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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Think this is it. Scott Sumner who at one point even had talk of become the fed chair once wrote in an article that the NYT was for the top 10% and the 1% he thought had to read blogs or slatestar codex. I believe he’s fairly high up public intellectual so if he points to TM etc as the top then I guess it’s the top.
I think any other group would have too few members to be capable of maintaining a community.
There are maybe communities like Palm Beach dinner parties that are slightly higher but I have friends who gone to them so I think I can scratch the top.
maybe more like top 5%. Top 1% is like an IQ of 135+
I think 135 is about the average self reported iq on the SSC surveys
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