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> Killing truly progressive programs for the purpose of virtue signaling is a loss for society It's not just a loss for society. It's society-killing. Taking

by phil21 2y ago

> Killing truly progressive programs for the purpose of virtue signaling is a loss for society It's not just a loss for society. It's society-killing. Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. It's a ridiculous self-own. This is perhaps the sole political topic I will die on a hill for.

cogman10 2y ago
> Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. What does this even mean? To me, the measure of a healthy society is how that society treats those that are "unlikely to pay it back". The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. For example, I don't think we'd call the culture/society of the 1900s US particularly healthy. Yet that was probably the peak of the US keeping resources in the hands of "those who move society forward" the robber barons and monopolists. We didn't think anything of working to death unwanted 5 year olds that were unlikely to make a positive impact on society. As for "dying culture" that to me is a very different thing from society. Societies can have multiple cultures present and healthy societies tolerate multiple cultures. > Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. Which conquerers? I can think of no historical example where a conquerer somehow convinced a target to take care of their needy so they could conquer. > This is perhaps the sole political topic I will die on a hill for. I'm really interested in the foundation of these beliefs. What are the specific historical examples you are thinking of when you make these statements? Or is it mostly current events that you consider?
- gowld 2y ago
  You can't imagine interpreting the parent comment for its clear face value -- that supporting outlier high achievers helps everyone in society? The inventor of a vaccine or a microchip or a sculpture doesn't hoard the invention for themself. Meanwhile, societies like USSR and Communist China, that persecuted their geniuses, collapsed their previously great societies.
  - andrepd 2y ago
    You are equating "persecuting genius" with "supporting those from low-opportunity backgrounds". Classic mistake, especially considering that those kids could become """geniuses""" too if they had a chance to even try. Giving a decent shot at those from disadvantaged households will ironically probably do more towards improving the number of high achievers than allocating too many resources to the children of the rich, which is what we're doing now.
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      In other words: Your team only moves as fast as its slowest member.
    - dahfizz 2y ago
      How does removing gifted and talented programs support "those from low-opportunity backgrounds"? "persecuting genius" is literally what is happening.
      - andrepd 2y ago
        I'm not talking about this lol, of course removing gifted programs is a stupid idea. I'm talking about your position.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > The inventor of a vaccine or a microchip or a sculpture doesn't hoard the invention for themself The built-in assumption is that those outlier high achievers & inventors were gifted students. Is there any evidence for this prior? As a devil's advocate, my counterpoint is that "grit" was more important than raw intelligence, if so, should society then prioritize grittiness over giftedness? A few months ago, there was a rebroadcast of an interview about the physician who developed roughly half the vaccines given to children in the US to this day. He seemed to be an unremarkable student, and persistence seems to have been the key quality that led to his successes, not a sequence of brilliant revelations.
    - 2y ago
- K0balt 2y ago
  What is good for a society and what feels just are often disparate things. But it is not unjust on a human scale that some people are born with lower potential than others. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life. What is just then? To whom is it just to invest 2x the resources into a person that will never likely tinder a significant benefit to society? To whom is it just to -not- invest in people who are particularly likely to bring benefits to society? We know that the vast majority of significant advances in engineering and science are brought to life by people that are significantly above average capability in their fundamental capabilities, gifts that were evident even before they entered school. We know that significant advances are unlikely to be contributed by people for whom day to day life is a significant cognitive challenge. This comes down to the harm / benefit of investing 2x the effort into one person. The best likely case scenario for the bright student is that they go on to create something remarkable and useful. Advancements in technology and science are responsible for millions of lives saved every year, and billions of lives saving trillions of man hours they would have spent in tedious, exhausting work. This then translates into higher investment in children, creating a virtuous cycle of benefit. The best likely case for the dim bulb is not so different than the no-intervention path, but with a slightly better quality of life. The best argument is probably that it might make a difference in how he approaches parental responsibilities, since his social crowd is likely to be of slightly better character. I would say it is unjust to the many to focus your resources on the least productive in society, unless the reason for their lower potentiality is something that is inherently fixable (IE lack of education). If the problem is endemic to the individual themselves, it makes little difference or sense to invest a disproportionate