrd » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #54

dusted wrote: post #22

Stupid people who think they're smart because they have a fancy education and are rewarded with high salary, that's probably a dangerous "brainy elite". Along with stupid people who just so happened to get a ton of money by no merit of their own, but don't realize this.

Thomas Sowell writes about this in depth in several of his works. In Intellectuals and Society , he notes that many "intellectual elite" have been cheerleaders for some of the worst (economic) disasters and human rights abuses of the 20th century. In 2020, we can see this vividly with the coronahysterics causing untold and immeasurable damage to societies with arbitrary and poorly calculated lockdown rules. Sowell ar…

> Sowell argues that these intellectuals believe their excellence in one field gives them the legitimacy to talk in depth about other fields in which they're not so excellent

This describes Sowell and his popular works in a nutshell.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#162

Post by cthaeh » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

est31 wrote: post #40

lwneal wrote: post #20

In Peter Turchin's book War and Peace and War [1], the term "elite overproduction" does not refer to an overproduction of smart people, education, or college degrees. Instead, it refers to an overproduction of nobility , individuals who extract income but who do not perform useful work. For example, France during the population boom of the high middle ages overproduced knights and minor nobles from 1200-1300. The nob…

> The most straightforward modern equivalent to Turchin's "elite" nobility would not be people with advanced degrees: it would be investors who do not work for wages. (Not to say there is no overlap between those groups.) Investors do a lot of work, because they have to constantly think where to put their money, evaluate alternatives, make sure there is no money wasted on things, etc. Even passive investors who only…

This is what i dont get. Isnt is only if u buy stock at an ipo that the company gets the money?

Otherewise, either by buying an index or a stock normally, ur giving ur money to other investors, not the company itself.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#163

Post by biophysboy » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

jmeister wrote: post #10

Turchin uses the term “elites”, which is not the same as “brainy”. Genuinely “brainy” people can find new ways to contribute to society, there can never be too any of them. “Elites” on the other hand - highly credentialed and entitled - play zero-sum games. There’s a lot of interesting critique written by heterodox leftists today, in the spirit of Chris Lasch, on how the current progressive movement is just intra-eli…

> Genuinely “brainy” people can find new ways to contribute to society, there can never be too any of them.

Sure, but brainy people do need resources to apply their ability. In my field (biophysics), pioneering new methods is expensive, time & money wise. Elites have more of both (more grant $ and 10x more grad students).

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#164

Post by elindbe2 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

lwneal wrote: post #20

In Peter Turchin's book War and Peace and War [1], the term "elite overproduction" does not refer to an overproduction of smart people, education, or college degrees. Instead, it refers to an overproduction of nobility , individuals who extract income but who do not perform useful work. For example, France during the population boom of the high middle ages overproduced knights and minor nobles from 1200-1300. The nob…

"The most straightforward modern equivalent to Turchin's "elite" nobility would not be people with advanced degrees"

I disagree here. The closest equivalent would be people in academia, specifically the portions of academia that don't perform useful work. Basically, the "X studies" crowd. And that's exactly where we see the most political instability coming from these days.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#165

Post by FooHentai » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #54

dusted wrote: post #22

Stupid people who think they're smart because they have a fancy education and are rewarded with high salary, that's probably a dangerous "brainy elite". Along with stupid people who just so happened to get a ton of money by no merit of their own, but don't realize this.

Thomas Sowell writes about this in depth in several of his works. In Intellectuals and Society , he notes that many "intellectual elite" have been cheerleaders for some of the worst (economic) disasters and human rights abuses of the 20th century. In 2020, we can see this vividly with the coronahysterics causing untold and immeasurable damage to societies with arbitrary and poorly calculated lockdown rules. Sowell ar…

That first part about current pandemic politics really presented a hump I had to get over to read the rest of your post. Which when I got there I found thoughtful and interesting so thank you.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#166

Post by seiferteric » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

Pet_Ant wrote: post #95

CryptoPunk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>And fire all the bankers. They aren't fulfilling their part of the social contract and investing in improving the future. We found that out in 2007 and the situation will keep getting worse until incompetent financiers start losing money. The state administers the largest corporate welfare program in the economy via government-guaranteed mortgages. It guarantees nearly $2 trillion worth every year, which the banks…

> The state administers the largest corporate welfare program in the economy via government-guaranteed mortgages. It's easy to make an efficient economy, it's harder to make one that produces results that are morally acceptable. How do you propose making housing feasible to most people? I mean it's easy to make a society more efficient by eliminating those with special needs as well, we know that, we just don't want…

Does it really fix the issues though? The way I see it, these sort of interventions just trade short term (corrective) pain for long term disasters. I often wonder how much houses would cost if mortgages were not guaranteed, I would think a lot less, the same goes for student loans.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#167

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #54

dusted wrote: post #22

Stupid people who think they're smart because they have a fancy education and are rewarded with high salary, that's probably a dangerous "brainy elite". Along with stupid people who just so happened to get a ton of money by no merit of their own, but don't realize this.

