4 ms·

I agree with your second point that we have over-fitted education to optimize standardized test scores to the determent of encouraging intelligence. But at lea

I agree with your second point that we have over-fitted education to optimize standardized test scores to the determent of encouraging intelligence. But at least from my personal network developed from growing up in a working-class town and eventually living in extremely wealthy neighborhoods in extremely wealthy cities I have not noticed a strong relationship between "the ability to DO THINGS" and someone's social or economic status. I've known working class people who grew up poor and who had amazing hustle and through a combination of intelligence, luck, and hard work they clawed their way into the lower-middle class and set up their kids for even further success. I know even more rich people who inherited companies that they weren't interested or competent enough to run, or who got positions that didn't really require much DO-ing on their part by leveraging family connections. So when I picture someone with no real skills or ambition ambition I usually imagine a neighbor who grew up in the "owner class" and when I picture a "do-er" I always picture someone who grew up "working class".

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gotoeleven 5y ago
Your anecdotes not withstanding, it is a myth that most rich people inherited their wealth. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-richest-people-are-self-made-says-new-report.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche... Maybe you don't trust this source but there are many others like it. This bizarre push to make everyone think that there's no meritocracy, which I guess goes hand in hand with the fashionableness of being a victim, is cynical poison being driven by people with radical political agendas.
- robocat 5y ago
  Your example is like saying playing NBA basketball makes you taller. His point was that there are plenty of people that don’t become wealthy even though they work hard and have hustle. And there are plenty of wealthy people that didn’t need to work hard to get it. Looking at the self-made wealthy will select for people that “do”, but that does not imply that “do” makes you wealthy.
  - gotoeleven 5y ago
    Im not sure what your point is. Your statement >>> His point was that there are plenty of people that don’t become wealthy even though they work hard and have hustle. And there are plenty of wealthy people that didn’t need to work hard to get it. is a trivially correct, banal point. The parent comment was implying with his "I know even more people who are rich and lazy" comment something that, while it may be true for the people he encounters, is not true for society at large.
    - robocat 5y ago
      You said “it is a myth that most rich people inherited their wealth”, which you introduced as a subject, and I don’t think his comment was trying to say anything about your point exactly, either way. He said he was talking anecdotally, i.e. he was explicitly talking about his experiences which are true by definition, and not generalising to what your experience might be.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      "The parent comment was implying [...] something that, while it may be true for the people he encounters, is not true for society at large." Do you have a source for that?
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    For any given individual "do" is almost surely better than "not do". That's the choice facing an individual as they contemplate how to live their life.
    - robocat 5y ago
      I have just decided to be four inches taller than I am /s. I have depressed friends that I believe can’t reasonably be expected to just decide to “do”, and I have other friends that seem to naturally have an abundance of “do”. Yes, we can learn the skill, or we can be taught the skill, but otherwise your statement seems unrealistic to me.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Would you please define "self-made"? From your link: "“As our society has become more meritocratic, we’ve simply replaced an aristocracy based on title, class, race and gender with a new and equally persistent aristocracy based on genes, education and parenting,” Pearlstein continued. “Unless we are prepared to engage in extensive genetic reengineering, or require that all children be brought up in state-run boarding schools, we must acknowledge that we can never achieve full equality of opportunity.”"
- asoneth 5y ago
  I have only met one of the "world's richest people" on the list you linked and he is very hard working but I think the conclusions drawn from extreme outliers may not be applicable more broadly. I think perhaps we're talking about different things? I don't think it's fashionable to be a victim or that people have no control over their fate. Hard work (along with intellect and luck) generally helps people move up in life, and the people I know who have moved up the most in their lives are generally also the smartest and hardest working, so it would make logical sense that most people at the very top have worked hard to get there. After all, not many people out there can fall down a couple rungs and still be at the top of the ladder, right? But beyond those extreme outliers, most people in the US (which ranks 27th in social mobility according to the world economic forum[1]) seem to end up within a rung or two of where they were born. So I suppose how "meritocratic" the US is probably depends on what you mean by the word. [1] http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/social-mobility-rankings/ http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/socia...
- kenjackson 5y ago