effort in their education. OTOH if you have a student that can absorb information at double or triple the normal rate, it makes sense to fast track them to a level of education that they can produce benefits to their society. To let them languish in a classroom developing a disdain for their teachers, whom the often know more than, only creates habits and preconceptions that guide them into dubious but interesting activities and away from the paths that might lead them to greatly benefit society at large. Either way it’s kind of a shit sandwich though, so who knows. Anecdotally for me, G/T was great for my eventual development, and probably moved me farther away from a life of high achieving white collar crime, which seemed like a worthwhile goal when I was 9. Showing me that other people understood and valued my intellect was a huge factor in deciding to try to do something admirable with my life. It also was largely a waste of money paying for me to launch mice to half a mile in spectacularly unsafe sounding rockets from the school track. The astronaut survival rate was not great.
- bawolff 2y ago
  > > Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. > Which conquerers? I can think of no historical example where a conquerer somehow convinced a target to take care of their needy so they could conquer. I think the idea is that conqourers force their conquest economies to fit their needs, which is often not good for the conqoured. E.g. they might try to shutdown industries which build local wealth over ones that are more extractive.
  - rm_-rf_slash 2y ago
    Not exactly the same, but Basil II of eastern Rome had his enemy soldiers blinded after a decisive victory and sent back to Bulgaria to be a burden. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kleidion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kleidion
- Clubber 2y ago
  >To me, the measure of a healthy society is how that society treats those that are "unlikely to pay it back". The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. Sure, but don't try to get people who can't hack college into college at the expense of those who can. When I was growing up decades ago, we had a gifted program and a special education program. The gifted program was an attempt to expose gifted students to more complex thinking, while the special education program was an attempt to give student who struggle with normal education special attention to allow them to learn as best they can. It worked well. In the 80's, the education system was the product of 200+ years of figuring out how to do it. For some reason, we decided it was wrong and introduce new methods of education that don't seem to be doing as well. >The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. This seems like hyperbole. I don't think the US treats any children as disposable refuse, no matter how dissatisfied you are with the current system, I'm certain that isn't the intent.
  - cogman10 2y ago
    > This seems like hyperbole. It's not, there are multiple historical examples of societies, including the US, that place a low value on human life. Heck, you'll even find comments in this thread talking about how important it is to cut funding to the useless eaters... errr undeserving masses. Current US society isn't that bad, however, there is a significant population of people that see no problems with things like child labor and completely privatizing education (and everything else for that matter). > I don't think the US treats any children as disposable refuse, no matter how dissatisfied you are with the current system, I'm certain that isn't the intent. I never said the current US policies treat kids that way. I do, however, see some disturbing rhetoric throughout this thread about how we spend to much time/money/effort on individuals the commenters deem as worthless.
- AlgorithmicTime 2y ago
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jvanderbot 2y ago
There's a lot of strong words thrown around regarding this topic. You need a little of both. Consider a re-framing: Rather than trying to focus on the less-achieving third (half, tenth, etc) with the goal of bootstrapping entire groups (for your definition) via equality of outcome, it would make sense to put into place opportunities for gifted students and high achievers without regard for where they live or come from. It would also make sense to put aside some extra resources for those we know can achieve but are held back by specifically addressable hurdles like money or parents or etc. If you only focus on churning out the most A-students possible without attempting to help those up to the level they can achieve, you end up with a serious nepotism / generational wealth issue where opportunities are hoarded by a different class of not-gonna-pay-it-back'ers. Legacy admissions, etc. There are some who immediately consider this socialism, but I think it fits squarely in the definition of equality of opportunity.
- phil21 2y ago
  > it would make sense to put into place opportunities for gifted students and high achievers without regard for where they live or come from. Quite obviously. That's what's being strip-mined at the moment. I, and my peer group from "back home" would have had zero chances in life without these programs. We were not well off, and my peers did not come from families that had anything more than strong parenting - almost none had parents who had gone to college. They were tracked into gifted and talented programs at an early age by a school system that identified their highly capable students and resources were given to remove them from the "regular" track. These programs have been removed since. It's holding those that need the most help back, while in no way hurting the people intended. The kids who have the ultra-parents with unlimited resources are going to private schools to begin