5 ms·

"Positive" refers to positive correlation, not positive effects or desirability. Those that believe that "high-ability workers" made themselves, that market va

"Positive" refers to positive correlation, not positive effects or desirability. Those that believe that "high-ability workers" made themselves, that market valuation of a person is fair and reflects what that person deserves, will also view this positive correlation as positive. Those that see otherwise, e.g. that grok the Matthew Effect[1], systemic prejudice in society, that no human created themselves, or that humans should not be "priced" like commodities, will not. As the paper points out: There is sorting everywhere in the economy: - Wealthier, more educated, more attractive men on average marry wealthier, more educated, more attractive women. - Higher-income households reside in distinct neighborhoods and send their children to better schools than low-income households. - Elite universities enroll the most qualified undergraduates. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect

causality0 3y ago
Those that see otherwise, e.g. that grok the Matthew Effect[1], systemic prejudice in society, that no human created themselves, or that humans should not be "priced" like commodities, will not. Even believing those things, why would you not still see it as positive? Would it be better if high-performing people worked for lower-performing companies? Wouldn't an inability for higher-performing workers to move to higher-performing companies reflect a lack of worker freedom?
- ako 3y ago
  Because it’s unfair, most of what determines if a person can become a high performing worker is determined by luck outside the control of this person. I’m currently on a work trip in India, and it’s very obvious how much luck determines your life.
  - BobbyJo 3y ago
    I'm on your side generally, but something to keep in mind: the belief that it is not luck generates a ton of value and material security for humanity.
    - ako 3y ago
      Sure, it's 95% luck, the other 5% can be influenced by hard work. That 5% determines how successful you'll be compared to others with the same amount of luck. It's like being handed a lottery ticket. If you don't work hard to cash it, you're left with nothing.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        I think it is important to remember that lot of that "luck" is someone else's work and sacrifice, and I think that is true the world round. Most luck you or I have wouldn't exist is if someone close to us decided to coast or fuck up instead of making sure to cash keep cashing in those lottery tickets every day
- ethanbond 3y ago
  I actually do think it would be great if we didn’t have so much IQ concentration in so many rather niche, high-competition, low-impact-on-daily-life arenas. A lot of these people are competing in zero-sum games where their intelligence is all but canceled because of one another. If we could take half the 120+ IQ folks working at high frequency trading firms or on online advertisements and scatter them to work in local trade businesses, restaurants, civil services, etc, I think it’d be a net positive.
  - MeImCounting 3y ago
    This. So much brain-waste in professions that generate little to no value for society. How many highly intelligent people waste their lives as lawyers doing endless corporate lawsuits or minority shareholder lawsuits or whatever other useless court proceedings? Society could allocate the resources spent on stuff like that to train more engineers or researchers. Or accounting, so many highly intelligent people spending years navigating endless mazes of occult tax law or useless bureaucratic nothingburgers who could otherwise be engineers or researchers. Such a waste
    - sxg 3y ago
      How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? It seems to me that people chose to become lawyers, engineers, or researchers of their own free will. Sure, many researchers are government funded, so you could draw more people to that field with more resources, but I'm not seeing how society is pushing people into law over engineering at least.
      - thorncorona 3y ago
        > How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? money.
      - Teever 3y ago
        “If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”
- eevilspock 3y ago
  > Would it be better if high-performing people worked for lower-performing companies? Per my value system, what we want is to match people to work that they are good at, and for any particular ability, we want to match people who have more ability to societal needs that are more important. "Higher performing company" does not equate to "more important company". I'm glad Einstein chose to be a physicist rather than be a Facebook engineer (or whatever the equivalent was in his time). I don't believe anyone should be billionaires or fabulously wealthy, but if I did, it would be people like Einstein, not Mark Zuckerberg, or people like Musk who would have paid Einstein some minimal market-driven amount more than Princeton would have (from the government subsidies Must gets) while convincing people he (Musk) is responsible for all the great technological advances resulting from Einstein's work, keeping all the profits for himself and pouring them into even more extractive schemes. > Wouldn't an inability for higher-performing workers to move to higher-performing companies reflect a lack of worker freedom? Doesn't the inability of lower-performing workers to not be coerced into working for slave wages under slave conditions represent a lack of freedom? What about the children of lower-performing workers who are locked into poorer schools, poorer nutrition, poorer environments, less quality time with their parents and many other disadvantages? And what if higher-performing companies are those that are best at extracting the most value out of bottom-level workers, effectively acting as intermediate slave owners for consumers who get cheap goods on the backs of bottom-level workers and their lack of freedom?
SenAnder 3y ago
> Higher-income households reside in distinct neighborhoods and send their children to better schools than low-income households. But state and federal funding supplements local tax school funding to achieve approximately equal funding per pupil, and the US is 4th in the world (behind only Luxembourg, Norway, and Iceland) in per-student primary education spending [1]. So what makes those schools "good"? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/238733/expenditure-on-education-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/238733/expenditure-on-ed...
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Based on my admittedly small sample size: involved parents who “give a shit” (and have time and resources to do so). We’re in Cambridge, MA (one high school for the entire city). I bet the correlations among parents’ academic achievement, household income, parental involvement, and kids’ scholastic accomplishment are all positive or strongly positive. (There cannot be a difference in school, being only one.)
- ipaddr 3y ago
  The success traits that put high income earners together gets reenforced with their kids. Move this group (and remove existing students) to a less funded school and they will do better than the kids who got moved to a high funded school. You can't buy parents, social pressures and genes.
  - notjoemama 3y ago
    > The success traits that put high income earners together gets reenforced with their kids. Bingo. It's parenting. I won't go into how I can positively confirm this, but I can as a "captain" as reddit used to refer to it... Wealthy areas still out fund raise, out tax, and out volunteer poorer areas.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
      2/3 of your metrics are fully accounted for by disposable income differences, the other by free time difference. Advantages accumulate; you’ve discovered privilege. It’s generational. Good job.

causality0 3y ago

Those that see otherwise, e.g. that grok the Matthew Effect[1], systemic prejudice in society, that no human created themselves, or that humans should not be "priced" like commodities, will not. Even believing those things, why would you not still see it as positive? Would it be better if high-performing people worked for lower-performing companies? Wouldn't an inability for higher-performing workers to move to higher-performing companies reflect a lack of worker freedom?

ako 3y ago
Because it’s unfair, most of what determines if a person can become a high performing worker is determined by luck outside the control of this person. I’m currently on a work trip in India, and it’s very obvious how much luck determines your life.
- BobbyJo 3y ago
  I'm on your side generally, but something to keep in mind: the belief that it is not luck generates a ton of value and material security for humanity.
  - ako 3y ago
    Sure, it's 95% luck, the other 5% can be influenced by hard work. That 5% determines how successful you'll be compared to others with the same amount of luck. It's like being handed a lottery ticket. If you don't work hard to cash it, you're left with nothing.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      I think it is important to remember that lot of that "luck" is someone else's work and sacrifice, and I think that is true the world round. Most luck you or I have wouldn't exist is if someone close to us decided to coast or fuck up instead of making sure to cash keep cashing in those lottery tickets every day
ethanbond 3y ago
I actually do think it would be great if we didn’t have so much IQ concentration in so many rather niche, high-competition, low-impact-on-daily-life arenas. A lot of these people are competing in zero-sum games where their intelligence is all but canceled because of one another. If we could take half the 120+ IQ folks working at high frequency trading firms or on online advertisements and scatter them to work in local trade businesses, restaurants, civil services, etc, I think it’d be a net positive.
- MeImCounting 3y ago
  This. So much brain-waste in professions that generate little to no value for society. How many highly intelligent people waste their lives as lawyers doing endless corporate lawsuits or minority shareholder lawsuits or whatever other useless court proceedings? Society could allocate the resources spent on stuff like that to train more engineers or researchers. Or accounting, so many highly intelligent people spending years navigating endless mazes of occult tax law or useless bureaucratic nothingburgers who could otherwise be engineers or researchers. Such a waste
  - sxg 3y ago
    How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? It seems to me that people chose to become lawyers, engineers, or researchers of their own free will. Sure, many researchers are government funded, so you could draw more people to that field with more resources, but I'm not seeing how society is pushing people into law over engineering at least.
    - thorncorona 3y ago
      > How is it that society is preferentially allocating resources to creating lawyers rather than engineers or researchers? money.
    - Teever 3y ago
      “If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”
eevilspock 3y ago
> Would it be better if high-performing people worked for lower-performing companies? Per my value system, what we want is to match people to work that they are good at, and for any particular ability, we want to match people who have more ability to societal needs that are more important. "Higher performing company" does not equate to "more important company". I'm glad Einstein chose to be a physicist rather than be a Facebook engineer (or whatever the equivalent was in his time). I don't believe anyone should be billionaires or fabulously wealthy, but if I did, it would be people like Einstein, not Mark Zuckerberg, or people like Musk who would have paid Einstein some minimal market-driven amount more than Princeton would have (from the government subsidies Must gets) while convincing people he (Musk) is responsible for all the great technological advances resulting from Einstein's work, keeping all the profits for himself and pouring them into even more extractive schemes. > Wouldn't an inability for higher-performing workers to move to higher-performing companies reflect a lack of worker freedom? Doesn't the inability of lower-performing workers to not be coerced into working for slave wages under slave conditions represent a lack of freedom? What about the children of lower-performing workers who are locked into poorer schools, poorer nutrition, poorer environments, less quality time with their parents and many other disadvantages? And what if higher-performing companies are those that are best at extracting the most value out of bottom-level workers, effectively acting as intermediate slave owners for consumers who get cheap goods on the backs of bottom-level workers and their lack of freedom?

SenAnder 3y ago

> Higher-income households reside in distinct neighborhoods and send their children to better schools than low-income households. But state and federal funding supplements local tax school funding to achieve approximately equal funding per pupil, and the US is 4th in the world (behind only Luxembourg, Norway, and Iceland) in per-student primary education spending [1]. So what makes those schools "good"? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/238733/expenditure-on-education-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/238733/expenditure-on-ed...

sokoloff 3y ago
Based on my admittedly small sample size: involved parents who “give a shit” (and have time and resources to do so). We’re in Cambridge, MA (one high school for the entire city). I bet the correlations among parents’ academic achievement, household income, parental involvement, and kids’ scholastic accomplishment are all positive or strongly positive. (There cannot be a difference in school, being only one.)
ipaddr 3y ago
The success traits that put high income earners together gets reenforced with their kids. Move this group (and remove existing students) to a less funded school and they will do better than the kids who got moved to a high funded school. You can't buy parents, social pressures and genes.
- notjoemama 3y ago
  > The success traits that put high income earners together gets reenforced with their kids. Bingo. It's parenting. I won't go into how I can positively confirm this, but I can as a "captain" as reddit used to refer to it... Wealthy areas still out fund raise, out tax, and out volunteer poorer areas.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
    2/3 of your metrics are fully accounted for by disposable income differences, the other by free time difference. Advantages accumulate; you’ve discovered privilege. It’s generational. Good job.