8 ms·

I don't think Musk is saying "as a smart person it is in your self interest to not go into finance or law", rather I interpret the statement as "as a society we

by gpm 7y ago

I don't think Musk is saying "as a smart person it is in your self interest to not go into finance or law", rather I interpret the statement as "as a society we incentive too many smart people to go into finance and law".

xoxoy 7y ago
I don’t think as many “smart people” go to law school any more. Pretty sure law school enrollment has been on the decline for awhile.
- loufe 7y ago
  I suppose that depends on where you live. In Canada, at least, law programs continue to have very competitive entry requirements and the market for lawyers is rather saturated meaning salaries are relatively low for post-graduate professions.
  - MiroF 7y ago
    > rather saturated meaning salaries are relatively low for post-graduate professions. Not a contradiction. This is exactly why the proportion of very smart people going into law is decreasing.
- irishcoffee 7y ago
  I don’t know if it’s on the decline, but I do know that a whole lot of people graduate college and have a “now what? Law school.” Moment
  - xoxoy 7y ago
    Maybe 15 years ago. Not today.
    - graeme 7y ago
      You’re wrong. There was a big drop in 2010-2012, but then it started rising again. Can’t find it for the us, but you can see it rose consistently in ontario: https://www.ouac.on.ca/statistics/olsas-application-statistics/ https://www.ouac.on.ca/statistics/olsas-application-statisti...
      - xoxoy 7y ago
        I’m not talking about Canada
        wutbrodo 7y ago
        I live in the US and I've seen this anecdotally too. If you're moderately smart, didn't do much in your early career[0], and aren't technical, law school is one of the things people grasp for to level up into a real career. [0] or took a shot at a career that didn't go anywhere, like in Hollywood or politics or any other industry built on an underclass of lied-to 21 year olds
        xoxoy 7y ago
        It’s less common now than 10-20 years ago is what I’m saying. Law school enrollment is down. Graduates have more options like non-technical roles in large tech companies. Students are fed up with debt and law school is notoriously expensive and gets more so every year. I mean you can look and enrollment figures and law school closures over last few years. This isn’t just a “hunch”. The whole “I don’t know what to do with my life so I’ll apply to law school” is like a meme from 2004.
        wutbrodo 7y ago
        Sure yea, no doubt that it's declined. But the parent comment that you disagreed specifically agreed with it declining, and your response was that this isn't much of a phenomenon anymore (not that it had declined).
        pkaye 7y ago
        Here is a graph of law school enrollment. I think it increased a small amount after 2015. https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/enrollment/all/ https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/enrollment/all/
- diminish 7y ago
  hope so - as US legal tradition is pretty much a negative-sum-game
- curiousllama 7y ago
  Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. aren't seeing a drop in the quality of applicants. I get the impression there's a very elite group that Musk would consider "smart" - and they have no issues getting into a T-14 law school.
  - xoxoy 7y ago
    So what? That’s not “too many” - the collective enrollment per class of those 3 schools is like 1000 students.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      There are fourteen T-14 schools, not just three.
      - xoxoy 7y ago
        Still don’t see your point. We need some lawyers. We don’t need millions. If the only law schools that existed were the T-14 where aggregate enrollment is like 4000 a year then that’s hardly “too many”
        londons_explore 7y ago
        If all the lawyers in the world lost 10 IQ points, which were redistributed to the non-lawyers, who would lose out? I argue that law is an adversarial profession - what matters is if you are smarter than the lawyer in the other side of the courtroom. If everyone was less good, outcomes would be much the same, and we as a society could redistribute those smart people to engineering problems where those IQ points will make the difference between inventing something useful or not.
        otterley 7y ago
        As an attorney who has seen what actually happens in the courtroom, I can tell you that the smartest lawyer does not always win the case, and that judges will often go out of their way to help lawyers who look like they’re tangled up. Being on the right side of the law often helps more.
verelo 7y ago
...and they get trapped there! That’s the issue. But then again, if that’s the case are they really so smart?
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  They presumably wouldn't agree with your definition of "trapped". To reiterate the GP comment, the claim is that going into finance or law is individually rational for many smart people, but globally suboptimal at the levels we currently incentivize it.
- diegoperini 7y ago
  That's a harsh simplification. There can be other reasons.
stjohnswarts 7y ago
I agree I think it's commentary that other industries should value them as much as finance and law.

