What do you call it if you don’t like the privilege word, which seems pretty loaded these days? A head start? An advantage? Because it surely is something.
Oh my, I guess we’re in the top 20%. The bummer is - having been raised Catholic - I’d spent my lifetime allotment of guilt by 8th grade. Me bad for not realizing I had needed to keep a reserve bank account of guilt upon which I was to draw when the PC police sent the bill.
I’m surprised you agree with the premise intelligence is genetic.
I think we should not choose a word for it. It’s just life!
People are born with certain intellectual capabilities (duh), which can be improved upon with nurturing and the opportunities presented (read up on early childhood development for example). Don’t bring the M guy into the discussion because that isn’t what I’m saying - at all. I know you always like to go there, @roethlisburger.
Under your rules, I think you’re required to take a shot. If intelligence is genetic, then most of the children of the top quintile should be in the top two quintiles as adults. Public policy can’t do much to fix the mobility problem Richard Reeves was complaining about.
See my post #69. There’s quite a lot of movement in and out of the top 20%.
@roethlisburger Earlier you chastise me for going away from the scope of the article for wanting to discuss pulling up the bottom 20% and the effects on our country of having such a growing disparity, now you want to get off on this tangent? My final comment on the subject: I don’t agree with your premise. I didn’t declare intelligence is genetic and could point out many examples contradicting it. There are many variables that determine intelligence and circumstances post birth can diminish or increase what one was born with. I know plenty of stupid kids born to intelligent people and vice versa. Being born with a certain mental capacity does not equal a direct correlation to genetics. You’re trying to put words in my mouth that I did not say. Moving on…
In response to the original article posted, Charles Murray tweeted:
It is drinking time.
Mojito or gin and tonic? B-)
“Obnoxious to remind you, I know.”
Yeah, kind of. 
Well, I will have a beer while reading Murray’s predictions in Chapter 21 of the Bell Curve which was published in 1996.
http://publicism.info/psychology/curve/23.html
You can decide for yourself if his predictions of 20+ years ago, were right:
The ‘cognitive elite’ is not a monolith. More of less half of that group believe in helping those at the bottom, not trying to keep them out. Seems to me the ones who are changing the rules to benefit them are the ones in power now.
Murray’s observations were largely true, but not necessarily because of the reasons he cites. Every time freedom is reduced, inequality increases, and that disparity is amplified in a technological world. That is exactly what we see today. I think a lot of his predictions have not come to pass because of disparities in birth rates and relocation of people by the government for political reasons.
It may not be a monolith, but the cognitive elite in America is largely liberal. You can see where the wealthiest zip codes are in with this nifty website.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2013/11/09/washington-a-world-apart/?utm_term=.d0ba34938df3
From the Washington Post article:
For the most part, these superzips are concentrated in the New York City, Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles, all progressive areas. If you want to see the one who are changing the rules to benefit them because they are in power, look no further.
In Zinheads thread, we do have private schools trying to prevent public school students from getting admitted to elite colleges.
Where I live in Northern VA the public schools are excellent and the majority of ‘elites’ send their kids to them, not the privates. Where I see more push for the elites for privates are places in areas where public schools are starved for funds and are nothing more than warehouses for poor and minority students. Add to that the current Dept of Education push for more public funding of private schools.
^The good public schools in northern Virginia may require buying an expensive home in an area difficult to afford on a sub $100k income.
We do have low income people here. They exist.
@NoVADad99 Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, and McLean all have median home prices over $500k.
What I find hilarious from this thread is that I’m one of the few opposed to the increased taxes, etc. while many of the posters who argue for more are actually the “elite”: they went to Ivy schools, are sending their kids to private schools, sometimes second generation “elite”, etc. I didn’t know anyone from that “class” until I went to work at a high tech company. They really do think they know what’s best for the rest of us, don’t they?