  > it is a myth that most rich people inherited their wealth. No one here has said that. More importantly, your link doesn't dispute that either. It simply says that billionaires, who are on the extreme, don't inherit most of their wealth -- despite the fact that 45% of them at least partially did so. I've long argued that until we send all kids, rich and poor, to academies at birth with no further contact or tracing to their parents, we won't really understand the full impact of advantages bestowed by wealthy parents.
- bryondowd 5y ago
  These studies almost always point to a very limited set of the "wealthiest" for their study. And if you think about it, it's obvious that the very top of the pyramid will mostly have people who were able to concentrate wealth somehow, rather than inheritors. Often, inheritance is split between more than one person. That alone would account for a lot of inherited wealth not meeting an arbitrarily "wealthiest" category. So naturally there's going to be a lot of churn at the top.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>I have not noticed a strong relationship between "the ability to DO THINGS" and someone's social or economic status. Are we talking status relative to others or relative to the starting position? There will always be the deadbeat child of someone wealthy who's still wealthier than you but all the "doers" I know have climbed the socioeconomic ladder at least a couple rungs in their adult lives.
- asoneth 5y ago
  The quoted statement was referring to absolute socioeconomic status. I agree that relative movement is possible and I also know a lot of extremely hard-working people (both rich and poor) who have been successful and climbed a rung or two in their lives. My point was more that the average wealthy person I know doesn't seem to have a particularly greater or lesser "ability to do things" compared to the poor people I know. Whereas if the "ability to do things" was really a substantial socioeconomic equalizer then I would have expected that DO-ers would be over-represented the higher up the socioeconomic ladder you climb instead of evenly distributed at each level. Perhaps it's different at the very top and the very bottom? (As a contrast, in the military I found a positive correlation between an officer's rank and their ability to do things. Most of the colonels I worked with had an impressive intellect and drive, and even moreso with the generals I met.)
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    "Equalizer" was probably the wrong word. It's probably more like, you start somewhere, and do-ing is one of the biggest components in the delta between where you start and where you end. That doesn't mean that in one generation you overcome someone else's head start. But it's still a good, beneficial thing to strive after.
    - asoneth 5y ago
      I would agree that do-ing is a major component of the delta, along with ability and a fair bit of luck. I guess my mental model would be that someone's socioeconomic status often comes down to: starting point + (hard work * ability * luck) (where any one of those may be positive or negative)
kansface 5y ago
Intelligence, conscientiousness, affluence/social capital- pick any two and you get success on average. That’s about all there is to it. Success could look like making a bunch of money, starting a business, doing research, making interesting art. The point is a smart, hard working person can pretty much choose to do anything and an intelligent person will do fine with an infinite runway regardless of work ethic, etc. To the extent that college used to be a strong signal for those attributes it was also a strong proxy for success. Continually expanding college weakens the signal and the proximate worth of a college degree. In so many words, college for everyone confuses cause for effect - cynically, it’s not universities that make people successful, it’s that people who will succeed in life are overwhelmingly selected by and go to college- moreover, better colleges tend to matriculate people with greater quantities of those attributes. If college ceased to exist, the same cohort would still come out on top. See also, the vast majority of graduates don’t work in their major (education as a signal). This is painting a bit too broadly - a degree still shows that you can jump through pointless hoops which is valuable to employers and some degrees are valuable in and off themselves because they gate professions that are necessary for society (medicine/engineering). I’d also point out that colleges historically ignored large pools of candidates from certain demographics for political reasons. I suppose there is probably some learning that manages to happen once in a while too, which is worth something if not the cost to society of fueling the higher ed apparatus.
- asoneth 5y ago
  > Intelligence, conscientiousness, affluence/social capital Agreed that these are important factors in success, but in practice they don't seem to be equivalent in importance. An unsuccessful person who lacks intelligence or conscientiousness but was born into affluence in the US is more likely to remain higher on the socioeconomic ladder than a successful person who has both intelligence and conscientiousness but was born poor. That said, I believe that with hard work and intelligence it is possible for someone to move up no matter their starting point and we should celebrate the famous outliers who lept up the ladder. But it's also responsible to acknowledge that they are famous because they are outliers and that most people seem to end up within a rung or two of their parents.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
OP said it's the great equalizer, which I take to mean tending to make equal, not make equal - any more than education ever did. Class still exists with its advantages, from BS (e.g. who you know) to real (e.g. security to invest in yourself long-term).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gotoeleven 5y ago