with. > If you only focus on churning out the most A-students possible without attempting to help those up to the level they can achieve, you end up with a serious nepotism / generational wealth issue where opportunities are hoarded by a different class of not-gonna-pay-it-back'ers. Legacy admissions, etc. Short of extremely well-off suburbs (and neighborhoods in a handful of cities I suppose) this was never a thing in the public school system. Those generational wealth students don't touch the public school system at all. They are not relevant to the discussion and never have been. > equality of opportunity Correct. Equality of opportunity is what matters. The folks removing any gifted and talented programs, advocating for killing off magnet schools, etc. are the ones removing said opportunity in favor of equal outcomes. It's dragging everyone down to an extremely low bar and pretending they did something good. Without inner city public school programs oriented towards the G&T crowd I would not be where I am today because my parents were working class at best. They were good parents, but they simply did not have resources to keep up with the "legacy" crowd. All they could do was try to get me into the "right" public schools and hope I'd be given a chance. This worked. Those programs are now gone - and anyone who grew up where I did in the same circumstances is more or less shit out of luck. This is outright evil. Strong language and emotion be damned. It's deserved in this case.
iwontberude 2y ago
You are totally over romanticizing institutional learning. It’s worth abolishing and starting over.
- pempem 2y ago
  A bold stance given your username. Institutional learning has been around globally in a wide variety of forms. What is so heavily romanticized in your opinion
  - iwontberude 2y ago
    The romantic notion that geniuses need an institution to coddle them and that by the grace of some government or non-profit organization then are humans capable of higher order thinking. The institutions are the tools for getting larger investments to allow for smart people to do their great work, not to create the people through education. Education systems today are fundamentally broken and reinforce feedback loops of poverty and dependency. It’s a prisoners dilemma. Case in point TAG programs are gamed often by wealthier families which makes the selection process incredibly unscientific and useless.
    - pempem 2y ago
      I think you'll find human beings learn best in conversation with others. Sometimes thats through books, and articles but for many its at least partially through conversation. Letters, podcasts, salons, coffee haus, banya trees and rostras. Its been shown again and again and again that humans need other humans to learn and that our learning is like the shellacking of a shell. It is inevitably informed by the layer before.
foogazi 2y ago
> Taking resources away from those who move society forward Do gifted students move society forward ? Where is society moving to ?
- polski-g 2y ago
  Generally yes. Bill Gates will eliminate polio for mankind within his lifetime. He has at least 140IQ.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    There are so many confounding factors are at play that you're ignoring and attributing the achievement to high IQ (and that only). The Guinea Worm is on the verge if eradication, mostly on the back of the multi-decade efforts of Jimmy Carter. I don't what his IQ is, but I'll assume it's below 140 and above whatever is the ballpark minimum required to enroll as a Navy Nuke. I posit that you don't need to be a genius to eradicate a disease, just drive, a platform and the right resources and/or connections
    - ctoth 2y ago
      I was curious and so I looked. Jimmy Carter: 145. Not sure how credible that is but it sure did make me chuckle.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      You're speculating that a US president has a relatively average intelligence - why are you assuming that? The top job in a democracy is generally one of the most competitive positions in the world and US presidents are typically exceptional in multiple different ways. It'd be really surprising to have a US president with an IQ below something like 120 and I'd personally be assuming >140 for the average. As far as I can see a 140 IQ is around the 0.1-1% mark, it isn't that rare compared to presidents (<0.01%).
      - sangnoir 2y ago
        > You're speculating that a US president has a relatively average intelligence - why are you assuming that I am not assuming that: any range that has studying nuclear engineering as its floor is above average intelligence. I thought it was self-evident, but apparently not - perhaps not many people know what a "Navy Nuke officer" is. To be more explicit the range is between above average intelligence and "genius". Regardless, I will never be convinced that people with relatively average intelligence are precluded from greatness; so excuse my scepticism when fellow nerds pat themselves on the back for being the engine of the world without pointing at any research that bears this idea out.
laidoffamazon 2y ago
If you looked at my resume you wouldn’t think I’m “moving society forward” - I went to a public undergrad with a 50% accept rate. What do you think should happen to people like me?
- phil21 2y ago
  The fact you have a professional resume to point to likely means you are moving society forward. HN seems to have a weirdly high bar for this, and perhaps a very low understanding of just how bad "general" classes at inner city schools are.
  - laidoffamazon 2y ago
    This would imply a greater focus must be made to ensure they have a chance at success yes? I'm exceedingly skeptical that there's a low bar for "moving society forward" if the bar is "being in a gifted and talented program or equivalent". But if society is made up of a small set of overmen burdened by pulling the undermen across the finish line I absolutely would be an underman.
