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Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

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Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#331

Post by sixstringtheory »

toastercat wrote: post #328
sixstringtheory wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ignorance is bliss Sounds more like acceptance of something they are not ignorant of. > What if the same mechanisms Ok but are they? This hypothetical isn’t useful if they aren’t, and I’m not convinced they are.

> Sounds more like acceptance of something they are not ignorant of. I can see it both ways, but OP basically said "I'm sure it happens to others, but it doesn't happen to me, so I don't care" which is fine, but also not helpful and is also missing the point of the article. It's like reading an article about the water crisis in Flint and saying "water quality is great here in Miami, so doesn't bother me" > Ok but are…

You’re comparing someone not caring about others getting into Harvard to someone not caring about people getting lead poisoning from their water.

Can we at least agree that not envying others’ higher status is not the same moral ground as not caring about suffering?

On that note, you can’t force everyone to care about every bad thing that happens in the world. It’s not reasonable to care about each such thing because, since you can’t control or change all of them, that mindset will simply wear you down and consume all of your time and energy, yet produce no results. It’s a matter of focus.

I did consider your question, but I don’t have enough information to make a determination one way or the other, and since you provided none, I dismissed the speculation out of hand.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#332

Post by sixstringtheory »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #326
MichaelZuo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it in another way, if you genuinely expect to be one of the world's major decision makers, wealthiest, etc., then yes there's close to zero prospects, given the stated background and age. But if your expectation is to have a happy life, a nice house in a decent neighbourhood, etc., then there's no reason to listen to them and self-flagellate.

Yeah, but it’s still within the realm of possibility for anyone that got into Penn or Brown or Columbia or Princeton or MIT because they are just inherently better . For the record I doubt I can have a happy life or a house in a decent neighborhood too.

> I doubt I can have a happy life or a house in a decent neighborhood too

This is a pretty common worry for most people. It’s not Harvard’s responsibility to ameliorate it for every one of them.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#333

Post by lapcat »

rayiner wrote: post #317
chimprich wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ownership of wealth in America is relatively diffuse. The top 1% owns only 32% of the wealth. "Relatively"? According to what metric? I think the US has one of the world's highest Gini coefficients, at least among Western countries. "Only"? 1% owning about a third of all wealth seems remarkably skewed.

Ownership in the US is diffuse in comparison to the traditional Marxist scenarios, where you have someone like Andrew Carnegie who controls a business by virtue of owning it. In a modern corporation, ownership is much more diffuse. A big blue chip like JP Morgan is mostly owned by people outside the top 1%. And even in the top 1%, a lot of the owners are like retired dentists or early employees at Microsoft. They don…

> Ownership in the US is diffuse in comparison to the traditional Marxist scenarios, where you have someone like Andrew Carnegie who controls a business by virtue of owning it.

It's unclear why you even mentioned the US specifically. The so-called "modern corporation" and "the traditional Marxist scenario" are both US. Although Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland, he emigrated to the US at age 12, and Carnegie Steel was a US company.

> In a modern corporation, ownership is much more diffuse. A big blue chip like JP Morgan is mostly owned by people outside the top 1%.

This definitely makes a lot more sense than "Ownership of wealth in America is relatively diffuse. The top 1% owns only 32% of the wealth."

Of course, I'm just quibbling here. I don't disagree with your main point:

> Harvard and similar elite schools gatekeeps entry into this class of “non-owner managers who run everything.”

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#334

Post by pseudalopex »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #325
pseudalopex wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You worked at Amazon seemingly. Your present pay implies a selective company. Your pedigree would satisfy Google or Facebook.

Sure, but not enough for Jane Street or Citadel Securities (not the hedge fund which did give me an offer) or DE Shaw or HRT. Aka, the firms actually offering $350k+ to new grads while I make far less.

I see. I have no consolation to offer you. No amount of money or prestige will satisfy you. Someone will be wealthier than you no matter how much you acquire. And old money families look down at new money.

How is your social life? Do you consider most people around you beneath you?

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#335

Post by mildconcern »

bboylen wrote: post #266
jgeada wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simple: Ivy schools are mostly for $$$ to schmooze with other $$$, with a thin veneer of actually talented kids that had to pass insurmountable odds to get in. The talented kids are there to make the $$$ think they're also talented and had to pass the same rigorous criteria. Smoke and mirrors all of it.

People parrot this point a lot but it doesn't make any sense. The average SAT/ACT at the Ivy's are near perfect, the number of mediocre rich kids paying their way in is a small fraction of the student body. And yes test scores aren't the best metric for "talent" but it is one of the better signals you get in a college application.

Yeah, but the money paid by that small fraction of the student body is colossal.