Your anecdotes not withstanding, it is a myth that most rich people inherited their wealth. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-richest-people-are-self-made-says-new-report.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche... Maybe you don't trust this source but there are many others like it. This bizarre push to make everyone think that there's no meritocracy, which I guess goes hand in hand with the fashionableness of being a victim, is cynical poison being driven by people with radical political agendas.

robocat 5y ago
Your example is like saying playing NBA basketball makes you taller. His point was that there are plenty of people that don’t become wealthy even though they work hard and have hustle. And there are plenty of wealthy people that didn’t need to work hard to get it. Looking at the self-made wealthy will select for people that “do”, but that does not imply that “do” makes you wealthy.
- gotoeleven 5y ago
  Im not sure what your point is. Your statement >>> His point was that there are plenty of people that don’t become wealthy even though they work hard and have hustle. And there are plenty of wealthy people that didn’t need to work hard to get it. is a trivially correct, banal point. The parent comment was implying with his "I know even more people who are rich and lazy" comment something that, while it may be true for the people he encounters, is not true for society at large.
  - robocat 5y ago
    You said “it is a myth that most rich people inherited their wealth”, which you introduced as a subject, and I don’t think his comment was trying to say anything about your point exactly, either way. He said he was talking anecdotally, i.e. he was explicitly talking about his experiences which are true by definition, and not generalising to what your experience might be.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "The parent comment was implying [...] something that, while it may be true for the people he encounters, is not true for society at large." Do you have a source for that?
- sokoloff 5y ago
  For any given individual "do" is almost surely better than "not do". That's the choice facing an individual as they contemplate how to live their life.
  - robocat 5y ago
    I have just decided to be four inches taller than I am /s. I have depressed friends that I believe can’t reasonably be expected to just decide to “do”, and I have other friends that seem to naturally have an abundance of “do”. Yes, we can learn the skill, or we can be taught the skill, but otherwise your statement seems unrealistic to me.
mcguire 5y ago
Would you please define "self-made"? From your link: "“As our society has become more meritocratic, we’ve simply replaced an aristocracy based on title, class, race and gender with a new and equally persistent aristocracy based on genes, education and parenting,” Pearlstein continued. “Unless we are prepared to engage in extensive genetic reengineering, or require that all children be brought up in state-run boarding schools, we must acknowledge that we can never achieve full equality of opportunity.”"
asoneth 5y ago
I have only met one of the "world's richest people" on the list you linked and he is very hard working but I think the conclusions drawn from extreme outliers may not be applicable more broadly. I think perhaps we're talking about different things? I don't think it's fashionable to be a victim or that people have no control over their fate. Hard work (along with intellect and luck) generally helps people move up in life, and the people I know who have moved up the most in their lives are generally also the smartest and hardest working, so it would make logical sense that most people at the very top have worked hard to get there. After all, not many people out there can fall down a couple rungs and still be at the top of the ladder, right? But beyond those extreme outliers, most people in the US (which ranks 27th in social mobility according to the world economic forum[1]) seem to end up within a rung or two of where they were born. So I suppose how "meritocratic" the US is probably depends on what you mean by the word. [1] http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/social-mobility-rankings/ http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/socia...
kenjackson 5y ago
> it is a myth that most rich people inherited their wealth. No one here has said that. More importantly, your link doesn't dispute that either. It simply says that billionaires, who are on the extreme, don't inherit most of their wealth -- despite the fact that 45% of them at least partially did so. I've long argued that until we send all kids, rich and poor, to academies at birth with no further contact or tracing to their parents, we won't really understand the full impact of advantages bestowed by wealthy parents.
bryondowd 5y ago
These studies almost always point to a very limited set of the "wealthiest" for their study. And if you think about it, it's obvious that the very top of the pyramid will mostly have people who were able to concentrate wealth somehow, rather than inheritors. Often, inheritance is split between more than one person. That alone would account for a lot of inherited wealth not meeting an arbitrarily "wealthiest" category. So naturally there's going to be a lot of churn at the top.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>I have not noticed a strong relationship between "the ability to DO THINGS" and someone's social or economic status. Are we talking status relative to others or relative to the starting position? There will always be the deadbeat child of someone wealthy who's still wealthier than you but all the "doers" I know have climbed the socioeconomic ladder at least a couple rungs in their adult lives.

