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How the Ivy League Broke America

theatlantic.com

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Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#41

Post by bell-cot »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24
bell-cot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes- ish . That line of reasoning could be used to explain why hereditary nobles and royals are the best form of government. And quite a few other counter-factuals. OTOH, arguing that anyway might give you a far better shot at getting your hands on a few of those $billions than I'll ever have. GO FOR IT.

Not really, the argument would be that most successful group would consist of people with various resources, whether it be innate intelligence, motivation, discipline, or inherited wealth/social network. A group of people whose sole value is social network/wealth is probably not sufficient. Humans have a limited amount of time and energy to work with, so some mechanism of filtering who or what to place bets on would…

Back in the day, the royals and nobles had all those other things. Whether within themselves (as their sycophants proclaimed) or right at hand - because the wealth, power, and prestige of their courts could easily attract the best and brightest talents within their realms.

As the article somewhat points out, "network effect" is - at most - a means. Not an end. And the narcissistic group-think and badly limited worldview that the article describes at Ivy League schools sounds very much like the worst failings of those old noble and royal courts.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#42

Post by soco »

leovingi wrote: post #29
lordnacho wrote: post #26

Long essay, but I agree with a lot of what's said. I think a lot of quality time is wasted due to the rat race starting in early childhood. I live in a bit of a bubble in the commuter belt around London (ie not the US), but I observe some of the same obsessions here as well. In particular, I started to notice that my kid's friends suddenly had a lot less time for playdates in the year or two leading up to the 11-plus…

>it gives the kids the impression that school is super important >We must have left some poor but capable kids in the wrong school. Both of those things cannot be true at the same time. Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success, or it is NOT important, in which case it doesn'…

Let me translate it in privileged language: when the poor are, like their name suggests, poor, they cannot afford the tutors and the time for pushing their capable kids through the good school. All while recognizing the shitiness of their situation.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#43

Post by Woeps »

lordnacho wrote: post #18
neilv wrote: post #5

> “Number one people go to number one schools” is how one lawyer explained her firm’s recruiting principle to Rivera. What a load of number two.

What's sad about it is that it's a lawyer. Now I don't mean to poop on lawyers, but the kind of recruiter we are talking about sells a very specific narrative of success, which is that if you're a top kid in school, your natural path is law/consulting/finance. I went to a famous institution, and there were loads of kids who bought into this. If you don't know quite what you want to do, it is very easy to fall into th…

It's the same here in the Netherlands, I didn't go to a elite school but I am from a place where most people do. And it's just bonkers to me this rat-race that they have been placed in because that's the only way to "happiness"/success ...

Also question, is consulting considered an elite job? My impression is that even consulting for the big 4* is nothing special.

* are they they same everywhere? : Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#44

Post by IceHegel »

The idea of building new institutions is basically right. You can’t fix Harvard.

But can you really build new institutions without a new civilization? The point of Harvard is the golden ticket to the upper class. The upper class now sucks (imo), so you can’t just have a better school with the same function.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#45

Post by keiferski »

onetokeoverthe wrote: post #17
sapphicsnail wrote: post #14

It's very strange to read an article complaining about the homogenization of the cultural elite that name drops the university of every author of a book/article that supports his opinion. David Brooks himself is part of the very same cultural elite that he's complaining about. If someone really wanted to bring about a culture with leaders drawn from different economic strata the first step should be addressing people…

Ivy UPENN and YALE, for the incoming pres/vp pairing. And vp's wife is also Yale. Just like the D pres husband wife team in the 90s. Bushes, Yale. Obama, Columbia/Harvard.

This lines up with the idea of how great social change tends to be merely one group of elites splintering off from another and co-opting social movements, and not actual bottom-up democratic action.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#46

Post by bilbo0s »

anon291 wrote: post #21
bilbo0s wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the big issues is that the people making the memes, never actually met any of the people we're all talking about. It's easy to dismiss if it's not real for you. If you've been moving between say, Cambridge and Sommerville, you understand. If you haven't, you think you can do anything that top .01% of the top 1% can do. How do you convince someone that there are people out there so gifted at everything that the…

Well I make a lot of memes, so I'm not sure I agree with your first statement haha. I think you'd be surprised at the educational backgrounds of the people that actually make the memes (vs the ones just spreading them). I think my basic thesis is that, if you come from a normal background, and go through these institutions, this is a major selection factor for some level of charisma. You understand the game and you u…

I'm not really talking about the charming. I mean, if I'm being honest, the majority of people at places like Harvard have the ability to charm. What I'm going to say is illustration rather than arrogance, but charm and intelligence are just table stakes at places like Yale and Harvard. Don't misunderstand me, there are awkward people at elite schools. But you'd be surprised how many are able to out "charm" the average person.