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago
  You don't seem to have the right perspective to talk about things at scale like this. Taking that personally is unfathomable.
  - laidoffamazon 2y ago
    Why is it unfathomable?
hintymad 2y ago
> Taking resources away from those who move society forward And those people do not even have to be geniuses or top students. Our society moves forward on the back of millions of ordinary people, yet those ordinary people, me included, would benefit most from a rigorous education system.
- laidoffamazon 2y ago
  lol, when people talk about these things they’re talking about the Lowell High kids that want to go to Yale, not normal people like me. Let’s be real here.
  - phil21 2y ago
    No, I'm talking about regular kids who grow up in hard circumstances that just need an opportunity for a better life. This can mean a jump from working class to middle class and nothing more. That is absolutely driving society forward. Not offering a means out of "the shit" for these kids is a way to hold them down into the circumstances they were born into and nothing more. Zero kids I'm thinking of who went through these programs went to Yale or any other ivy. Most have great lives 20 years later, off the backs of that early opportunity for achievement.
    - laidoffamazon 2y ago
      I really do not think the modal case of social mobility is people in G&T programs, which definitionally only target the top N% of students
  - hintymad 2y ago
    I'm not. All I want is that students get trained rigorously. The last thing I want is as what NYT used to report: a straight-A student who dreamed to be a scientist couldn't even pass the placement test of a city college. That shows how irresponsible our school systems became.
    - laidoffamazon 2y ago
contagiousflow 2y ago
> Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves Can you list which conquerers? I'm curious as to what you're referring to here
zozbot234 2y ago
> spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" If only. The school system is actually terrible at helping the most disadvantaged and marginalized students. These students would benefit the most from highly structured and directed instructional approaches that often have the pupils memorizing their "lesson" essentially word-for-word and getting prompt, immediate feedback on every question they answer[0] - but teachers who have come out from a proper Education department hate these approaches simply because they're regarded as "demeaning" for the job and unbecoming of a "professional" educator. Mind you, these approaches are still quite valued in "Special" education, which is sort of regarded as a universe of its own. But obviously we would rather not have to label every student who happens to be merely disadvantaged or marginalized as "Special" as a requirement for them to get an education that fully engages them, especially when addressing their weakest points! Modern "Progressive" education hurts both gifted and disadvantaged students for very similar reasons - but it actually hurts the latter a lot more. [0] As an important point, the merit of this kind of education is by no means exclusive to disadvantaged students! In fact, even Abraham Lincoln was famously educated at a "blab school" (called that because the pupils would loudly "blab" their lesson back at the teacher) that was based on exactly that approach.
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago
  Respectfully I'm not seeing how your point is surprising at all. Are you just saying that when we do spend money on disadvantaged (whatever word is correct for "opposite of gifted") it isn't effective?
  - zozbot234 2y ago
    I'm just saying that when the institutional schooling system seems to "spend money on the disadvantaged" it's merely pretending to help the disadvantaged and marginalized, while actively rejecting the approaches that, at least as judged by readily available evidence, would likely help these students the most, and probably close at least some of the gap in outcomes.
    - pineaux 2y ago
andai 2y ago
>Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. I didn't have history in school, could you expand on this part? This sounds very interesting.
roguecoder 2y ago
I have been deeply amused that some recent studies found the signal that best correlated with innovation in a society wasn't upward mobility, but rather _downward_ mobility. The less rich people are allowed to buy success for their mediocre offspring, the better off society is.
- brewdad 2y ago
  Is that why Elon Musk's mom went on TV to explain just how much of a genius he is? It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jaybrendansmith 2y ago
There is always a massive shortage of gifted students, original thinkers, and neuro-divergents. We need 10x as much, and we need to take care of each one. This society is starving for fresh ideas. We do not lack for effort anymore, we lack for creative and pragmatic thinkers. Without them we will continue to turn on each other, because without them, it truly is a zero sum game.
raxxorraxor 2y ago
Disagreed. Public school should target the broadest possible audience. Gifted pupils are rarely held back in school and special needs people need additional effort. Of course you cannot really teach them together in the same environment, it is not the task of gifted students to drag everyone with them, it is on teachers to provide necessities. But as long as school doesn't hold them back, they will be fine.
lazyeye 2y ago
They want the culture to die. Then from the rubble they will build their brave new socialist utopia. Except as any student of history knows, what we actually get is Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot...

