I was not the one hinting at bailing. I don’t bail.
The government of a country is what it is, and I don’t wish to change it if I don’t live there, and I want to believe that my life (maybe naively) does not depend that much on who is leading a government and on the government itself.
If I were to choose a place to retire, Argentina seems to have a lot of potential. Perhaps Milei, with his bold “chainsaw” reforms, could steer the country in the right direction, making it an attractive destination for American retirees in the future.
Indonesia or somewhere in SE Asia sounds nice too if you don’t mind tropical climates and critters.
Nonsense, total nonsense. Look at the last few presidential elections: Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump. If the “elites” are running the show they must be schizophrenic.
There is a special place in Hades for conspiracy theorists.
I do not know what we would be bringing back but it was never meritocracy. It will never be meritocracy.
More like shoving lines of crap at people and letting them eat it.
AA was an equal percentage against the number of African Americans educated in an area of study. Meaning if 5% of the job market was X and if of African Americans .3% had a degree to do the job then .3% of that 5% of jobs should go to African Americans.
Of the 10% of Americans who are African Americans instead of 5% of them being hired to that job only .3% are. It is that desperate to get whites to even consider fully educated Blacks for jobs at all.
If you want meritocracy on Earth you need to start on another planet and bring it here. We hire based on favoritism.
Discussion on Amanpour last night, about an article in Atlantic magazine, about how ivy league universities, in focusing on “merit”, actually perpetuated an elite.
Colleges have no need to know anything about the person they are deciding to admit other than their qualifications. They don’t need to know:
Race or national origin
Sexual preference
Chromosomal makeup or gender identification
Address, they don’t even need to know state or country of residence.
Name, just use numbers to avoid detecting anything about the applicant that isn’t relevant.
Specific high school attended, just rank the high schools with a number and include that number on the application.
Anything that identifies something about the person, for example if they were a member of the robotics club the application would say “technical scientific club member”, if they were a member of the African American student organization the application would say “member of social club”, if they were an officer in a club it would say “officer in club”, etc.
No need to know about any specific courses that might be used to identify any thing about the person, so math, science, and other standard classes can be listed along with grades, but specific niche classes could be identified as “niche class”, maybe with a sub- classification somehow.
And it would include grades, class rank, and standardized test scores. All linked by their ID number that can never show any admissions staff who the actual person is.
This would eliminate all racism, sexism, and any other ism you can think of. If you don’t know, you can’t discriminate against. And you would end up with a true meritocracy, at least in higher education.
this is the superficial assessment of the ‘proper-thinking’ public in general.
Of course in the domestic spheres that directly impact the electorate, it will have its say. However, there are many areas that it does not really consider and does not really know anything about, or that it does not care about. That is where the autocratic and bureaucratic core is exerting its power.
The facade like it or not will have to eventually yield to it.
David Brooks was on Amanpour &Co last night discussing his recent Atlantic article on failures of the Ivy League meritocracy system. Easy to measure IQ but its a poor indicator of success. Creativity and people skills are much better indicators.
Test scores are only a qualifier. Ever see a non flattering letter of recommendation? Implies extra curricular activities on application may be better indicator of people skills and leadership ability. But how about creativity? And how do you indicate potential to develop?
They covered a lot of territory in that interview. For one, better funded kids tend to go to better schools, a trend that will only increase as states introduce voucher systems to further separate middle and upper class kids from the Proles. Going to a better school will probably improve test scores. So the rich kids get into the best universities. The Proles never have a chance.
That sort of nonsense is included in the University of Michigan’s admissions evaluation. A kid who couldn’t be “homecoming king” or “class president”, because he had to work to help support his family, or lived out in the boonies with no practical way of getting around, has no chance.
“Creativity” is frowned upon in this country. Admissions evaluations are based on conformity, like being “class president”.
If all you are saying is that the rich have more influence than the average dude, well that’s obvious. If you are saying that the rich are acting as a unified cabal to achieve some common objective then I think you have to get into specifics. Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Beyonce, Xi Jinping, and the head of the Sinaloa Cartel are all elites in their individual spheres of influence, but I don’t see much evidence that they are working together.
Have any of you served on an admissions committee? I asked because much of these assertions are not all that accurate. Yes, the class president will often get admitted, but so will the shy nerd with straight A’s, the star football player, the talented glee club singer, and the prize winning painter. What admissions committees look for is success in some area, the more elite the school, the higher the level of success required. And yes, this includes overcoming great personal hardships to graduate from high school in a school system with low graduation rates. These are all examples of what admissions committees consider to be “merit”.
And creativity is not frowned upon. It is just a matter of standards. Being different is not enough. It is being different with substance. One has to accomplish stuff.
One should consider the possibility that admissions committees are made up of people who are at least as smart and idealistic as anyone on this board.
Universities generally define “merit” more broadly than these measures.
We value the whole record — excellent grades in rigorous courses, top ACT/SAT scores if provided, participation in extracurricular activities, professional arts training, and evidence of leadership, awards, and service. Because variety in life experience and challenges contributes to the diversity on campus that enriches the learning environment for all students, the admissions process also gives consideration to applicants with particular indicators such as coming from a low socioeconomic status school or household by considering whether the applicant is from a geographic area, socio economic profile, neighborhood, or high school that is currently underrepresented in our student community.
As I said, brownie points for conforming, as evidence by participating in accepted activities outside of school and being given awards by TPTB. And they throw in a few charity cases from poor neighborhood.
How many people, “creative” people, have been unrecognized, for years, or thrown in prison, for not conforming?
Yes, the cultural bias of IQ tests are well known and much discussed. But the tests are easy to run and give repeatable results. The value of the numbers is debated endlessly.
Upper quarter and bottom quarter numbers are most meaningful. Midrange numbers not so much.
Yes, wealth divide is part of admissions. Children from upper middle class families often have parents with college degrees and professional positions. Their children have many advantages including educational toys, early reading, visits to historical sites and museums, and much coaching, etc. That gives them advantages in most admission programs.
The wealthy also know how to game the system to gain admission to best schools.
Yup. My aunt was a teacher. I was always receiving new books, particularly history. In elementary school, I read a couple years ahead of many of my classmates, so I got stuck reading stores aloud to the rest of the class. Didn’t help me in calculus tho.
Yup. We saw a case a few years ago: well heeled parents obtaining a fake athletic scholarship, for their dullard spawn, who would not make the cut academically, with a big check to the prestigious university.
The “extra curricular” activities always need to be acceptable to TPTB. Class president? President of the Junior Chamber of Commerce? All good. Head of the local Young Communist League? Probably not. Head of the local Aryan Nation chapter, organizing armed demonstrations in front of the homes of mixed race couples? Probably not.
Do you think college admissions is an ideal place to eliminate the impact of prior bias? Do you think it could even accomplish that in any meaningful way without new kind of bias?
