Live data from Hacker News

It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

chronicle.com

121–130 of 379 posts

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#121

What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. It's well known that elite universities are elitist in their admissions and have over-large endowments. And the elite universities have acted on it, and many of their new classes are very different. And it's well known that the rest of the U.S. educational system is underfunded. > Sen. Tom Cotton, of all political leaders, suggeste…

> And the elite universities have acted on it, and many of their new classes are very different. No less elitist though. The idea of a selective college is elitist. The more selective, the more elitist. All the progressive talk is cant.

>> And the elite universities have acted on it, and many of their new classes are very different.

> No less elitist though. The idea of a selective college is elitist.

What does that mean? By that definition, everything selective is 'elitist', including my high school wrestling team. By non-elitist, we generally mean it's not biased in favor of the people who are already in society's elite.

Some top colleges now admit much more economically and ethnically diverse students. I've seen the applications, and they've reduced processes that select for children of the elite (such as standardized tests). In other words, they aren't admitting the children of elite (or not as much) - I think that is meaningful.

(I wish I could provide some citations, but I don't have time or anything at my fingertips.)

> All the progressive talk is cant.

Am I responding to nothing more than mindless anti-progressivism?

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this as an Asian person: surely black folks getting disproportionately policed and killed is a bigger manifestation of institutional racism, no?

You can only believe this if you've fallen for the spin perpetrated by media outlets. The number of unarmed Black civilians killed by police each year is so small that you can fit the entire list of names and details since 2014 (31 total) on a few pages of generously-spaced HTML table rows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unarmed_African_Americ... . This is against approximately 10 million arrests per year and…

There is no nationwide effort to classify killings based on whether an individual was armed at the time. It's better to just look at killings because those are significant enough to record.

https://www.axios.com/latinos-killed-by-police-estimate-858f...

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#123
post #64

What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. It's well known that elite universities are elitist in their admissions and have over-large endowments. And the elite universities have acted on it, and many of their new classes are very different. And it's well known that the rest of the U.S. educational system is underfunded. > Sen. Tom Cotton, of all political leaders, suggeste…

> What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. Same. I think they are hoping Biden will put more money into public schools and stop preferential tax treatments for the large endowments. > It's not a surprise. Cotton and his party see Ivy League universities as institutions of the political opposition, whom they attack and want to punish and diminish. Tom Cotton... Harvard Uni…

> Tom Cotton... Harvard University BA , JD

> You are right that it fits the public narrative & rhetoric, but many (perhaps most) of them went to elite schools. It is probably just posturing.

Oh yeah; I didn't mean to say otherwise. Most of what they say is posturing, IMHO.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#124
post #77
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. Same. I think they are hoping Biden will put more money into public schools and stop preferential tax treatments for the large endowments. > It's not a surprise. Cotton and his party see Ivy League universities as institutions of the political opposition, whom they attack and want to punish and diminish. Tom Cotton... Harvard Uni…

On that note, the liberal cry of student loan forgiveness will overwhelmingly favor people who went to expensive private colleges. Taxing big endowments seems pretty senseless and doesn't create any positive incentives either. More support and less stigma against state schools would probably do the most good.

> the liberal cry of student loan forgiveness

What if we dropped the inflammatory political attack and just talked about loan forgiveness? Can an idea or anything else be depoliticized.

And it does have some benefits, in addition to that drawback. I'm not sure about the extent or nature of it - many leading colleges reduce their prices to get the students in the door - has anyone studied it?

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can only believe this if you've fallen for the spin perpetrated by media outlets. The number of unarmed Black civilians killed by police each year is so small that you can fit the entire list of names and details since 2014 (31 total) on a few pages of generously-spaced HTML table rows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unarmed_African_Americ... . This is against approximately 10 million arrests per year and…

There is no nationwide effort to classify killings based on whether an individual was armed at the time. It's better to just look at killings because those are significant enough to record. https://www.axios.com/latinos-killed-by-police-estimate-858f...

The suggestion that there is some significant number of police killings that are going unreported - especially in the environment of the past several years - is categorically conspiratorial thinking. It fails the barest of sanity checks when you consider just how 'deep state' an effort would be required for that to be conducted at scale.

Are there some unreported police killings? Almost certainly. Would there be enough to alter the central thrust of the above argument about the shockingly low incidence of police killings of unarmed persons relative to ~10 million arrests per year and some multiple of that in total encounters? Almost certainly not.

EDIT: Poster changed the link and added a comment. The below is a response to the modified comment.

> There is no nationwide effort to classify killings based on whether an individual was armed at the time. It's better to just look at killings because those are significant enough to record.

Sure. You can look at the total number of police killings and not only are the numbers still shockingly low as a percentage of arrests and encounters, but there is also no overt sign of an extraordinary racial bias: https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de....