by phil21 2y ago

cogman10 2y ago

> Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. What does this even mean? To me, the measure of a healthy society is how that society treats those that are "unlikely to pay it back". The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. For example, I don't think we'd call the culture/society of the 1900s US particularly healthy. Yet that was probably the peak of the US keeping resources in the hands of "those who move society forward" the robber barons and monopolists. We didn't think anything of working to death unwanted 5 year olds that were unlikely to make a positive impact on society. As for "dying culture" that to me is a very different thing from society. Societies can have multiple cultures present and healthy societies tolerate multiple cultures. > Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. Which conquerers? I can think of no historical example where a conquerer somehow convinced a target to take care of their needy so they could conquer. > This is perhaps the sole political topic I will die on a hill for. I'm really interested in the foundation of these beliefs. What are the specific historical examples you are thinking of when you make these statements? Or is it mostly current events that you consider?

gowld 2y ago
You can't imagine interpreting the parent comment for its clear face value -- that supporting outlier high achievers helps everyone in society? The inventor of a vaccine or a microchip or a sculpture doesn't hoard the invention for themself. Meanwhile, societies like USSR and Communist China, that persecuted their geniuses, collapsed their previously great societies.
- andrepd 2y ago
  You are equating "persecuting genius" with "supporting those from low-opportunity backgrounds". Classic mistake, especially considering that those kids could become """geniuses""" too if they had a chance to even try. Giving a decent shot at those from disadvantaged households will ironically probably do more towards improving the number of high achievers than allocating too many resources to the children of the rich, which is what we're doing now.
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    In other words: Your team only moves as fast as its slowest member.
  - dahfizz 2y ago
    How does removing gifted and talented programs support "those from low-opportunity backgrounds"? "persecuting genius" is literally what is happening.
    - andrepd 2y ago
      I'm not talking about this lol, of course removing gifted programs is a stupid idea. I'm talking about your position.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > The inventor of a vaccine or a microchip or a sculpture doesn't hoard the invention for themself The built-in assumption is that those outlier high achievers & inventors were gifted students. Is there any evidence for this prior? As a devil's advocate, my counterpoint is that "grit" was more important than raw intelligence, if so, should society then prioritize grittiness over giftedness? A few months ago, there was a rebroadcast of an interview about the physician who developed roughly half the vaccines given to children in the US to this day. He seemed to be an unremarkable student, and persistence seems to have been the key quality that led to his successes, not a sequence of brilliant revelations.
  - 2y ago
K0balt 2y ago
What is good for a society and what feels just are often disparate things. But it is not unjust on a human scale that some people are born with lower potential than others. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life. What is just then? To whom is it just to invest 2x the resources into a person that will never likely tinder a significant benefit to society? To whom is it just to -not- invest in people who are particularly likely to bring benefits to society? We know that the vast majority of significant advances in engineering and science are brought to life by people that are significantly above average capability in their fundamental capabilities, gifts that were evident even before they entered school. We know that significant advances are unlikely to be contributed by people for whom day to day life is a significant cognitive challenge. This comes down to the harm / benefit of investing 2x the effort into one person. The best likely case scenario for the bright student is that they go on to create something remarkable and useful. Advancements in technology and science are responsible for millions of lives saved every year, and billions of lives saving trillions of man hours they would have spent in tedious, exhausting work. This then translates into higher investment in children, creating a virtuous cycle of benefit. The best likely case for the dim bulb is not so different than the no-intervention path, but with a slightly better quality of life. The best argument is probably that it might make a difference in how he approaches parental responsibilities, since his social crowd is likely to be of slightly better character. I would say it is unjust to the many to focus your resources on the least productive in society, unless the reason for their lower potentiality is something that is inherently fixable (IE lack of education). If the problem is endemic to the individual themselves, it makes little difference or sense to invest a disproportionate effort in their education. OTOH if you have a student that can absorb information at double or triple the normal rate, it makes sense to fast track them to a level of education that they can produce benefits to their society. To let them languish in a classroom developing a disdain for their teachers, whom the often know more than, only creates habits and preconceptions that guide them into dubious but interesting activities and away from the paths that might lead them to greatly benefit society at large. Either way it’s kind of a shit sandwich though, so who knows. Anecdotally for me, G/T was great for my eventual development, and probably moved me farther away from a life of high achieving white collar crime, which seemed like a worthwhile goal when I was 9. Showing me that other people understood and valued my intellect was a huge factor in deciding to try to do something admirable with my life. It also was largely a waste of money paying for me to launch mice to half a mile in spectacularly unsafe sounding rockets from the school track. The astronaut survival rate was not great.
bawolff 2y ago
> > Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. > Which conquerers? I can think of no historical example where a conquerer somehow convinced a target to take care of their needy so they could conquer. I think the idea is that conqourers force their conquest economies to fit their needs, which is often not good for the conqoured. E.g. they might try to shutdown industries which build local wealth over ones that are more extractive.
- rm_-rf_slash 2y ago
  Not exactly the same, but Basil II of eastern Rome had his enemy soldiers blinded after a decisive victory and sent back to Bulgaria to be a burden. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kleidion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kleidion
Clubber 2y ago
>To me, the measure of a healthy society is how that society treats those that are "unlikely to pay it back". The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. Sure, but don't try to get people who can't hack college into college at the expense of those who can. When I was growing up decades ago, we had a gifted program and a special education program. The gifted program was an attempt to expose gifted students to more complex thinking, while the special education program was an attempt to give student who struggle with normal education special attention to allow them to learn as best they can. It worked well. In the 80's, the education system was the product of 200+ years of figuring out how to do it. For some reason, we decided it was wrong and introduce new methods of education that don't seem to be doing as well. >The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. This seems like hyperbole. I don't think the US treats any children as disposable refuse, no matter how dissatisfied you are with the current system, I'm certain that isn't the intent.
- cogman10 2y ago
  > This seems like hyperbole. It's not, there are multiple historical examples of societies, including the US, that place a low value on human life. Heck, you'll even find comments in this thread talking about how important it is to cut funding to the useless eaters... errr undeserving masses. Current US society isn't that bad, however, there is a significant population of people that see no problems with things like child labor and completely privatizing education (and everything else for that matter). > I don't think the US treats any children as disposable refuse, no matter how dissatisfied you are with the current system, I'm certain that isn't the intent. I never said the current US policies treat kids that way. I do, however, see some disturbing rhetoric throughout this thread about how we spend to much time/money/effort on individuals the commenters deem as worthless.
AlgorithmicTime 2y ago
[dead]

