I am nervous about the long-term future of the human race

[BeBMan]

Nope.

In any event, the revolution will put an end to the elite and use their children for food.

So far any rev just made other people the elite....

[chequita guevara]

Really? You think that it's HARDER now for a child born into the lower quartile to go to school and get an upper-middle class lifestyle than it would have been for this same child 50 years ago (assuming identical intelligence and motivation)?

What ****ing planet do you live on?

Who said it's harder. I just don't think your so-called meritocracy is all that real. There are lots of intelligent workers and there are lots of pin headed managers. Dilbert isn't popular because it is pure fantasy.

Yes, some brilliant lower class kids not only escape poverty, but can even rise to the commanding heights of the economy, but most don't. Furthermore, as even Paris Hilton can demonstrate, even being a total idiot and having little useful value in the world doesn't mean falling back into poverty (and also shows that morons are born to the ruling class as well). Hell, George Bush is the ultimate anti-meritocrat. He failed at nearly everything he's ever attempted and became President of the U.S. TWICE!?!?!?!

The correlation between education and wealth is often cited, but I'm not sure it says what most people think it means, that the more education you have, the wealthier you will be. I can just as easily mean the opposite, that the more wealth you have, the more education you will received.

Also, I think you may have some self-selection bias. You're in an environment where you are surrounded by nothing but other intelligent, inflated ego-manaics, such as yourself. It's the closest thing we have to a meritocracy, cuz even great wealth isn't buying you a PhD.

[DaShi]

[The Mad Monk]

Higher intelligence mates are harder to control. Some would consider that a liability.

[DanS]

I have some additional thoughts on this topic (alcohol-aided).

Educational attainment is only one barometer of intelligence broadly construed. Our higher education system generates folks of a certain type. They tend to flock together and recognize each other easily by instinct. You will see highly educated immigrants who are taxicab drivers because they haven't been branded. Luckily, the type of folks that the higher education system churns out is not repulsive for the most part.

But there are certain fields that are somewhat outside the higher education system, at least here in the States -- a counterculture of some size. Artists are one example, although, admittedly, the artists who I know personally tend to have attended college (by virtue of the fact that my college, CUA, has a very strong music/drama/opera program). There is some fraternization between the highly educated and the counterculture.

This actually may argue for being nervous, because artists may tend to be marginalized in the scenario that KH paints. His future may be boring, if not entirely bad. Or we could make it easy for artists to attend college and thus bring them into the fold to make their lives attractive by recognition from the educated classes (not ideal, certainly). On the other hand, it seems quite possible that some important interactions are obscured by the averages.

[KrazyHorse]

Who said it's harder. I just don't think your so-called meritocracy is all that real.. There are lots of intelligent workers and there are lots of pin headed managers.

What are these three sentences supposed to mean?

[KrazyHorse]

Yes, some brilliant lower class kids not only escape poverty, but can even rise to the commanding heights of the economy, but most don't.

How many brilliant, hard-working lower class kids are stuck in the lower class? How many rise to median income? How many rise to above-median income?

Who the **** is talking about the super-super rich? Yeah, to build a fortune of tens of millions of dollars from scratch doesn't usually happen in a single generation. But that's hardly what we're talking about. I would think that moving to the top 10% from the bottom 25% is easily attainable by somebody who is smart and motivated (neither of which, by the way, I think of as mainly "moral" quantities). Top 10% is a family income of ~150k in the US.

Hell, George Bush is the ultimate anti-meritocrat. He failed at nearly everything he's ever attempted and became President of the U.S. TWICE!?!?!?!

Why are you looking at the extremes of the distribution to tell you anything about what happens to MOST PEOPLE?

Your obsession with the exceptions and celebrities is slightly disturbing in a commie.

The correlation between education and wealth is often cited, but I'm not sure it says what most people think it means, that the more education you have, the wealthier you will be. I can just as easily mean the opposite, that the more wealth you have, the more education you will received.

You do realize that you can easily disaggregate this, right? And the payoffs to education REMAIN STRONG, even after you control for parental income.