by gpm 7y ago

xoxoy 7y ago

I don’t think as many “smart people” go to law school any more. Pretty sure law school enrollment has been on the decline for awhile.

loufe 7y ago
I suppose that depends on where you live. In Canada, at least, law programs continue to have very competitive entry requirements and the market for lawyers is rather saturated meaning salaries are relatively low for post-graduate professions.
- MiroF 7y ago
  > rather saturated meaning salaries are relatively low for post-graduate professions. Not a contradiction. This is exactly why the proportion of very smart people going into law is decreasing.
irishcoffee 7y ago
I don’t know if it’s on the decline, but I do know that a whole lot of people graduate college and have a “now what? Law school.” Moment
- xoxoy 7y ago
  Maybe 15 years ago. Not today.
  - graeme 7y ago
    You’re wrong. There was a big drop in 2010-2012, but then it started rising again. Can’t find it for the us, but you can see it rose consistently in ontario: https://www.ouac.on.ca/statistics/olsas-application-statistics/ https://www.ouac.on.ca/statistics/olsas-application-statisti...
    - xoxoy 7y ago
      I’m not talking about Canada
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        I live in the US and I've seen this anecdotally too. If you're moderately smart, didn't do much in your early career[0], and aren't technical, law school is one of the things people grasp for to level up into a real career. [0] or took a shot at a career that didn't go anywhere, like in Hollywood or politics or any other industry built on an underclass of lied-to 21 year olds
        xoxoy 7y ago
        It’s less common now than 10-20 years ago is what I’m saying. Law school enrollment is down. Graduates have more options like non-technical roles in large tech companies. Students are fed up with debt and law school is notoriously expensive and gets more so every year. I mean you can look and enrollment figures and law school closures over last few years. This isn’t just a “hunch”. The whole “I don’t know what to do with my life so I’ll apply to law school” is like a meme from 2004.
        wutbrodo 7y ago
        Sure yea, no doubt that it's declined. But the parent comment that you disagreed specifically agreed with it declining, and your response was that this isn't much of a phenomenon anymore (not that it had declined).
        pkaye 7y ago
        Here is a graph of law school enrollment. I think it increased a small amount after 2015. https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/enrollment/all/ https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/enrollment/all/
diminish 7y ago
hope so - as US legal tradition is pretty much a negative-sum-game
curiousllama 7y ago
Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. aren't seeing a drop in the quality of applicants. I get the impression there's a very elite group that Musk would consider "smart" - and they have no issues getting into a T-14 law school.
- xoxoy 7y ago
  So what? That’s not “too many” - the collective enrollment per class of those 3 schools is like 1000 students.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    There are fourteen T-14 schools, not just three.
    - xoxoy 7y ago
      Still don’t see your point. We need some lawyers. We don’t need millions. If the only law schools that existed were the T-14 where aggregate enrollment is like 4000 a year then that’s hardly “too many”
      - londons_explore 7y ago
        If all the lawyers in the world lost 10 IQ points, which were redistributed to the non-lawyers, who would lose out? I argue that law is an adversarial profession - what matters is if you are smarter than the lawyer in the other side of the courtroom. If everyone was less good, outcomes would be much the same, and we as a society could redistribute those smart people to engineering problems where those IQ points will make the difference between inventing something useful or not.
        otterley 7y ago
        As an attorney who has seen what actually happens in the courtroom, I can tell you that the smartest lawyer does not always win the case, and that judges will often go out of their way to help lawyers who look like they’re tangled up. Being on the right side of the law often helps more.

verelo 7y ago

...and they get trapped there! That’s the issue. But then again, if that’s the case are they really so smart?

wutbrodo 7y ago
They presumably wouldn't agree with your definition of "trapped". To reiterate the GP comment, the claim is that going into finance or law is individually rational for many smart people, but globally suboptimal at the levels we currently incentivize it.
diegoperini 7y ago
That's a harsh simplification. There can be other reasons.

stjohnswarts 7y ago

I agree I think it's commentary that other industries should value them as much as finance and law.