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The whole affair is reminding me of how Ivy League colleges (and Oxbridge) work. They used to be places where the privileged, moneyed elite could educate thems

The whole affair is reminding me of how Ivy League colleges (and Oxbridge) work. They used to be places where the privileged, moneyed elite could educate themselves in relative privacy, save for a few exceptional commoners allowed in on scholarship. Nowadays, the proportion of talented commoners to moneyed elite is considerably greater than it was even 100 years ago, but the basic principle remains: foster connections among the elites, and give them first crack at any emerging talent. This way anyone with a potentially destabilizing talent becomes attached to the existing power structure at an impressionable age. Better to invite them in and dilute the pool a bit than risk them draining it later. Any commoners who don't work out, they will drop without hesitation. I'm not saying this is evil. If you were among the elite, you'd probably do the same thing. And I also don't propose that this was all cooked in a room full of cackling conspirators rubbing their hands together. It's just the way a power structure works. From their point of view, I'm quite sure they see this as noblesse oblige: they're just reaching out, "giving back" and trying to help useful and interesting people succeed. But it nevertheless has embedded in it the idea that the most important part of success is meeting people who already have power. And as the complainant in the letter writes, it sounds like all the hoi polloi ("Group B") at TED actually buy into this as well. Maybe he should be working on something amazing instead of hoping Bill or Steve or Sergey notices him.

forkandwait 16y ago
New blood from the commoners actually helps sustain the system in two ways. (1) They usually don't dilute anything, but rather add talent and ambition. Remember -- they got their scholarship by being smart and hungry. If they adopt the norms of their new class and make a pile of bucks, why not let them marry your daughter and go to Nantucket with you. (2) They add plausible deniability to the class structure -- we can say "look, this kid from a middle class family in West Virgina made it, there's no such thing as class structure." (Or "Clarence Thomas made it -- don't tell me about systemic racism".)
dlokshin 16y ago
I'm the son of an immigrant, went to Harvard and have no idea what you're talking about concerning the Ivy League. Would you (or anyone who upvoted) care to explain?
- mayank 16y ago
  Yes, the collective behavior of very complex game theoretic systems, where individuals act to maximize their own benefit, can sometimes seem to be controlled by a central decision structure, even where none exists. Or-- people have a bias towards seeing massive, planned conspiracies.
  - T-R 16y ago
    > And I also don't propose that this was all cooked in a room full of cackling conspirators rubbing their hands together. It's just the way a power structure works. His point is that the system of individuals acting to maximize their own benefit, because of the way that "benefit" is defined, favors entrenched players, even if it wasn't supposed to - no conspiracy necessary.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    It doesn't have to be a conspiracy - such a system could arise simply through evolution and survivorship bias. Imagine you have two power structures. One of them has a rigidly entrenched core group, with no possibility for advancement. The other of them identifies people who might be threats, and then offers them the possibility of advancement within the system. Over time, such revolutionaries will arise in both systems. In the first system, they eventually gain a critical mass of disaffected youth, and overthrow the government. That paves the way for another system, and eventually, someone will try something like system #2, and that won't be overthrown by restless revolutionaries. History actually looks remarkably like this, with plenty of absolute monarchies being violently overthrown by smart & charismatic revolutionaries, until a system arose where those smart and charismatic people can achieve personal advancement without overthrowing the system.
  - forkandwait 16y ago
    I, for one, believe in conspiracies... ... but I also believe in class conflict, which I see as different things. Our economic system is predicated on the existence of both a working class and an owning class -- it's no fun to be a general if you don't have a bunch a bunch of enlisted to boss around. And in the US, the myth is that the enlisted commoners deserve their lot from lack of smarts and ambition. The owning class, and their educated lackeys like me, intuit that if we don't keep this division going, we lose our positions in the upper half of the pyramid, and adjust our day-to-day behavior accordingly without ever explicitly working it out in our minds. Also, we just plain feel more comfortable around people who share experience and cultural background. These dynamics, plus a HUGE difference in access to educational know-how, are enough to sustain class divisions even while making it plausibly deniable that any systematic class oppression exists. Also, there is a rhetorical technique called the "straw man" which the commenter is using: subtly re-characterize your opponents argument as something easily attacked, and then attack it. The commenter explicitly said there was no grand explicit conspiracy, but you attack him as if he did. (One of the things I like about HN is that when issues like this come up there are smart people here on both sides -- libertarians and Marxists, united by a love of hacking!)
zem 16y ago
> And as the complainant in the letter writes, it sounds like all the hoi polloi ("Group B") at TED actually buy into this as well. Maybe he should be working on something amazing instead of hoping Bill or Steve or Sergey notices him. that was one of the things that struck me most forcibly about the article. i would have predicted (a touch optimistically, perhaps) that the "b-listers" would just find other interesting people to meet and socialise with during those few days - heck, ted is packed with them! perhaps i'm just spoilt by exposure to mainly hacker conferences (and unconferences), and science fiction conventions, in both of which celebrities are welcomed, but not especially lionised.