They're not numerous enough to change any GPA/SAT averages, but they likely pay many times more in tuition & donations than the rest of their class put together. That's why they're the main focus of these places, even if their numbers are small.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#336

Post by toastercat »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #331
toastercat wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds more like acceptance of something they are not ignorant of. I can see it both ways, but OP basically said "I'm sure it happens to others, but it doesn't happen to me, so I don't care" which is fine, but also not helpful and is also missing the point of the article. It's like reading an article about the water crisis in Flint and saying "water quality is great here in Miami, so doesn't bother me" > Ok but are…

You’re comparing someone not caring about others getting into Harvard to someone not caring about people getting lead poisoning from their water. Can we at least agree that not envying others’ higher status is not the same moral ground as not caring about suffering? On that note, you can’t force everyone to care about every bad thing that happens in the world. It’s not reasonable to care about each such thing because…

> You’re comparing someone not caring about others getting into Harvard to someone not caring about people getting lead poisoning from their water.

No, I'm giving an example of not caring about something that does not affect you personally, yet you acknowledge it affects others.

> Can we at least agree that not envying others’ higher status is not the same moral ground as not caring about suffering?

This was never contended.

> On that note, you can’t force everyone to care about every bad thing that happens in the world. It’s not reasonable to care about each such thing because, since you can’t control or change all of them, that mindset will simply wear you down and consume all of your time and energy, yet produce no results. It’s a matter of focus.

This was never contended either. But different folks have different energy, and are fine reading the news everyday for example. Some don't read the news (http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews). There is no one right way. No one's forcing anyone though.

> I did consider your example, but I don’t have enough information to make a determination one way or the other, and since you provided none, I dismissed the speculation out of hand.

I posed that hypothetical because OP implied they do not care about Harvard (or presumably other elite universities), but they do care about "more important" things like racism. However, elite universities like Harvard have complicated histories with institutional racism, segregated dorms, and admission scandals.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#337

Post by pseudalopex »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #326
MichaelZuo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it in another way, if you genuinely expect to be one of the world's major decision makers, wealthiest, etc., then yes there's close to zero prospects, given the stated background and age. But if your expectation is to have a happy life, a nice house in a decent neighbourhood, etc., then there's no reason to listen to them and self-flagellate.

Yeah, but it’s still within the realm of possibility for anyone that got into Penn or Brown or Columbia or Princeton or MIT because they are just inherently better . For the record I doubt I can have a happy life or a house in a decent neighborhood too.

Your income at 27 exceeds 98% of Americans. A house in a decent neighborhood is within reach easily. A happy life also if you find perspective.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#338

Post by MichaelZuo »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #326
MichaelZuo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it in another way, if you genuinely expect to be one of the world's major decision makers, wealthiest, etc., then yes there's close to zero prospects, given the stated background and age. But if your expectation is to have a happy life, a nice house in a decent neighbourhood, etc., then there's no reason to listen to them and self-flagellate.

Yeah, but it’s still within the realm of possibility for anyone that got into Penn or Brown or Columbia or Princeton or MIT because they are just inherently better . For the record I doubt I can have a happy life or a house in a decent neighborhood too.

> Yeah, but it’s still within the realm of possibility for anyone that got into Penn or Brown or Columbia or Princeton or MIT because they are just inherently better.

Not really, even the 50th percentile Harvard Law graduate, let alone Ivy league undergrads, has minimal chance of being a big shot in the world.

Sure, it's many times more then someone from Iowa State, statistically, but that's idle fantasizing either way.

They're a lot closer to any random office worker then supermen destined for the royal road.

If, after some reflection, your still worked up about not enjoying a few tenths of a percentage chance instead of a few hundredths or thousandths, then you can always seek solace in religion/meditation/etc.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#339

Post by tlb »

adifgoi0nio wrote: post #247
tlb wrote: post #226

You could base a society on randomly selecting people at a young age to be elite. It would still have advantages over a society with no elites at all. The goal of having an elite class is to make better collective decisions about how society should organize itself. Decisions are best made by people with the best information, and elites (regardless of any intrinsic merit) have better information. By virtue of being el…

>No society has tried selecting random people in adulthood to put in charge. This is a practice called 'sordition'. As evidenced by the fact it has a name and a Wikipedia article, it is not something you just invented. It was famously used in Athens and is how American juries are selected today, I think I would support a revival of sordition. Perhaps we could start small, perhaps by selecting one representative for e…

Sortition happened in adulthood, though. The interesting (and untried) experiment is to designate people early in life, so they can grow up being educated and prepared for their future responsibility.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#340

Post by bwestergard »

fnovd wrote: post #190
bwestergard wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many bird species. https://asknature.org/strategy/cooperative-herding-catches-m...

This is a hierarchy of one stratum (birds) cooperating to dominate another stratum (fish). If anything, this link shows that operating effectively within a hierarchy has clear advantages to survival.

The question was whether there were animal species that do not have internal hierarchies. I gave an example.

I don't myself believe that the question is relevant to social relations among homo sapiens, but it's better that people be aware of the variety of animal behavior.

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