I didn’t even begin to understand the patent system or even the business side of innovation until I was in my late 30s. Yet, I have noticed that the most financially successful innovators that I know have had many family advisors and connections throughout their life.
But, inequality is just a small piece.
First, you need real education reform - educating kids on how the system operates. The current education system is broken and harmful. It teaches 99% of kids to become cogs in a system. And, after many years, they grow up to believe that being a cog is all there is. Instead, they need to learn how the system works and how to pull its levers and press its buttons to make it work for them. But, who is going to fund that?
But, even that’s not enough. Smart kids also need access to capital (‘other people’s money’ as my very rich friends call it) and connections. Having those things makes a huge difference.
1. We need "cogs" in the system. In a developed nation in the 21st century being a "cog" is a really great existence.
2. Profoundly gifted people generally do rise to the top as our system is already structured, assuming they want to, given the average amount of support.
"The System" as it stands is doing a great job of the dual goals of helping the average live their lives to the fullest and also giving the gifted a chance to rise above the rest.
I do agree that ‘cogs’ are necessary. However, shouldn’t the individual be able to decide that, not the educational system? The current system doesn’t enrich children in ways that allow kids to explore other options. Look up successful technology company founders - you’ll see that many went to alternative schools like Montessori. But, the vast majority of kids don’t have access to that type of exploratory education.
I disagree about your second point based on my experiences. I grew up ‘gifted’ in a working class, rust belt city. Many of my schoolmates ended up with decent middle class jobs. And, a surprising number even went on to get PhDs. An even more surprising number didn’t make it to graduation.
The majority of the PhDs ended up switching fields (with tremendous debt) after working for a few years. The few that went on to become professors,
successful researchers, and innovatvators came from rich families with well-educated and successful parents.
My main criticism of our system is that it doesn’t veer far from basic primate behavior. I would even bet that a general model of primate hierarchical system would do well in predicting human success. And, that’s an absurd model, especially today. Humans have given up or suppressed many primate behaviors in order to live in the modern world. But, we still hold on to familial hierarchical behavior - maybe because the dopamine rush of being at the top just feels so damn good.
I am very curious to know your background and why you hold those opinions.
>Profoundly gifted people generally do rise to the top as our system is already structured, assuming they want to, given the average amount of support.
How could we possibly know this? We would at least need to know how many potentially profoundly gifted people there are before we can know if we’ve done a good job supporting them.
"Intended as an internal document. Good reading to understand the nature of rich democracies and the fact that the common people are not allowed to play a role."
I think the problem is deeper than the author suggests. Not only are certain groups of people not getting the resources they need, there is also the matter of a cultural disconnect between the people in power who control the resources, and the underserved who may deserve them.
> "We do a pretty good job at identifying the kids who are good at throwing a football or playing a trumpet,"
We do a good job of this now, but if you look back, there was a time not long ago when a black person playing the trumpet, no matter how well, was not seen as valuable. It took time for jazz and other cultural things to enter the mainstream and become valued by the group of people who are in power.
There are already plenty of "Einsteins" out there, who got access to at least enough resources to explore their passions and express their creativity. However, they still fail to be recognised when they are invisible to people in positions of power, who may be too stuck inside their cultural framework to acknowledge them.
> I think the problem is deeper than the author suggests. Not only are certain groups of people not getting the resources they need, there is also the matter of a cultural disconnect between the people in power who control the resources, and the underserved who may deserve them.
Beyond the cultural disconnect and more importantly, there is a disconnect in self-interest. It isn't in the interest of those in power to level the playing field. Humans are selfish creatures. We all want our family, friends, etc to have the advantage. We want ours to always have an advantage over others.
This isn't a conservative or liberal issue. It isn't bigots vs non-bigots. It's an innate human concern. Liberal parents/people want to advantage their children, families, etc over the others just as much as conservatives.
My main problem with this article and associate research is using patents as an indicator of invention. Patents are only an indicator of money, sometimes innovation, but certainly not invention.
For reference, innovation is taking existing ideas and implementing or combining them well, invention is creating wholly new works.
Invention is still mostly the domain of academia. Some of the big corporations can afford to fund research into true invention, but generally the risks don't make good business sense because the rate of return is so low.
Innovation happens frequently in startups, but patents are still a poor measure of it. Patents mainly measure whether someone can afford the lawyers to write the applications. In my experience in software, the patents themselves are only a loose approximation of any real technology. Perhaps in mechanical sciences they are more concrete.
Patents are obviously a poor proxy, even inventions are a poor proxy for social impact. But there's no reason to believe that the data would look significantly different if we were able to measure it directly.
What's interesting is that the great innovations of the early 20th century, weren't by a diverse group of people. Eastern European Jews (of which Einstein was a member) produced a disproportionate amount of those discoveries. This was despite the fact that they were among the most persecuted groups in history. Because of this, I don't think that US government policy is the major reason for the differences in the article.