forkandwait 16y ago

New blood from the commoners actually helps sustain the system in two ways. (1) They usually don't dilute anything, but rather add talent and ambition. Remember -- they got their scholarship by being smart and hungry. If they adopt the norms of their new class and make a pile of bucks, why not let them marry your daughter and go to Nantucket with you. (2) They add plausible deniability to the class structure -- we can say "look, this kid from a middle class family in West Virgina made it, there's no such thing as class structure." (Or "Clarence Thomas made it -- don't tell me about systemic racism".)

dlokshin 16y ago

I'm the son of an immigrant, went to Harvard and have no idea what you're talking about concerning the Ivy League. Would you (or anyone who upvoted) care to explain?

mayank 16y ago
Yes, the collective behavior of very complex game theoretic systems, where individuals act to maximize their own benefit, can sometimes seem to be controlled by a central decision structure, even where none exists. Or-- people have a bias towards seeing massive, planned conspiracies.
- T-R 16y ago
  > And I also don't propose that this was all cooked in a room full of cackling conspirators rubbing their hands together. It's just the way a power structure works. His point is that the system of individuals acting to maximize their own benefit, because of the way that "benefit" is defined, favors entrenched players, even if it wasn't supposed to - no conspiracy necessary.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  It doesn't have to be a conspiracy - such a system could arise simply through evolution and survivorship bias. Imagine you have two power structures. One of them has a rigidly entrenched core group, with no possibility for advancement. The other of them identifies people who might be threats, and then offers them the possibility of advancement within the system. Over time, such revolutionaries will arise in both systems. In the first system, they eventually gain a critical mass of disaffected youth, and overthrow the government. That paves the way for another system, and eventually, someone will try something like system #2, and that won't be overthrown by restless revolutionaries. History actually looks remarkably like this, with plenty of absolute monarchies being violently overthrown by smart & charismatic revolutionaries, until a system arose where those smart and charismatic people can achieve personal advancement without overthrowing the system.
- forkandwait 16y ago
  I, for one, believe in conspiracies... ... but I also believe in class conflict, which I see as different things. Our economic system is predicated on the existence of both a working class and an owning class -- it's no fun to be a general if you don't have a bunch a bunch of enlisted to boss around. And in the US, the myth is that the enlisted commoners deserve their lot from lack of smarts and ambition. The owning class, and their educated lackeys like me, intuit that if we don't keep this division going, we lose our positions in the upper half of the pyramid, and adjust our day-to-day behavior accordingly without ever explicitly working it out in our minds. Also, we just plain feel more comfortable around people who share experience and cultural background. These dynamics, plus a HUGE difference in access to educational know-how, are enough to sustain class divisions even while making it plausibly deniable that any systematic class oppression exists. Also, there is a rhetorical technique called the "straw man" which the commenter is using: subtly re-characterize your opponents argument as something easily attacked, and then attack it. The commenter explicitly said there was no grand explicit conspiracy, but you attack him as if he did. (One of the things I like about HN is that when issues like this come up there are smart people here on both sides -- libertarians and Marxists, united by a love of hacking!)

zem 16y ago

> And as the complainant in the letter writes, it sounds like all the hoi polloi ("Group B") at TED actually buy into this as well. Maybe he should be working on something amazing instead of hoping Bill or Steve or Sergey notices him. that was one of the things that struck me most forcibly about the article. i would have predicted (a touch optimistically, perhaps) that the "b-listers" would just find other interesting people to meet and socialise with during those few days - heck, ted is packed with them! perhaps i'm just spoilt by exposure to mainly hacker conferences (and unconferences), and science fiction conventions, in both of which celebrities are welcomed, but not especially lionised.