Exceptional individuals (let's take Dubya, because you seem to want to talk about him so much) are NOT able to move the ****ing distribution of income (by the way, this is different from wealth, so please be careful with the terminology). You might note that multifactor regressions ask precisely THIS QUESTION. And they do find a correlation between parental income and child income which is NOT ascribable to measured intelligence or education (this effect is SMALLER than the gains to education, by the way). But even THIS component is likely due in part to NON-MEASURED INHERITABLE "INTELLIGENCE" (standing in for work ethic, people skills etc) as well as the effects of nepotism etc.

Pointing to ****ing Paris Hilton or Dubya demonstrates exactly how pathetic your argument is here.

Yeah, you don't have to be smart or work hard to be a pretty big success if your family has billions of dollars or contains an ex-President. But do you really think that ****ing hotel billionaires and multi-generation political dynasties tell us anything about MOST PEOPLE?

[KrazyHorse]

Also, I think you may have some self-selection bias. You're in an environment where you are surrounded by nothing but other intelligent, inflated ego-manaics, such as yourself. It's the closest thing we have to a meritocracy, cuz even great wealth isn't buying you a PhD.

I think you don't have any clue what the **** "selection bias" means. The phrase you're looking for is "availability bias". And this would ONLY BE RELEVANT if I was basing my argument on anecdotal evidence. Which I'm not. And which, what is the more ironic, you are.

[KrazyHorse]

But there are certain fields that are somewhat outside the higher education system, at least here in the States -- a counterculture of some size. Artists are one example, although, admittedly, the artists who I know personally tend to have attended college (by virtue of the fact that my college, CUA, has a very strong music/drama/opera program that placed people on Broadway and Hollywood). There is some fraternization between the highly educated and the counterculture.

Art is a ****ing lottery. "Revealed" talent is far more scarce than is talent in general. Those who get discovered get rich. Those who don't remain in obscurity and poverty.

[Jon Miller]

But a lot of people with the genetic abilities, and even those who value education/etc, pick things like art/social work/etc. These won't put you into the top 10%.

Your statement is only true if you have motivated mean 'wants to become wealthy'. If people have other priorities, which can be quite valuable to society (like being a teacher is), then they won't get into the top 10%.

If you adjusted it to say that motivated/smart/etc people can go from bottom 25% to top 50% easily, I would agree. This won't have the rapid stratification that you suggest though.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Was it average single income was 44k while the median was 24k? Or is my memory off/numbers old?

National Median $44,389 50.00% 1.35 2.57

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

IS wiki, but probably not terrible.

Your 2 person income of 150k is a bit over the average for when both the husband and the wife have advanced degrees.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

But a lot of people with the genetic abilities, and even those who value education/etc, pick things like art/social work/etc. These won't put you into the top 10%.

Who says that being motivated by money isn't also partially inheritable?

[Jon Miller]

I am sure it is, but it is also something that those whose parents aren't motivated by money also regularly inherit.

I guess if you made it so that only the top class was materialistic, it would be more true. But as long as our culture is materialistic, you will be having money motivated people in the underclass being born to hard working parents (who give their children a good work ethic/etc) who have the genetic gifts necessary to succeed.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

You will see highly educated immigrants who are taxicab drivers because they haven't been branded.

There are a lot of problems in basing your analysis on immigrants. For instance, uncertainty among employers as to the quality of the education provided by the immigrant's alma mater. Ability to communicate without difficulty in English.

[Berzerker]

This is the point; it may be a pure meritocracy which is nonetheless (as you measure intergenerational mobility) virtually fossilized. My point is that we are, and will continue to see greater stratification of romantic unions. Therefore the mobility we've heretofore presumed to be inherent in a meritocratic system (which is actually far lower than people realize) will be reduced. Everything I've said here is a matter of degree. But I think the change may lead to some very qualitative changes in society.

for much of our existence I imagine the driving force behind marriage were the parents, and parents typically employ(ed) a merit system when deciding on spouses for their children. Mobility was blocked by force, rules, religion, bloodlines, "nobility" etc. Looks and smarts are two factors, but I dont know smart young men or women are gonna choose smart spouses more than their parents would. Besides, meritocracies attract the meritorious and they often arrive poor.