Einstein was born in Southern Germany, with ancestors that had been there for centuries. German Wikipedia describes his family as "assimilated, non-orthodox, Jewish-German middleclass" and quotes him as being grateful to his town of birth, Ulm, for part of his character. English WP says "The Einsteins were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews", and he got the arguable most important part of his education in Switzerland where he moved to early on.
He was already traveling the world and giving lectures well before the rise of the Nazis, and he "simply" didn't return to Germany when they were in power. I can't speak for him, but I would assume he would consider himself as having had a good life with ample opportunities. The Nazis simply didn't even have a chance to persecute him, if anything the FBI made a huge dossier on him for his socialist views, though even that wasn't really persecution of the kind you ascribe to him by mere association. He had plenty opportunities, he wasn't born poor and certainly not Eastern European. I can't even begin to guess where you have any of that from, but it's not from the actual life of the actual person. And if that's the only reason you think the article is mistaken, then you don't have a (valid) reason.
That does not mean that Jews didn't face sharp and harsh discrimination by the very widespread and strong antisemitism at the time. Arguably they were one of the most prosecuted people in European history. And despite all that they still fared very well in comparison to the majority population.
Which makes the narrative that the lack of success in other groups is entirely grounded in lack of opportunity due to discrimination, rather shaky.
They were among the most repressed human being on Earth. The entire Jewish population is still recovering from the Holocaust (based on global population level).
I often fear when researchers like the NYT author start conditioning on unchangeable characteristics like ethnicity and gender. It invariably implies a villain based on unchangeable characteristics like ethnicity and gender.
The classification of "Jews" has been the most innovative. Should we start making laws conditioned on someone being a Jew so that's non jews can become more innovative ? Does this not sound like a bad idea? (I am trying to dodge godwins law)
"Eastern European Jews" should be more like "motivated, liberal, hardworking and a terrific high school identifying talent early". There is a related thread on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15684785
Eastern European Jews had limited occupation opportunities and subject to special restrictions. Their disproportional amount in occupations that allowed them in might as well be consequence of government policies - which prevents them to do other occupations.
Also, educated richer Eastern European Jews tended to leave Eastern Europe way more then poor Jews who were numerous.
> We do a pretty good job at identifying the kids who are good at throwing a football or playing a trumpet
The number of kids who are trained in sports yet never reach the professional level is absolutely enormous, and it has far-reaching consequences for them.
It's social science, where theories don't need to be falsifiable and data is only used to support you ideology and adapted to fit your narrative but never used to challenge some sacred a priori believes.
Well, given that most people in the world by far live outside the U.S.A, and that people that do not have opportunities are outside the US, in my opinion the low hanging fruit for innovation is in Africa, South America and China,and India not the USA.
In Africa you have kids that are not well fed and after 2 hours of intellectual work they can't continue because of the low nutrition of food!!
In equatorial Africa I can't even think clearly myself because of the intense heat all year long. In India and South Asia it is worse half a year because of humidity.
I seriously believe that climate has a lot to do with intellectual output, specially math is very sensitive to outside temperature.
China probably has the brightest near future, but for this it has to change their culture. Innovating is breaking and changing the rules, something China is very bad at.
I’m a bit bothered by how society == USA, and that’s it.
There’s a world outside of USA, with people inventing things and helping society. Maybe it’s time we start thinking more globally, instead we’re just at globalized thinking.
I can understand that feeling, when I clicked I thought it was going to be about somewhere else, the Sudan, or Congo maybe, those places where genius is snuffed out hour by hour.
There is certainly a place for a discussion of issues at a national level. While the Times certainly covers issues of international import, it is most likely to affect policy (or influence individuals) at the US level.
In addition, while the statistics and research reflect the situation in the US, the principles are still relevant to other countries and the world as a whole. There is work to be done in strengthening social networks and role models for people everywhere. Might as well start at home (wherever that may be.)
Readit News
But, inequality is just a small piece.
First, you need real education reform - educating kids on how the system operates. The current education system is broken and harmful. It teaches 99% of kids to become cogs in a system. And, after many years, they grow up to believe that being a cog is all there is. Instead, they need to learn how the system works and how to pull its levers and press its buttons to make it work for them. But, who is going to fund that?
But, even that’s not enough. Smart kids also need access to capital (‘other people’s money’ as my very rich friends call it) and connections. Having those things makes a huge difference.
2. Profoundly gifted people generally do rise to the top as our system is already structured, assuming they want to, given the average amount of support.
"The System" as it stands is doing a great job of the dual goals of helping the average live their lives to the fullest and also giving the gifted a chance to rise above the rest.
I disagree about your second point based on my experiences. I grew up ‘gifted’ in a working class, rust belt city. Many of my schoolmates ended up with decent middle class jobs. And, a surprising number even went on to get PhDs. An even more surprising number didn’t make it to graduation.
The majority of the PhDs ended up switching fields (with tremendous debt) after working for a few years. The few that went on to become professors, successful researchers, and innovatvators came from rich families with well-educated and successful parents.