jvanderbot 2y ago

There's a lot of strong words thrown around regarding this topic. You need a little of both. Consider a re-framing: Rather than trying to focus on the less-achieving third (half, tenth, etc) with the goal of bootstrapping entire groups (for your definition) via equality of outcome, it would make sense to put into place opportunities for gifted students and high achievers without regard for where they live or come from. It would also make sense to put aside some extra resources for those we know can achieve but are held back by specifically addressable hurdles like money or parents or etc. If you only focus on churning out the most A-students possible without attempting to help those up to the level they can achieve, you end up with a serious nepotism / generational wealth issue where opportunities are hoarded by a different class of not-gonna-pay-it-back'ers. Legacy admissions, etc. There are some who immediately consider this socialism, but I think it fits squarely in the definition of equality of opportunity.

phil21 2y ago
> it would make sense to put into place opportunities for gifted students and high achievers without regard for where they live or come from. Quite obviously. That's what's being strip-mined at the moment. I, and my peer group from "back home" would have had zero chances in life without these programs. We were not well off, and my peers did not come from families that had anything more than strong parenting - almost none had parents who had gone to college. They were tracked into gifted and talented programs at an early age by a school system that identified their highly capable students and resources were given to remove them from the "regular" track. These programs have been removed since. It's holding those that need the most help back, while in no way hurting the people intended. The kids who have the ultra-parents with unlimited resources are going to private schools to begin with. > If you only focus on churning out the most A-students possible without attempting to help those up to the level they can achieve, you end up with a serious nepotism / generational wealth issue where opportunities are hoarded by a different class of not-gonna-pay-it-back'ers. Legacy admissions, etc. Short of extremely well-off suburbs (and neighborhoods in a handful of cities I suppose) this was never a thing in the public school system. Those generational wealth students don't touch the public school system at all. They are not relevant to the discussion and never have been. > equality of opportunity Correct. Equality of opportunity is what matters. The folks removing any gifted and talented programs, advocating for killing off magnet schools, etc. are the ones removing said opportunity in favor of equal outcomes. It's dragging everyone down to an extremely low bar and pretending they did something good. Without inner city public school programs oriented towards the G&T crowd I would not be where I am today because my parents were working class at best. They were good parents, but they simply did not have resources to keep up with the "legacy" crowd. All they could do was try to get me into the "right" public schools and hope I'd be given a chance. This worked. Those programs are now gone - and anyone who grew up where I did in the same circumstances is more or less shit out of luck. This is outright evil. Strong language and emotion be damned. It's deserved in this case.