What I'm talking about is something different entirely. I'm talking about people who are truly different. People who pick up salsa as easily as they pick up tensor analysis. Piano as easily as molecular engineering. And when they go into the military, they can reap a guy just as easily as they can analyze intel.

You might make the mistake of thinking, "Well that's not impressive. We train thousands of analysts." You're right. We do. Between DIA, CIA, FBI, etc etc, we train tens of thousands. And we might get a couple dozen that are any good. And maybe 2 of those can also compose symphonies and tape out a microprocessor on the side.

To compare it to Vance, or Obama on the other side, is to downplay it. People could see themselves being Vance or Obama. We're talking about people you meet where it's clear, there is no comparison. Which is saying something when you're already in a top 1% population in the first place.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#47

Post by _zagj »

As a great counterpoint to this thinkpiece (which argues the meritocracy is working as intended but having unintended consequences for society and thus fails to make any mention of quotas or the college admissions scandal from 5 years ago), consider this one: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-myth-of-american...

The author found evidence of widespread quotas restricting the admission of Asians (no surprise, at least not anymore), but more scandalously, also evidence of affirmative action benefiting Jews. (The author is himself Jewish, and at least back then, probably couldn't have gotten away with writing it had that not been the case.)

Brook's premise--that we did away with a nepotistic aristocracy (the "evil" WASP will-o'-the-wisp) and replaced it with a meritocracy--is false.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#48

Post by lordnacho »

leovingi wrote: post #29
lordnacho wrote: post #26

Long essay, but I agree with a lot of what's said. I think a lot of quality time is wasted due to the rat race starting in early childhood. I live in a bit of a bubble in the commuter belt around London (ie not the US), but I observe some of the same obsessions here as well. In particular, I started to notice that my kid's friends suddenly had a lot less time for playdates in the year or two leading up to the 11-plus…

>it gives the kids the impression that school is super important >We must have left some poor but capable kids in the wrong school. Both of those things cannot be true at the same time. Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success, or it is NOT important, in which case it doesn'…

> Both of those things cannot be true at the same time. Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success, or it is NOT important, in which case it doesn't matter anyway which school the other children end up in.

Trying to get a less academic kid into grammar school isn't going to help them. Maybe I can provide a bit of context.

The grammar school is highly academic. The kid is certainly above my level of attainment when I was his age. I went to a non-selective international school, ending with the IB.

The kids are tested, every week, in a variety of subjects. I don't think a week has gone by without some sort of test. It is a constant grind of math, multiple sciences, humanities, and three languages. Not every kid enjoys that kind of thing, or even benefits from the pressure.

If you manage to Fosbury Flop your kid into a school like this, you're actually doing them a disservice. They will hate being constantly pushed academically, and they will not find fellowship with the kind of kid who enjoys it.

At the same time, there will be poor kids who didn't know the tricks of the exam, and didn't get in, who would have been better off at the school.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#49

Post by bachmeier »

sapphicsnail wrote: post #14

It's very strange to read an article complaining about the homogenization of the cultural elite that name drops the university of every author of a book/article that supports his opinion. David Brooks himself is part of the very same cultural elite that he's complaining about. If someone really wanted to bring about a culture with leaders drawn from different economic strata the first step should be addressing people…

> It's very strange to read an article complaining about the homogenization of the cultural elite that name drops the university of every author of a book/article that supports his opinion.

He is in general very sloppy about this kind of thing. He famously said Obama wasn't able to fit in with working people, because you can't imagine him at an Applebee's salad bar. Well, Applebee's doesn't have a salad bar, so he was ironically outing himself as the elitist. There was also the more serious problem of fabricating claims about visiting restaurants and not being able to spend $20, something that was easily debunked.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#50

Post by _1tem »

gadders wrote: post #32

I think if people want to add extra evaluations on top of IQ, then fair enough, but they need to be of high quality and as repeatable as IQ tests, otherwise it will be a case of pseudo-science and ideological capture.

Perhaps the very idea of having standardized evaluations needs to be questioned. Anything that can be measured will be gamed. Nothing “repeatable” can capture the whole value of a human being.
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