14 Comments
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PolizRajt's avatar

What does then explain the Great Gatsby Curve, where countries with lower Gini have lower intergenerational income elasticity? https://www.chicagofed.org/-/media/publications/economic-mobility-briefs/2022/intergenerational-mobility-fig1-png.png?sc_lang=en&hash=A01F470C26D2B512CD4E4BBF827BFA32 I would love to know your thoughts about that.

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Advait's avatar

Economists are so smug its unbelievable.

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Ross Levatter's avatar

Possibly true in general, but I really wouldn’t have minded being Bill Gates’ college roommate.

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Tom Grey's avatar

Unknown "success genes" are hereditary -- as well as, usually, culturally supported.

The 4-step Success sequence appeals more to those with certain genes than others, but is more often followed in certain environments than others.

Most of heredity derived traits, like beauty, often also go with good family cultures, like eating smaller amounts & less junk, plus better cleansing of skin. Many of the desirable traits, like looking your best, can be improved by an individual's actions. Like working out for a stronger, better looking body. Face, not so much.

IQ seems to be a gene based maximum that will be expressed at that level, or less, depending on the environment.

Kind of funny that so few successful singers have successful singing kids, tho.

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Mohan's avatar

Bryan, could you link to the papers that lead you to think that outcomes are mostly genetic? Most of the evidence I have seen for that claim comes from studies using the classical twin design, which hinge on the assumption that there is no epistasis… and that assumption is looking increasingly shaky.

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countenanceblog the expat's avatar

Cognitive stratification. Someone should write a book about it. Er, I forgot. Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein already did.

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CatoRenasci's avatar

Rawlsian “fairness” is overrated. The Original Position argument counter factually implies equivalence between picking rules that establish rules for interaction - Lockean princples of liberty or Nozickian principles of justice in acquisition, transfer and rectification - with rules that determine outcomes despite those interactions such as Rawls’ difference principle.

The underlying question seems to me whether ‘fairness’ is judged by society based on outcomes or based on the process. While one has to judge public programs by their outcome rather than their ‘intention’, I think most reasonably intelligent people want the rules to be ‘fair’ and ‘equally applied’ rather than for the outcome to be equal.

Even children know that they’re all different, with different abilities of different kinds, and different interests.

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Jeru's avatar
Apr 13Edited

Here's a post you should do (I once asked Paul Bloom to discuss this on a podcast and he said he def would but chickened out): Describe a VALID Rawlsian privilege walk, where if you're over 6'2, you take 5 steps forward, if you're extraverted, you take 4 steps, if you're over 120IQ, you take 20 steps, etc. You'd get to compare the effects of different advantages (high IQ trumps extraversion, etc)

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Jeru's avatar

If you're over 120IQ, take 20 steps, if you're over 130, take another 6, if you're over 140, go back to the start heh

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CatoRenasci's avatar

And if you joined MENSA, take another 20 steps back from the start….

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Henry Eight's avatar

Kuwait is a very rich country. Shouldn't they be winning loads of Nobel prizes?

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Henry Eight's avatar

How do you explain all of the useless monarch's? Why did the British aristocracy have to marry their children to the children of rich Americans? Why are you much less rich than Trump despite being more intelligent?

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Joe Potts's avatar

Apples fall close to the trees they grew on.

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Tim Townsend's avatar

"How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?" I'm sure there were economists around in the 17th century and probably clerics in the field of Economics today.

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