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It's surprising that it's taking so long. The wealthiest have always found ways to preserve their wealth and Ivy League institutions have played a role in that

It's surprising that it's taking so long. The wealthiest have always found ways to preserve their wealth and Ivy League institutions have played a role in that. Take some smart people, a lot of people that are good at fitting the mold that looks best, mix your rich kids in there and call the paint one color. Remember, George W. Bush (all politics aside, just looking at him in terms of intellectual prowess) graduated from Harvard and got his M.B.A from Yale. That's one easily identifiable example but you can find many. And then you ask yourself, if you can take a bus that size through a fortress wall, can you still call it a fortress wall? And then it's clear for what it is -- decoration. Worse: it's signalling, which is the opposite of a meritocracy.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago
George W Bush plays much dumber than he is. It's hard to get an unbiased opinion on the matter since it can be used to score political points, but he definitely has >100 IQ.
- cmurf 11y ago
  Well 100 is average so you're pretty much riding the top of the bell curve with this comment. But then, there are house plants that decided not to invade Iraq and Afghanistan...
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - tzs 11y ago
    Why are you lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together? Those were vastly different situations. Note to down voters: do some research. First of all, there was widespread support for invading Afghanistan in both the US (over 90%) and in Afghanistan (also in the 90% range). This was not the case for Iraq. Second, Iraq was based on questionable intelligence that there might be things going on there that could potentially lead to attacks on the US at some future time. Afghanistan was in response to an attack that had already occurred by groups that were operating out of Afghanistan. Third, Congressional support for the Afghanistan invasion was 420 yes, 1 no, 10 not voting in the House, and 98 yes, 2 not voting in the Senate. For Iraq, the House was 297 yes, 133 no, 3 not voting, and the Senate was 77 yes, 23 no. FFS, even Ron Paul voted for invading Afghanistan. There is no way you can make a plausible case that Bush supporting the Afghanistan invasion indicates low intelligence, whereas you can kind of make such a case for Iraq.
    - cmurf 11y ago
      Well you can make a low intelligence claim for Afghanistan because of how many others have tried that in the past and failed miserably. But history and constitutions are just pieces of paper, he wanted to do what he wanted to do because he wanted to do it, even though neither country attacked the U.S. and therefore attacking both of them was a U.N. Charter violation, which we are of course signatories to. So I prefer suggesting he was low brain cell count rather than suggesting he's malevolent, but those are the binary options in my world view when it comes to George, and anyone else who voted for either one of those invasions.
      - rhino369 11y ago
        How is invading Afghanistan against the constitution? >even though neither country attacked the U.S Afghanistan attacked the US by allowing an terrorist group who declared war on America plot an attack on the United States from their country. >and therefore attacking both of them was a U.N. Charter violation, which we are of course signatories to. The UN Charter allows for self defense AND the UN authorized the attacks. In fact the ISAF is a UN operation.
- shawndumas 11y ago
  I'll just leave this here: "George W. Bush, Republican, 1946–present, 2001–2009, IQ:138.5" --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax#IQ_estimations_by_academics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax#IQ_e...
  - david927 11y ago
    I love it. For everyone who believes a study that gives him an IQ of around genius level (and for every US president -- look at that!), I actually own the Brooklyn Bridge and I'm looking to sell it. I used the wrong example: nothing creates cognitive dissonance faster than politics or religion. But, that said, it's not a show. He's quite consistent in the types of grammatical mistakes he makes, such as simple subject-verb agreement, for example, and they indicate that he's either aphasic or mildly-retarded.