asoneth 5y ago
The quoted statement was referring to absolute socioeconomic status. I agree that relative movement is possible and I also know a lot of extremely hard-working people (both rich and poor) who have been successful and climbed a rung or two in their lives. My point was more that the average wealthy person I know doesn't seem to have a particularly greater or lesser "ability to do things" compared to the poor people I know. Whereas if the "ability to do things" was really a substantial socioeconomic equalizer then I would have expected that DO-ers would be over-represented the higher up the socioeconomic ladder you climb instead of evenly distributed at each level. Perhaps it's different at the very top and the very bottom? (As a contrast, in the military I found a positive correlation between an officer's rank and their ability to do things. Most of the colonels I worked with had an impressive intellect and drive, and even moreso with the generals I met.)
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  "Equalizer" was probably the wrong word. It's probably more like, you start somewhere, and do-ing is one of the biggest components in the delta between where you start and where you end. That doesn't mean that in one generation you overcome someone else's head start. But it's still a good, beneficial thing to strive after.
  - asoneth 5y ago
    I would agree that do-ing is a major component of the delta, along with ability and a fair bit of luck. I guess my mental model would be that someone's socioeconomic status often comes down to: starting point + (hard work * ability * luck) (where any one of those may be positive or negative)

kansface 5y ago

Intelligence, conscientiousness, affluence/social capital- pick any two and you get success on average. That’s about all there is to it. Success could look like making a bunch of money, starting a business, doing research, making interesting art. The point is a smart, hard working person can pretty much choose to do anything and an intelligent person will do fine with an infinite runway regardless of work ethic, etc. To the extent that college used to be a strong signal for those attributes it was also a strong proxy for success. Continually expanding college weakens the signal and the proximate worth of a college degree. In so many words, college for everyone confuses cause for effect - cynically, it’s not universities that make people successful, it’s that people who will succeed in life are overwhelmingly selected by and go to college- moreover, better colleges tend to matriculate people with greater quantities of those attributes. If college ceased to exist, the same cohort would still come out on top. See also, the vast majority of graduates don’t work in their major (education as a signal). This is painting a bit too broadly - a degree still shows that you can jump through pointless hoops which is valuable to employers and some degrees are valuable in and off themselves because they gate professions that are necessary for society (medicine/engineering). I’d also point out that colleges historically ignored large pools of candidates from certain demographics for political reasons. I suppose there is probably some learning that manages to happen once in a while too, which is worth something if not the cost to society of fueling the higher ed apparatus.

asoneth 5y ago
> Intelligence, conscientiousness, affluence/social capital Agreed that these are important factors in success, but in practice they don't seem to be equivalent in importance. An unsuccessful person who lacks intelligence or conscientiousness but was born into affluence in the US is more likely to remain higher on the socioeconomic ladder than a successful person who has both intelligence and conscientiousness but was born poor. That said, I believe that with hard work and intelligence it is possible for someone to move up no matter their starting point and we should celebrate the famous outliers who lept up the ladder. But it's also responsible to acknowledge that they are famous because they are outliers and that most people seem to end up within a rung or two of their parents.

hyperpallium2 5y ago

OP said it's the great equalizer, which I take to mean tending to make equal, not make equal - any more than education ever did. Class still exists with its advantages, from BS (e.g. who you know) to real (e.g. security to invest in yourself long-term).