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It’s better to be born rich than gifted

washingtonpost.com

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Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#51

Post by iguy »

drngdds wrote: post #22
skookumchuck wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legacy admissions Parents who donate a lot of money to a college will expect preferential admissions treatment for their offspring. Colleges certainly know this, and they want the money.

Obviously, but that's not how it should be because it's ridiculously unfair.

Our best universities involve a symbiosis between the bright and the rich. They're famous for the talents of the brightest, which achieve their full extent because the rich paid... to be around this fame. This has, for a few centuries, been quite a productive system.

Other systems are possible, but they have other tradeoffs. You can for instance pay for everything out of taxes, but this means putting those in control of the tax system in charge, and they have their own interests. The extreme of this was the USSR, and it did great science in some areas. But was far from paradise.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#52

Post by tomp »

Qworg wrote: post #13
dokein wrote: post #6

This isn’t going to be popular, but: Should parents be allowed to try to give their children a boost in life? If the answer is yes, then it follows that parents with more resources will be more able to provide that boost. For me, the line is drawn at “legacy” admissions or jobs, where a clearly lesser candidate is given the nod over someone who is more qualified. But if the parent is able to provide e.g. volunteer op…

It is definitely inequitable. However, it is also how humans work - we want to advantage our inner group over other groups. This cuts directly to the heart of the meritocracy argument (most strongly in technology, but it exists everywhere): how can you claim that everyone is judged by their merits (directly related to how hard they work and how smart they train themselves to be) when being lucky (in genetics, in birt…

I interpret meritocracy as being judged by the outcome of your doings. If someone has IQ 10000 but spends it to dominate WoW, then... I don't see why they should be paid a lot (some other people might disagree, though). Likewise, if someone leverages their genetics, family, wealth, skills, efforts, and luck towards great outcomes (e.g. Elon Musk), then they should be rewarded, as they're meritocratically the best.

To all "proponents" of "the luck argument": there are thousands of people far more lucky than Elon and Steve (born to wealthier families, smarter, better connected, etc) that didn't achieve what they have. So... luck obviously isn't the answer.

Having said that, even if luck were the answer, I'd still support meritocracy, because it results in the best outcome. It's not about fairness, fundamentally - it's about creating the best society. If the only people who can do that are "the wealthy" (or whichever category you choose - most likely "the intelligent" these days), then so be it - it's best for all the rest of us if they "rule", meritocratically.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#53

Post by why_only_15 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #11

I just skimmed the article, but one huge problem: Intelligence is known to be largely genetic, but we have almost no idea what genes, or combination of genes are responsible. So whatever genetic correlation this is based on is bound to be nearly meaningless.

It literally specifies all these things in the article. There are thousands of genes that are all in part responsible and the study was initially performed across 20,000 people and then was replicated in independent studies.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#54

Post by nostrademons »

elicash wrote: post #48
dokein wrote: post #6

This isn’t going to be popular, but: Should parents be allowed to try to give their children a boost in life? If the answer is yes, then it follows that parents with more resources will be more able to provide that boost. For me, the line is drawn at “legacy” admissions or jobs, where a clearly lesser candidate is given the nod over someone who is more qualified. But if the parent is able to provide e.g. volunteer op…

The question is what interest we have when designing our laws and culture in providing opportunities to people born with fewer of them. People who can provide tremendous value are being shut out because of inequality, and I want a talented person who could start a business and create tens of thousand of jobs to have that chance not just out of fairness (like you say) but because it's also good for all of us. So yeah,…

Are they actually being shut out because of laws and culture, though?

Most of the instances I've heard of where talented but disadvantaged people are shut out of opportunities are actually because of implicit bias. Someone may be very good at a particular skill, but they don't "pattern match" as the type of person who would be successful, and so they get passed over by the folks who could give them opportunities.

The thing is - this is self-correcting by market mechanisms. It's profitable to spend a little more time overcoming your unconscious biases and learning to evaluate candidates on their own merits, because by doing so, you can get a talented employee who others are not extending offers to, likely for less money. And then once people realize this, either they'll do it or they'll be outcompeted by people who do it, and wages will go up for disadvantaged groups.

We don't need collective action or societal change, we just need more greedy bastards who want to fuck over their competition by being smarter than them. There's a market opportunity here for people willing to get over their prejudices.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#55

Post by Kaveren »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #47
paulpauper wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I had to pick between IQ and pre-existing wealth, I would choose wealth. It depends how one defines wealth. If the choice is framed as choosing between $10 million lump sum with no taxes or any conditions vs. an IQ of 130, then maybe the $10 million and an IQ of 100 is the better bet. However, these studies define 'wealthy' (assuming they even quantify it at all) to be merely upper-middle class, which is much les…

You need an IQ of at least 140 probably even 150 to make $10 million (4+ stddev). You see people on the street every day with a 130 IQ, that's your average software engineer right there.

No you don't, where is this supposed to come from? 130 IQ on 15 SD is probably significantly too high as well to be the mean average.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#56

Post by tomp »

twblalock wrote: post #18
cortesoft wrote: post #2

Depends on how 'better' is defined. It looks like they are defining 'better' in this study as 'graduating from college'. That seems like an awfully narrow view of better.

Graduating from college is correlated with better life outcomes in a lot of areas, including income, health[1], and life expectancy[2][3]. The causal effect of college graduation on those aspects of life varies, but the correlation is so strong that it makes sense to use it as a proxy for "better". [1]: https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/its-not-jus... [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4…

Just if wealth is correlated with graduation, and graduation is correlated with success, doesn't mean that wealth is correlated with success.

If anything, the article could be interpreted to apply the opposite - those skilled poor people that do graduate have climbed so high so fast compared to unskilled rich graduates that they're very likely to climb even farther further in life.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#57

Post by mikekij »

perfunctory wrote: post #49
1999 wrote: post #41

I think this article sets up the paper against two incorrect worldviews: 1. America is a genetic meritocracy -- you achievement is based on your potential. My interpretation of "traditional" American values is more focused around hard work, toughness, and foresight ... this sort of thing: https://www.trumanlibrary.org/lifetimes/farm.htm . I'm pretty sure the idea that your academic performance determines your place i…

I never really understood why lower tax is pro-wealth. What does it really mean? I am not trolling, I am really curious. Let's say I see some opportunity to grow my wealth, am I going to look at the current tax level and if it's above certain threshold I am just gonna say screw it, I am not taking it?

A rational investor is concerned with risk-adjust returns after taxes. The fact that capital gains rates are lower than income rates allows an investor to accept a higher level of risk than if the two tax rates were lower.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#59

Post by why_only_15 »

romed wrote: post #34

Of course it is, especially in America. Just look at a guy like Brett Kavanaugh: a complete fuckup by objective standards, gets installed in the Supreme Court for life, for no other reason than he was born on that trajectory: rich kid, prep school, legacy admission to Yale.

I think he is a shitty person and not qualified to be on the supreme court. However, regardless of that he succeeded by any conventional level of success. He was involved before this in the highest levels of government, and is now at arguably the highest level.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#60

Post by marklubi »

drngdds wrote: post #22
skookumchuck wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legacy admissions Parents who donate a lot of money to a college will expect preferential admissions treatment for their offspring. Colleges certainly know this, and they want the money.

Obviously, but that's not how it should be because it's ridiculously unfair.

Who are you to decide what's fair?
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