    - shawndumas 11y ago
      I am not in anyway endorsing the man. But I will point out that he flew a fighter jet... 'Upon its completion, Bush was promoted to the officer's rank of second lieutenant required for pilot candidates. He spent the next year in flight school at Moody AFB in Georgia from November 1968 to November 1969. The aircraft Lt. Bush trained aboard were the T-41 Mescelero propeller-driven basic trainer, T-37 Tweet primary jet trainer, and the T-38 Talon advanced jet trainer. Bush ranked 22 out of 53 students in his flight school class with a grade of 88 on total airmanship. His scores included 100 for flying without navigational instruments, 89 in flight planning, and 98 in aviation physiology. Bush also completed two weeks of survival training during this period. Bush then returned to Ellington in Texas to complete seven months of combat crew training on the F-102 from December 1969 to June 1970. This period included five weeks of training on the T-33 Shooting Star and 16 weeks aboard the TF-102 Delta Dagger two-seat trainer and finally the single-seat F-102A. Bush graduated from the training program in June 1970. When interviewed by the Associated Press in February 2004, flight instructor Maj. Udell recalled that Lt. Bush was one of his best students saying that, "I'd rank him in the top five percent."' --http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0185.shtml http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0185.shtml
mietek 11y ago
What do you really know about George W. Bush? http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/ http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
- kamaal 11y ago
  To add to this, as a student in India, I would often run across people who thought Bill Gates was an Idiot. Not sure from where that caricature arose. But some people simply hated Bill Gates, and believed he didn't deserve to be the richest person in the world. I'd have to talk to them and explain he was a work horse extraordinaire, and was the equivalent of great project manager, programmer, and a business guy all rolled into one. Its very common to hate successful people, who don't fit our narrative of what a hero should look like.
  - finid 11y ago
    Nobody I know hates GW because he's successful. They do, because of the mess he got us in. Yes, he was led to taking the actions he took by smarter and more devious people around him, but the ultimate responsibility was with him, or on him. He was the president.
    - kamaal 11y ago
      I don't know about US politics. But I have seen people unjustifiably bash successful people. In fact, this is the common place ideology in today's feel-good culture to deride other people, to make their own shortcomings look acceptable.
- Jach 11y ago
  Love that piece. It's worth pointing out also that Keith was there only for the final year of office, rather than near the beginning, which is one of the best pieces of anecdata against the post-1994 ongoing dementia theory (which a priori I still think is more likely than the "playing dumb" theory). There is of course other anecdata on Bush not being as intelligent as Keith claims, but the big issue that should make most people have low confidence in either extreme is it's hard for people to form an accurate mental model of the President. The 4th image from http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/04/08/the-essence-of-peopling/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/04/08/the-essence-of-peopling... highlights the issue.
deleted 11y ago
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stvswn 11y ago
Your argument is: 1) George W. Bush went to Yale and Harvard Business School (not the other way around, btw) 2) George W. Bush is not intelligent Therefore, one need not be intelligent to graduate from those schools You may be right about your conclusion, but you don't support premise #2 -- rather, you just assume we all agree. Why do you think he's dumb?
gohrt 11y ago
The word "meritocracy" was originally invented as satirical word to describing "signalling by people who pretended they weren't signalling"