My main criticism of our system is that it doesn’t veer far from basic primate behavior. I would even bet that a general model of primate hierarchical system would do well in predicting human success. And, that’s an absurd model, especially today. Humans have given up or suppressed many primate behaviors in order to live in the modern world. But, we still hold on to familial hierarchical behavior - maybe because the dopamine rush of being at the top just feels so damn good.
I am very curious to know your background and why you hold those opinions.
In the US? What makes you think that?
working as intended then ?
Yes... the whole of education is to make society ignorant of reality.
See here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYFxtNgOeiI
Then below...
Our brains are much worse at reality and thinking than thought. Science on reasoning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Manufacturing consent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwU56Rv0OXM
https://vimeo.com/39566117
"Intended as an internal document. Good reading to understand the nature of rich democracies and the fact that the common people are not allowed to play a role."
Crisis of democracy
http://trilateral.org/download/doc/crisis_of_democracy.pdf
Education as ignorance
https://chomsky.info/warfare02/
Testing theories of representative government
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...
> "We do a pretty good job at identifying the kids who are good at throwing a football or playing a trumpet,"
We do a good job of this now, but if you look back, there was a time not long ago when a black person playing the trumpet, no matter how well, was not seen as valuable. It took time for jazz and other cultural things to enter the mainstream and become valued by the group of people who are in power.
There are already plenty of "Einsteins" out there, who got access to at least enough resources to explore their passions and express their creativity. However, they still fail to be recognised when they are invisible to people in positions of power, who may be too stuck inside their cultural framework to acknowledge them.
Actually, we don't. The fact that the best hockey players are bunched around certain birth months shows that we create these kinds of differentials.
Beyond the cultural disconnect and more importantly, there is a disconnect in self-interest. It isn't in the interest of those in power to level the playing field. Humans are selfish creatures. We all want our family, friends, etc to have the advantage. We want ours to always have an advantage over others.
This isn't a conservative or liberal issue. It isn't bigots vs non-bigots. It's an innate human concern. Liberal parents/people want to advantage their children, families, etc over the others just as much as conservatives.
For reference, innovation is taking existing ideas and implementing or combining them well, invention is creating wholly new works.
Invention is still mostly the domain of academia. Some of the big corporations can afford to fund research into true invention, but generally the risks don't make good business sense because the rate of return is so low.
Innovation happens frequently in startups, but patents are still a poor measure of it. Patents mainly measure whether someone can afford the lawyers to write the applications. In my experience in software, the patents themselves are only a loose approximation of any real technology. Perhaps in mechanical sciences they are more concrete.
He was already traveling the world and giving lectures well before the rise of the Nazis, and he "simply" didn't return to Germany when they were in power. I can't speak for him, but I would assume he would consider himself as having had a good life with ample opportunities. The Nazis simply didn't even have a chance to persecute him, if anything the FBI made a huge dossier on him for his socialist views, though even that wasn't really persecution of the kind you ascribe to him by mere association. He had plenty opportunities, he wasn't born poor and certainly not Eastern European. I can't even begin to guess where you have any of that from, but it's not from the actual life of the actual person. And if that's the only reason you think the article is mistaken, then you don't have a (valid) reason.
Which makes the narrative that the lack of success in other groups is entirely grounded in lack of opportunity due to discrimination, rather shaky.
I often fear when researchers like the NYT author start conditioning on unchangeable characteristics like ethnicity and gender. It invariably implies a villain based on unchangeable characteristics like ethnicity and gender.
The classification of "Jews" has been the most innovative. Should we start making laws conditioned on someone being a Jew so that's non jews can become more innovative ? Does this not sound like a bad idea? (I am trying to dodge godwins law)
Also, educated richer Eastern European Jews tended to leave Eastern Europe way more then poor Jews who were numerous.
The number of kids who are trained in sports yet never reach the professional level is absolutely enormous, and it has far-reaching consequences for them.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/oct/06/football-bi...
Surely, the over representation of people of Asian descent in this, and similar findings, is worthy of some analysis?
I appreciate it spoils the narrative but, if people actually cared, it must make sense to look at the systemic cases that buck the trend.
At the very least acknowledge it. Completely ignoring whole racial groups strikes me as somewhere between blatantly rude and racist.
In Africa you have kids that are not well fed and after 2 hours of intellectual work they can't continue because of the low nutrition of food!!
In equatorial Africa I can't even think clearly myself because of the intense heat all year long. In India and South Asia it is worse half a year because of humidity.
I seriously believe that climate has a lot to do with intellectual output, specially math is very sensitive to outside temperature.
China probably has the brightest near future, but for this it has to change their culture. Innovating is breaking and changing the rules, something China is very bad at.
In addition, while the statistics and research reflect the situation in the US, the principles are still relevant to other countries and the world as a whole. There is work to be done in strengthening social networks and role models for people everywhere. Might as well start at home (wherever that may be.)