Thomas Sowell writes about this in depth in several of his works. In Intellectuals and Society , he notes that many "intellectual elite" have been cheerleaders for some of the worst (economic) disasters and human rights abuses of the 20th century. In 2020, we can see this vividly with the coronahysterics causing untold and immeasurable damage to societies with arbitrary and poorly calculated lockdown rules. Sowell ar…

It's completely ironic that an Austrian economist would complain that someone would have a "fantasy world view which is inconsistent with actual evidence", when Austrian economics is bases itself on praxeology which is a completely anti-empiricist approach to economics.

Praxeology isn't useful at all. The real behaviour of humans cannot be reduced to three or four inalienable axioms. Even moreso, these axioms are by definition unjustifiable, which makes any system based on them unjustifiable as well. Any attempt to reduce human behaviour to an axiomatic system is necessarily a total failure.

The attempt to criticize empiricism by praxeologists is an exercise in obfuscated hypocrisy and a total contradiction. You cannot at once claim that only one's actual behaviour matters, and at the same time arguing that some unknown agent makes that behaviour unreproducible. It's completely absurd at every level.

This is incidentally why Austrian economics fails so hard at actually making any good predictions. It rejects in its totality the scientific method. It's closer to a theology than anything else.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#168

Post by krisroadruck » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #105

simonh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studies CS back in the 80s and back then every student I knew was genuinely interested in the subject and motivated to learn. In my last job at a bank I regularly interviewed recent CS graduates and candidates able to demonstrate a genuine passion for the subject were few and far between. I know, I know, get off my lawn.

>> I studies CS back in the 80s and back then every student I knew was genuinely interested in the subject and motivated to learn. In my last job at a bank I regularly interviewed recent CS graduates and candidates able to demonstrate a genuine passion for the subject were few and far between. You are comparing college students from the 1980s to those from 20xx. I'll tell you what is on the mind of the new students:…

$2M is not a starter home. The national median home price is $230K. It's only that high because 4-5 states are dragging it up. Keep in mind that is the median. There are homes that can be had for less. Nice homes. Buying a house in one of the most expensive markets in the entire nation (SF, NYC) as your first home is a choice, and perhaps not a particularly wise one.

Where I live in, in Charlotte, NC a $1-2 million home budget would buy you a literal castle. Here is one on zillow not far from me for $1.2M it's a 6 bed, 7 bath, 7500+ Sq ft castle on an acre and surrounded by forest while still being only a 20 minute drive to the heart of the city.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/14001-Grand-Palisades-Pkw...

For a much more reasonable $250K you can easily get a nice 2-3K sq ft 3-4 bedroom home with a quarter acre lot, nice fixtures and a 2 bay garage. This is in the 15th largest city in the US mind you. Better deals can be had elsewhere.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#169

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #138

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Why is the US producing 25,000 more lawyers than it needs? Why is this happening in a supposedly rational maximally efficient - or close offer - market economy? The simple answer is because someone else profits hugely from the money they pay for training. Which in turn is a symptom of an extractive economy, not a productive economy. A productive economy would do a much better job of allocating talent to socia…

I mean, the US isn't "producing" those lawyers. People choose to become lawyers because they think it's a good idea. And generally, the choice of education seems to lag behind what's actually in demand, even worldwide.

By giving the schools a blank check (via giving students a blank check as long as it’s spent on schools), the US government is effectively producing the lawyers.

If there was no free money sloshing around, people would have to do a proper cash flow analysis and look at supply and demand before being able to invest their time in degrees that don’t have ROI.

Same thing happened with pharmacy school, and now there’s tons of pharmacists making very little money for exposing themselves to lots of liability in fast food working conditions.

Re: Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?

#170

Post by DubiousPusher » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #139

xenocratus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no real shortages of food or shelter at this time. We should be able to support a very large number of people working on human development: scientists and technologists, medical professionals and even wide-spread service jobs, especially if better paid. But "just having food and shelter" is by no means the thing to be overcome. Or do you think that food and shelter just appears like magic in front of ever…

From the perspective of someone living in 1400 A.D.? Yes, food gets to us by magic. In 1400, ~80% of the population tilled fields with horses and oxen, planted by hand, sorted the wheat from the chaff themselves before grinding the wheat into flour and baking it in an oven heated by an actual fire running from wood (and other flammables) that they collected themselves. Now we have robots (in the broadest sense of the…

True, in fact direct agricultural labor accounts for fewer than a million jobs in the U.S.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/farming-fishing-and-forestry/agricul...

One place where technology is struggling to make an impact is in housing. Even ignoring the farcical inflation of land prices in some municipalities, the price of a building itself has not decreased in cost similar to other durable goods.

This is in part due to consumer choice

1 bigger buildings

2 better buildings (impoved sealing, more equipment, etc)

But also due to other factors

1 inability to replace skilled labor

2 ecological costs

3 increased code requirements