ThrustVectoring 11y ago

George W Bush plays much dumber than he is. It's hard to get an unbiased opinion on the matter since it can be used to score political points, but he definitely has >100 IQ.

cmurf 11y ago
Well 100 is average so you're pretty much riding the top of the bell curve with this comment. But then, there are house plants that decided not to invade Iraq and Afghanistan...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- tzs 11y ago
  Why are you lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together? Those were vastly different situations. Note to down voters: do some research. First of all, there was widespread support for invading Afghanistan in both the US (over 90%) and in Afghanistan (also in the 90% range). This was not the case for Iraq. Second, Iraq was based on questionable intelligence that there might be things going on there that could potentially lead to attacks on the US at some future time. Afghanistan was in response to an attack that had already occurred by groups that were operating out of Afghanistan. Third, Congressional support for the Afghanistan invasion was 420 yes, 1 no, 10 not voting in the House, and 98 yes, 2 not voting in the Senate. For Iraq, the House was 297 yes, 133 no, 3 not voting, and the Senate was 77 yes, 23 no. FFS, even Ron Paul voted for invading Afghanistan. There is no way you can make a plausible case that Bush supporting the Afghanistan invasion indicates low intelligence, whereas you can kind of make such a case for Iraq.
  - cmurf 11y ago
    Well you can make a low intelligence claim for Afghanistan because of how many others have tried that in the past and failed miserably. But history and constitutions are just pieces of paper, he wanted to do what he wanted to do because he wanted to do it, even though neither country attacked the U.S. and therefore attacking both of them was a U.N. Charter violation, which we are of course signatories to. So I prefer suggesting he was low brain cell count rather than suggesting he's malevolent, but those are the binary options in my world view when it comes to George, and anyone else who voted for either one of those invasions.
    - rhino369 11y ago
      How is invading Afghanistan against the constitution? >even though neither country attacked the U.S Afghanistan attacked the US by allowing an terrorist group who declared war on America plot an attack on the United States from their country. >and therefore attacking both of them was a U.N. Charter violation, which we are of course signatories to. The UN Charter allows for self defense AND the UN authorized the attacks. In fact the ISAF is a UN operation.
shawndumas 11y ago
I'll just leave this here: "George W. Bush, Republican, 1946–present, 2001–2009, IQ:138.5" --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax#IQ_estimations_by_academics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax#IQ_e...
- david927 11y ago
  I love it. For everyone who believes a study that gives him an IQ of around genius level (and for every US president -- look at that!), I actually own the Brooklyn Bridge and I'm looking to sell it. I used the wrong example: nothing creates cognitive dissonance faster than politics or religion. But, that said, it's not a show. He's quite consistent in the types of grammatical mistakes he makes, such as simple subject-verb agreement, for example, and they indicate that he's either aphasic or mildly-retarded.
  - shawndumas 11y ago
    I am not in anyway endorsing the man. But I will point out that he flew a fighter jet... 'Upon its completion, Bush was promoted to the officer's rank of second lieutenant required for pilot candidates. He spent the next year in flight school at Moody AFB in Georgia from November 1968 to November 1969. The aircraft Lt. Bush trained aboard were the T-41 Mescelero propeller-driven basic trainer, T-37 Tweet primary jet trainer, and the T-38 Talon advanced jet trainer. Bush ranked 22 out of 53 students in his flight school class with a grade of 88 on total airmanship. His scores included 100 for flying without navigational instruments, 89 in flight planning, and 98 in aviation physiology. Bush also completed two weeks of survival training during this period. Bush then returned to Ellington in Texas to complete seven months of combat crew training on the F-102 from December 1969 to June 1970. This period included five weeks of training on the T-33 Shooting Star and 16 weeks aboard the TF-102 Delta Dagger two-seat trainer and finally the single-seat F-102A. Bush graduated from the training program in June 1970. When interviewed by the Associated Press in February 2004, flight instructor Maj. Udell recalled that Lt. Bush was one of his best students saying that, "I'd rank him in the top five percent."' --http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0185.shtml http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0185.shtml

mietek 11y ago

What do you really know about George W. Bush? http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/ http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/

kamaal 11y ago
To add to this, as a student in India, I would often run across people who thought Bill Gates was an Idiot. Not sure from where that caricature arose. But some people simply hated Bill Gates, and believed he didn't deserve to be the richest person in the world. I'd have to talk to them and explain he was a work horse extraordinaire, and was the equivalent of great project manager, programmer, and a business guy all rolled into one. Its very common to hate successful people, who don't fit our narrative of what a hero should look like.
- finid 11y ago
  Nobody I know hates GW because he's successful. They do, because of the mess he got us in. Yes, he was led to taking the actions he took by smarter and more devious people around him, but the ultimate responsibility was with him, or on him. He was the president.
  - kamaal 11y ago
    I don't know about US politics. But I have seen people unjustifiably bash successful people. In fact, this is the common place ideology in today's feel-good culture to deride other people, to make their own shortcomings look acceptable.
Jach 11y ago
Love that piece. It's worth pointing out also that Keith was there only for the final year of office, rather than near the beginning, which is one of the best pieces of anecdata against the post-1994 ongoing dementia theory (which a priori I still think is more likely than the "playing dumb" theory). There is of course other anecdata on Bush not being as intelligent as Keith claims, but the big issue that should make most people have low confidence in either extreme is it's hard for people to form an accurate mental model of the President. The 4th image from http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/04/08/the-essence-of-peopling/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/04/08/the-essence-of-peopling... highlights the issue.

deleted 11y ago

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deleted 11y ago

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stvswn 11y ago

Your argument is: 1) George W. Bush went to Yale and Harvard Business School (not the other way around, btw) 2) George W. Bush is not intelligent Therefore, one need not be intelligent to graduate from those schools You may be right about your conclusion, but you don't support premise #2 -- rather, you just assume we all agree. Why do you think he's dumb?

gohrt 11y ago

The word "meritocracy" was originally invented as satirical word to describing "signalling by people who pretended they weren't signalling"