This is the clearest framing for what we're experiencing that I've seen, and it is horrifying. And if there's a quick fix for this, I can't see it, which makes it even more horrifying.
This is how Empires fall--gradually, then suddenly.
You’re completely right, as you already know, about the IQ tests and their replacement with degrees.
But isn’t part of the problem with the country these days also downwind from the “IQ meritocracy” we used to have? The smartest people in the room ran the 90s financial scams, outsourced industries, turned us into a place with the most lawyers per capita by a longshot, etc, etc.
What I’m getting at: IQ isn’t enough, we need virtue too! As long as the smartest get promoted but aren’t taught to love their neighbors more than their stock price or corner office, we’ll still be doomed.
That was the amazing blessing of the founding father generation - the smartest *and the most moral* guys in the room!
Thank you as always for a great post. More on the moral foundations of American education here:
Important post. I've often thought about corporate training this way. For example, prior to George W.'s administration, corporates use to have extensive training programs for new graduates, P&G being the famous one. Even in the early to mid 2000s, you use work at a corporation and get 4-8 weeks of sales training prior to doing the actual job. By 2010 this practice disappeared. The US caste system has always been orchestrated at the top. Think English majors like Michael Lewis get jobs on wall street with no finance training whatsoever, but then Obama issued in new cultural expectations. A Brave New World type of credentialism that mirror's Thiel's sarcasm of, go to Yale or go to jail. Furthermore, the PMC (professional managerial class) has shifted from class systems to one of DEI, it's obvious in educational administration the past 20 years, yet what's concerning is the way it's getting a hold of healthcare administration. This type of systemic thinking prohibits social mobility as recruiters look for a square peg for a square hole, no opportunity is given to outliers, to people who can go above and behind, the world has become an assembly line, making burgers at McDonald's over and over again. Thus, is the obsession with who American's are, their identity, and their job rather than their skilled vocation.
"Consultants do not improve business outcomes."- truer words have not been written. We have a system-wide failure of real leadership. I think social media has allowed the grift to rise to the top instead of the hard working and we will pay for being fooled by the BS consultant class.
Another point is that the average IQ of a civilization matters. Dumb people are like sand in the gears of your civilization. Example: there is a certain demographic that likes to drive drunk, they cause an accident that jams the freeway, and all the smart people on that same freeway can’t do their jobs. You can’t even have functioning freeways below a certain civilizational IQ threshold. The only thing that could save us is if automation could concentrate all labor into the top 1% of IQs, then the decline in the average wouldn’t matter as much.
The quality of training at blue collar jobs is universal dogshit in my varied experience, even as the jobs are more complex than they used to be. Its the half blind leading the blind, at best, and we all know we have no power or social respect whether we do a good job or bad. I hope it's better for highly skilled positions involving critcal infrastructure. But I doubt it.
What a great system others set up for us to bemoan the inconsequential. This will not improve. The white male has been neutered, the matriarch reins supreme (set up by white males).
On T.I.A., you are exactly right. And you can thank Apple and Caterpillar and Cummins and Walmart for it... Asia is their preferred market. To the victor go the spoils.
There's one guy designing a bridge and another guy putting the same effort into making as much as possible out of the bridge-building process. There comes a point where you'd have to be a schmuck to choose being the former.
The sci-fi solution would be an IQ test that you couldn't deliberately fail, and then a list of proscribed jobs that anyone scoring over 120 was banned from doing (finance, law, etc). Not sure what the real world solution would be.
This is the clearest framing for what we're experiencing that I've seen, and it is horrifying. And if there's a quick fix for this, I can't see it, which makes it even more horrifying.
This is how Empires fall--gradually, then suddenly.
You’re completely right, as you already know, about the IQ tests and their replacement with degrees.
But isn’t part of the problem with the country these days also downwind from the “IQ meritocracy” we used to have? The smartest people in the room ran the 90s financial scams, outsourced industries, turned us into a place with the most lawyers per capita by a longshot, etc, etc.
What I’m getting at: IQ isn’t enough, we need virtue too! As long as the smartest get promoted but aren’t taught to love their neighbors more than their stock price or corner office, we’ll still be doomed.
That was the amazing blessing of the founding father generation - the smartest *and the most moral* guys in the room!
Thank you as always for a great post. More on the moral foundations of American education here:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/mcculloughs-mistake-and-ours
Important post. I've often thought about corporate training this way. For example, prior to George W.'s administration, corporates use to have extensive training programs for new graduates, P&G being the famous one. Even in the early to mid 2000s, you use work at a corporation and get 4-8 weeks of sales training prior to doing the actual job. By 2010 this practice disappeared. The US caste system has always been orchestrated at the top. Think English majors like Michael Lewis get jobs on wall street with no finance training whatsoever, but then Obama issued in new cultural expectations. A Brave New World type of credentialism that mirror's Thiel's sarcasm of, go to Yale or go to jail. Furthermore, the PMC (professional managerial class) has shifted from class systems to one of DEI, it's obvious in educational administration the past 20 years, yet what's concerning is the way it's getting a hold of healthcare administration. This type of systemic thinking prohibits social mobility as recruiters look for a square peg for a square hole, no opportunity is given to outliers, to people who can go above and behind, the world has become an assembly line, making burgers at McDonald's over and over again. Thus, is the obsession with who American's are, their identity, and their job rather than their skilled vocation.
"Consultants do not improve business outcomes."- truer words have not been written. We have a system-wide failure of real leadership. I think social media has allowed the grift to rise to the top instead of the hard working and we will pay for being fooled by the BS consultant class.
Another point is that the average IQ of a civilization matters. Dumb people are like sand in the gears of your civilization. Example: there is a certain demographic that likes to drive drunk, they cause an accident that jams the freeway, and all the smart people on that same freeway can’t do their jobs. You can’t even have functioning freeways below a certain civilizational IQ threshold. The only thing that could save us is if automation could concentrate all labor into the top 1% of IQs, then the decline in the average wouldn’t matter as much.
The quality of training at blue collar jobs is universal dogshit in my varied experience, even as the jobs are more complex than they used to be. Its the half blind leading the blind, at best, and we all know we have no power or social respect whether we do a good job or bad. I hope it's better for highly skilled positions involving critcal infrastructure. But I doubt it.
What a great system others set up for us to bemoan the inconsequential. This will not improve. The white male has been neutered, the matriarch reins supreme (set up by white males).
On T.I.A., you are exactly right. And you can thank Apple and Caterpillar and Cummins and Walmart for it... Asia is their preferred market. To the victor go the spoils.
There's one guy designing a bridge and another guy putting the same effort into making as much as possible out of the bridge-building process. There comes a point where you'd have to be a schmuck to choose being the former.
The sci-fi solution would be an IQ test that you couldn't deliberately fail, and then a list of proscribed jobs that anyone scoring over 120 was banned from doing (finance, law, etc). Not sure what the real world solution would be.