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no nationwide effort to classify killings based on whether an individual was armed at the time. It's better to just look at killings because those are significant enough to record. https://www.axios.com/latinos-killed-by-police-estimate-858f...

The suggestion that there is some significant number of police killings that are going unreported - especially in the environment of the past several years - is categorically conspiratorial thinking. It fails the barest of sanity checks when you consider just how 'deep state' an effort would be required for that to be conducted at scale. Are there some unreported police killings? Almost certainly. Would there be enou…

> The suggestion that there is some significant number of police killings that are going unreported - especially in the environment of the past several years - is categorically conspiratorial thinking. It fails the barest of sanity checks when you consider just how 'deep state' an effort would be required for that to be conducted at scale.

> Are there some unreported police killings? Almost certainly. Would there be enough to alter the central thrust of the above argument about the shockingly low incidence of police killings of unarmed persons relative to ~10 million arrests per year and some multiple of that in total encounters? Almost certainly not.

Axios is one of the most credible outlets to both the GOP and the Democrats. Then-WH spokesperson Sarah Sanders has praised Axios as a worthy outlet.

The Raza database just looks at newspaper reports for deaths by police. There is no nationwide standard for how police deaths should be recorded.

You are the one suggesting bizarre conspiracy. A nationwide conspiracy of local newspaper outlets reporting deaths.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#127
post #61

> Faculty members at prestigious universities are 50 times more likely than the average person to have a parent with a Ph.D. American meritocracy has become a complex, inefficient, and rigged system conferring its graces on ambitious children of highly educated and prosperous families. What’s the ratio in other fields of top achievement for kids to follow in their parents’ footsteps? It’s entirely unsurprising that a…

> What’s the ratio in other fields of top achievement for kids to follow in their parents’ footsteps? It’s entirely unsurprising that academics raise academics, doctors doctors, Olympians Olympians, teachers teachers, etc. Actually, I suspect that most teachers discourage their children to follow in their footsteps ... And your points about doctors, olympians, academics, etc. have a common point: Large, up front expe…

> Engineering used to be one of the few fields where you could transition from blue collar to white collar even if you were a child from a poor family. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be very true, anymore.

It seems more true than ever before. Software engineering in particular is probably one of the least credential sensitive careers in existence, and is huge and growing faster than just about any other job market.

I sometimes wonder about all the complaining that goes on about software engineering interviews. In many (maybe most) other fields of comparable earning potential, the gatekeepers are 4-12 years of schooling and professional unions, not a few hours of awkward whiteboarding.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can only believe this if you've fallen for the spin perpetrated by media outlets. The number of unarmed Black civilians killed by police each year is so small that you can fit the entire list of names and details since 2014 (31 total) on a few pages of generously-spaced HTML table rows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unarmed_African_Americ... . This is against approximately 10 million arrests per year and…

This is a good survey that shows the impact of availability bias on people's perceptions about this topic: https://www.skeptic.com/research-center/reports/Research-Rep...

The problem is that when you sign up for a tribe, you experience an emotional obligation and social pressure to adopt its beliefs wholesale, even if that means jettisoning rationality along the way.

This is an affliction that beleaguers both sides of the aisle.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suggestion that there is some significant number of police killings that are going unreported - especially in the environment of the past several years - is categorically conspiratorial thinking. It fails the barest of sanity checks when you consider just how 'deep state' an effort would be required for that to be conducted at scale. Are there some unreported police killings? Almost certainly. Would there be enou…

> The suggestion that there is some significant number of police killings that are going unreported - especially in the environment of the past several years - is categorically conspiratorial thinking. It fails the barest of sanity checks when you consider just how 'deep state' an effort would be required for that to be conducted at scale. > Are there some unreported police killings? Almost certainly. Would there be…

There are organizations dedicated to trying to ascertain the error in reported police shootings. They have found what is logically self-evident but that you refuse to accept: no reasonable suspicion of outsized error.

> A recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated approximately 1,200 people were killed by police between June, 2015 and May, 2016. Our database identified 1,104 people killed by police over this time period. While there are undoubtedly police killings that are not included in our database (namely, those that go unreported by the media), these estimates suggest that our database captures 92% of the total number of police killings that have occurred since 2013. We hope these data will be used to provide greater transparency and accountability for police departments as part of the ongoing campaign to end police violence in our communities.

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/aboutthedata

And I will once again reiterate that the suggestion that there are some great number of police killings going undetected in the present highly charged environment is itself a crime against reason.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#130

What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. It's well known that elite universities are elitist in their admissions and have over-large endowments. And the elite universities have acted on it, and many of their new classes are very different. And it's well known that the rest of the U.S. educational system is underfunded. > Sen. Tom Cotton, of all political leaders, suggeste…

The article was all over the map and didn't have anything inciteful to say. I was amused to see the college admissions scandal brought up since only one of the several colleges involved was Ivy League.
Post reply on HN