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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   35217 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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I sort of have the view that Harvard/Stanford/Whatever is good at churning out elite but not exciting folks like programmers and doctors and bankers and lawyers, but for truly world-changing things to the extent that there's any correlation there it's all selection rather than treatment. If Harvard is good at doing the former and not the latter, I think it kind of makes sense to "uplift" a bunch of people into those positions that don't require true genius to do well, and not really worry whether the next Einstein goes to Harvard or Ohio State for undergrad. Anyway, as you said, it would be hard to identify this in the data anyway, but I just don't think it's the open and shut case that a lot of people here make it out to be.

Who are the lots of people making it out to be an open and shut case?

I sort of have the view that Harvard/Stanford/Whatever is good at churning out elite but not exciting folks like programmers and doctors and bankers and lawyers, but for truly world-changing things to the extent that there's any correlation there it's all selection rather than treatment. If Harvard is good at doing the former and not the latter, I think it kind of makes sense to "uplift" a bunch of people into those positions that don't require true genius to do well, and not really worry whether the next Einstein goes to Harvard or Ohio State for undergrad.

That's a huge "if," though.

And there's the big issue that there's no particular reason why Ohio State couldn't just as well as Harvard "uplift" a bunch of people into those same positions that don't require true genius to do well. And Ohio State (representing any generic state school) has a lot more seats and lower tuition. Why would we want an elite institution like Harvard to do that work when cheaper, more plentiful tools exist? Unless you mean Harvard and other elite colleges just shouldn't be elite and all colleges should have the same status? That seems untenable given the natural status-chasing inclination of people who run organizations. And given how network effects work, it seems valuable to me to have colleges that are specialized for bringing the best of the best at certain things together, potentially far more valuable than having those people dispersed.

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