It's better to be born rich than gifted, if you think that college graduation rates are the number one most important thing in the world.
It’s better to be born rich than gifted
91–100 of 202 posts
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#92It's much more likely for a gifted person to become rich than it is for a rich person to become gifted.
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suppose it is clearly the wrong business choice for your friend's company to acquire your company. Suppose a friend promoted you over someone else who was vastly more qualified, and worked much harder than you for that promotion. Etc. Now suppose you're the one getting screwed over instead of the friend benefiting. It's not nepotism if friends benefiting is merely a side effect of making the best business (or whateve…
The problem with that approach though is that it's never clear cut. Maybe someone is "vastly more qualified" technically but doesn't have any business sense or some other quality that is unknown to the rest of the group. There were many times where I thought that the wrong person was promoted or hired, to find out later that they were actually a good fit. Were they the PERFECT fit? I don't know, but there is value in…
I was merely giving you the clearest possible examples, since you seem to be confused about what possible harm nepotism could cause.
Sure, in some situations, it may be ambiguous who is actually the better pick. For argument's sake, let's assume such choices are ALWAYS ambiguous. If you're consistently picking your friends in those situations, you're nevertheless creating a perception of nepotism (read unfairness) throughout the rest of the company, which will minimally be harmful to morale. So yeah, even if you're not being particularly nepotistic, guarding against the perception of nepotism is still important.
My bigger concern, however, is that it's very easy for someone to rationalize nepotism when they're a beneficiary.
I really don't know enough about the specifics of your situation to know if nepotism is much of a concern, but I definitely don't think your friend's "nepotism is GREAT" stance is worth taking seriously.
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think meritocracy implies cosmic fairness. The way it's used by most hackers is to say that someone's work is judged only on its own merits, rather than the author's social status or how good they are at playing political games or anything else orthogonal to the work actually being valuable. At least, that's the ideal.
Judging people on their work is partly about fair play. But it's also justified by concern for the results. A system which rewards the people doing great work will produce much more of that than a system which rewards political connections. I care quite a bit that the best cancer researchers should get hired, and the best ideas get the money -- their progress is likely to directly affect people close to me. And this…
To back up the other comment, recent studies find that students from worse secondary schools with worse grades end up outperforming students from more selective schools with better grades once in medical school.
So in order to get the best doctors you can't just be all "meritocratic" by looking only at the results, i.e. grades, but have to take other factors into account.
---
The relationship between school type and academic performance at medical school: a national, multi-cohort study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589012/
What is the effect of secondary (high) schooling on subsequent medical school performance? A national, UK-based, cohort study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29792300
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#95I 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…
> The one thing I am positive about is that is provides evidence that wealth is actually a positive influence on education ... maybe it will help people who value education above all support pro-wealth policies like lower tax. I think a valid take away would also be "we should break this relationship such that everyone gets education, regardless of wealth and background". That seems easier to educate more people than…
One project I think is interesting is LeBron James' school. When I looked at what the biggest changes are between his school and a normal school, it all looks to me like surrogate parenting -- like he is moving elements from the parenting column into the school column: meals, clothing, transportation, scholarships, literally helping the parents find jobs. My vision for what creates academic and financial success is similar to LeBron James, but I don't support expanding the education system to include more daycare and parenting elements, and I think the government is uniquely horrible at delivering those elements at scale.
In my view the educational component is fine, access to information is better than ever, the major difference is the negative effects of the poverty environment, which can't be resolved through the education system.
Another thing that has to be identified is the components that are zero-sum versus non-zero-sum. In a zero-sum competitive process if educational attainment is based on resource consumption, the wealthy will always win.
I think we basically have an opposite view of the causal relationship. I think education is a product of prosperity, and I think you view prosperity as a product of education. It could be resolved by a randomized controlled trial like drugs are tested, but unfortunately it would be unethical since we'd have to randomly deny people education, or destroy their prosperity.
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with that approach though is that it's never clear cut. Maybe someone is "vastly more qualified" technically but doesn't have any business sense or some other quality that is unknown to the rest of the group. There were many times where I thought that the wrong person was promoted or hired, to find out later that they were actually a good fit. Were they the PERFECT fit? I don't know, but there is value in…
I was merely giving you the clearest possible examples, since you seem to be confused about what possible harm nepotism could cause. Sure, in some situations, it may be ambiguous who is actually the better pick. For argument's sake, let's assume such choices are ALWAYS ambiguous. If you're consistently picking your friends in those situations, you're nevertheless creating a perception of nepotism (read unfairness) th…
What is confusing is that I realized there are cases where Nepotism could be net-comparable or even net-benefit. I had never considered there to be an ethical upside to nepotism before, only a downside.
So that's why I was shocked.
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the societal sense, it is maladaptive - your CIO friend assumes that his friends deliver the best outcome.
That's not what the friend is assuming per the wording. The friend seems to be plainly stating they don't care if the max outcome is what is occuring or not, insofar as they all at least do better. Helping their friends out is more important than maxing out the quality of the outcome. Societally, reinforcing and protecting social trust systems may be dramatically more important than maxing out business success outcom…
I don’t see how that can be true. Tribally, it might be (for a small tribe in a large group). Society wide, it’s definitely bad. I don’t want a bridge built by an uncle politician who “trusts” his nephew engineer’s company. Outcomes should (and do) result in trust, not the nepotism.
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#98This 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…
> Should parents be allowed to try to give their children a boost in life? Should society be allowed to try to give the poor but genetically gifted children a boost in life? Nobody’s suggesting that parents shouldn’t use whatever resources they have. The question is what we should do as a society with all the potential we’re wasting. If every dollar we spent on boosting smart poor children yielded two dollars back to…
> Should society be allowed to try to give the poor but genetically gifted children a boost in life? Nobody’s suggesting that parent’s shouldn’t use whatever resources they have.
But to a certain extent it is zero-sum. The way you boost smart poor children is by taking money from non-poor parents. So you really are suggesting that non-poor parents "shouldn't use whatever resources they have." I don't think anyone fundamentally opposes this, but there is a legitimate philosophical question about how much redistribution is appropriate, and what criteria go into defining "appropriate."
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#99I 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?
I'm not really considering incentives. I think most people will basically spend their whole lives working, even if you take half their money and throw it down a hole -- maybe especially even if you do that.
To increase wealth the lower tax will have to mean more money under the control of the individual. It doesn't guarantee savings and investment but it makes it possible. For the portion that is taxed, you don't control consumption versus savings, you're locked into the same outcome as everyone else.
Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Universities in the UK are tax funded, and they're pretty independent...