iwontberude 2y ago

You are totally over romanticizing institutional learning. It’s worth abolishing and starting over.

pempem 2y ago
A bold stance given your username. Institutional learning has been around globally in a wide variety of forms. What is so heavily romanticized in your opinion
- iwontberude 2y ago
  The romantic notion that geniuses need an institution to coddle them and that by the grace of some government or non-profit organization then are humans capable of higher order thinking. The institutions are the tools for getting larger investments to allow for smart people to do their great work, not to create the people through education. Education systems today are fundamentally broken and reinforce feedback loops of poverty and dependency. It’s a prisoners dilemma. Case in point TAG programs are gamed often by wealthier families which makes the selection process incredibly unscientific and useless.
  - pempem 2y ago
    I think you'll find human beings learn best in conversation with others. Sometimes thats through books, and articles but for many its at least partially through conversation. Letters, podcasts, salons, coffee haus, banya trees and rostras. Its been shown again and again and again that humans need other humans to learn and that our learning is like the shellacking of a shell. It is inevitably informed by the layer before.

foogazi 2y ago

> Taking resources away from those who move society forward Do gifted students move society forward ? Where is society moving to ?

polski-g 2y ago
Generally yes. Bill Gates will eliminate polio for mankind within his lifetime. He has at least 140IQ.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  There are so many confounding factors are at play that you're ignoring and attributing the achievement to high IQ (and that only). The Guinea Worm is on the verge if eradication, mostly on the back of the multi-decade efforts of Jimmy Carter. I don't what his IQ is, but I'll assume it's below 140 and above whatever is the ballpark minimum required to enroll as a Navy Nuke. I posit that you don't need to be a genius to eradicate a disease, just drive, a platform and the right resources and/or connections
  - ctoth 2y ago
    I was curious and so I looked. Jimmy Carter: 145. Not sure how credible that is but it sure did make me chuckle.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    You're speculating that a US president has a relatively average intelligence - why are you assuming that? The top job in a democracy is generally one of the most competitive positions in the world and US presidents are typically exceptional in multiple different ways. It'd be really surprising to have a US president with an IQ below something like 120 and I'd personally be assuming >140 for the average. As far as I can see a 140 IQ is around the 0.1-1% mark, it isn't that rare compared to presidents (<0.01%).
    - sangnoir 2y ago
      > You're speculating that a US president has a relatively average intelligence - why are you assuming that I am not assuming that: any range that has studying nuclear engineering as its floor is above average intelligence. I thought it was self-evident, but apparently not - perhaps not many people know what a "Navy Nuke officer" is. To be more explicit the range is between above average intelligence and "genius". Regardless, I will never be convinced that people with relatively average intelligence are precluded from greatness; so excuse my scepticism when fellow nerds pat themselves on the back for being the engine of the world without pointing at any research that bears this idea out.

laidoffamazon 2y ago

If you looked at my resume you wouldn’t think I’m “moving society forward” - I went to a public undergrad with a 50% accept rate. What do you think should happen to people like me?

phil21 2y ago
The fact you have a professional resume to point to likely means you are moving society forward. HN seems to have a weirdly high bar for this, and perhaps a very low understanding of just how bad "general" classes at inner city schools are.
- laidoffamazon 2y ago
  This would imply a greater focus must be made to ensure they have a chance at success yes? I'm exceedingly skeptical that there's a low bar for "moving society forward" if the bar is "being in a gifted and talented program or equivalent". But if society is made up of a small set of overmen burdened by pulling the undermen across the finish line I absolutely would be an underman.
DiggyJohnson 2y ago
You don't seem to have the right perspective to talk about things at scale like this. Taking that personally is unfathomable.
- laidoffamazon 2y ago
  Why is it unfathomable?

