In Paul Fussell’s book on class (I think), he says that people are really worried about differentiating themselves from the class immediately below them, but largely ignorant of the customs and sometimes even existence of the classes above them. When I found SSC, and then The Motte, and stuff like TLP, I was astonished to find a tier of the internet I had had no idea even existed. The quality of discourse here is . . . usually . . . of the kind that “high brow” (by internet standards) websites THINK they are having, but when you see the best stuff here you realize that those clowns are just flattering themselves. My question is, who is rightly saying the same thing about us? Of what intellectual internet class am I ignorant now? Or does onlineness impose some kind of ceiling on things, and the real galaxy brains are at the equivalent of Davos somewhere?
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I think the very top of the food chain is just not online in the traditional sense. My father has a doctorate in history and is a pretty successfull lawyer with some measure of political influence, and he doesn't care about the public internet at all, unless he can get information from it for his cases. Some of his clients are very much the elite of the elite, and I don't think they ever used a forum in their lifes.
He is however in an email circle for certain historical topics where only recognised academics in a non-anonymous fashion share sources and new essays and such, I don't think the top brass of human intelligence cares for anonymity much, as due to Pareto distribution the higher you put the standards the smaller the circle of possible subjects becomes to the point where it becomes reasonable to just know everyone by name.
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