hintymad 2y ago

> Taking resources away from those who move society forward And those people do not even have to be geniuses or top students. Our society moves forward on the back of millions of ordinary people, yet those ordinary people, me included, would benefit most from a rigorous education system.

laidoffamazon 2y ago
lol, when people talk about these things they’re talking about the Lowell High kids that want to go to Yale, not normal people like me. Let’s be real here.
- phil21 2y ago
  No, I'm talking about regular kids who grow up in hard circumstances that just need an opportunity for a better life. This can mean a jump from working class to middle class and nothing more. That is absolutely driving society forward. Not offering a means out of "the shit" for these kids is a way to hold them down into the circumstances they were born into and nothing more. Zero kids I'm thinking of who went through these programs went to Yale or any other ivy. Most have great lives 20 years later, off the backs of that early opportunity for achievement.
  - laidoffamazon 2y ago
    I really do not think the modal case of social mobility is people in G&T programs, which definitionally only target the top N% of students
- hintymad 2y ago
  I'm not. All I want is that students get trained rigorously. The last thing I want is as what NYT used to report: a straight-A student who dreamed to be a scientist couldn't even pass the placement test of a city college. That shows how irresponsible our school systems became.
  - laidoffamazon 2y ago

contagiousflow 2y ago

> Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves Can you list which conquerers? I'm curious as to what you're referring to here

zozbot234 2y ago

> spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" If only. The school system is actually terrible at helping the most disadvantaged and marginalized students. These students would benefit the most from highly structured and directed instructional approaches that often have the pupils memorizing their "lesson" essentially word-for-word and getting prompt, immediate feedback on every question they answer[0] - but teachers who have come out from a proper Education department hate these approaches simply because they're regarded as "demeaning" for the job and unbecoming of a "professional" educator. Mind you, these approaches are still quite valued in "Special" education, which is sort of regarded as a universe of its own. But obviously we would rather not have to label every student who happens to be merely disadvantaged or marginalized as "Special" as a requirement for them to get an education that fully engages them, especially when addressing their weakest points! Modern "Progressive" education hurts both gifted and disadvantaged students for very similar reasons - but it actually hurts the latter a lot more. [0] As an important point, the merit of this kind of education is by no means exclusive to disadvantaged students! In fact, even Abraham Lincoln was famously educated at a "blab school" (called that because the pupils would loudly "blab" their lesson back at the teacher) that was based on exactly that approach.

DiggyJohnson 2y ago
Respectfully I'm not seeing how your point is surprising at all. Are you just saying that when we do spend money on disadvantaged (whatever word is correct for "opposite of gifted") it isn't effective?
- zozbot234 2y ago
  I'm just saying that when the institutional schooling system seems to "spend money on the disadvantaged" it's merely pretending to help the disadvantaged and marginalized, while actively rejecting the approaches that, at least as judged by readily available evidence, would likely help these students the most, and probably close at least some of the gap in outcomes.
  - pineaux 2y ago

andai 2y ago

>Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. I didn't have history in school, could you expand on this part? This sounds very interesting.

roguecoder 2y ago

I have been deeply amused that some recent studies found the signal that best correlated with innovation in a society wasn't upward mobility, but rather _downward_ mobility. The less rich people are allowed to buy success for their mediocre offspring, the better off society is.

brewdad 2y ago
Is that why Elon Musk's mom went on TV to explain just how much of a genius he is? It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jaybrendansmith 2y ago

There is always a massive shortage of gifted students, original thinkers, and neuro-divergents. We need 10x as much, and we need to take care of each one. This society is starving for fresh ideas. We do not lack for effort anymore, we lack for creative and pragmatic thinkers. Without them we will continue to turn on each other, because without them, it truly is a zero sum game.

raxxorraxor 2y ago

Disagreed. Public school should target the broadest possible audience. Gifted pupils are rarely held back in school and special needs people need additional effort. Of course you cannot really teach them together in the same environment, it is not the task of gifted students to drag everyone with them, it is on teachers to provide necessities. But as long as school doesn't hold them back, they will be fine.

lazyeye 2y ago

They want the culture to die. Then from the rubble they will build their brave new socialist utopia. Except as any student of history knows, what we actually get is Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot...