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Comment by axguscbklp | Hacker News Reader

I think that the Economist headline misrepresents Turchin's theory. The issue is not that there are too many smart people, it is that there are too many university graduates who feel entitled to a limited set of niches in the upper strata of society. Those are two different things.

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And reading between the lines, the issue is specifically that there are too many university graduates with degrees of "elite" image and prestige but very dubious usefulness otherwise, that essentially set them up to fail in modern society. An attitude of entitlement can be especially unattractive to many employers, and many universities do not exactly try to warn their students that they should avoid this.

I agree it reads that universities making up marketing BS are hurting people.

I think it is the same way of hurting people with YT influencers, where they BS how their lifes are great but never show real behind scenes.

I agree with that assertion: that universities are making up marketing BS and hurting people.

As a gateway to a high-paying job, a University degree is (in many cases: NOT ALL), more of a signal that the candidate is white, upper-middle or higher class, likely to not have a criminal record, likely to not have problems with mental illness (never mind substance abuse), and that's mainly what they're looking for, and why that gateway became such a high-demand commodity that it commanded a price that is often as much as buying a house. (easy access to student loans also probably played a role).

I say this as a person who thinks that every American should have an opportunity to go to college and get appropriate training for the career of their choice (as long as they otherwise meet qualifications). I think it should be "free" (and I think that business should pay into a tax-pool to fund the training of their workforce).

But I think that universities should ABSOLUTELY be tied down in how much they can charge for degrees, based on the actual economic value of that degree. If they train 100,000 underwater basketweavers, who make on average $15000/yr, then they sure as hell should not charge $100,000 for that degree, and they shouldn't be allowed to.

This market is horribly broken, and I don't think that it is presently workable without some much stronger government intervention. Otherwise, no player in this game has any incentive to change what it's doing. Since the government has a stake in having a viable and productive national labor-force, it's literally a matter of national security that this resource receive appropriate investment.

The alternative is to continue our downward spiral.

Also, there's this: https://ncses.nsf.gov/indicators

The best way to align supply with demand would be to eliminate the government intervention. It's government subsidies dished out in defiance of actual market demand that allows so people students to study underwater basket weaving simply because they find it interesting. If students had to rely on (normal) bank loans or corporate sponsorship that problem would dry up really fast.

It's government intervention that caused this situation in the first place.

>a limited set of niches in the upper strata of society

Otherwise known as "owning a house" and not being buried in student debt.

Too many people believe those things are entitlements when in fact they are tradeoffs. Like half my high school graduating class dropped out of college or didn't even start and many make decent wages or have dual income with a significant other. Many of which own homes or live decently. None of which demanded free rent and a college education.

Sure, but why should someone who goes to university and studies, say, literature for 4 years feel more entitled to owning a house than someone who, say, did not go to university and instead read and studied literature on his own for 4 years?

I would imagine both groups would consider themselves equally worthy.

Where would you draw the line? Which classes of society do you deem unworthy of home ownership other than the aforementioned groups and (presumably) every group below them?

I don't think anyone should feel entitled to home ownership, but certainly the classes who voted for today's zoning/planning laws (pulling the ladder up behind them) are unworthy of it.

>Which classes of society do you deem unworthy of home ownership other than the aforementioned groups and (presumably) every group below them?

I do not know where you are getting this from. I have no interest in drawing a line and I do not deem anyone to be unworthy of home ownership.

That's exactly the point of the comment above - own a house you need to be an 'elite'. So people trying to become 'elite' is really just people trying to own a house and get a tiny bit of stability.

Home ownership is within a couple percent of where it was in the 70's and 80's [1] and much higher than earlier in the centry [2]. People have selective memories and remember everyone buying into the housing bubble in the 90's but have forgotten about the crash after where they lost those houses.

The reality is that home ownership is the same or better than any time before the Clinton administration, but those who grew up in the boom have a mismatch between expectations and reality.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...

[2] https://www.census.gov/housing/census/data/owner/owner_tab.t...

I don't see how that maps into the argument. First of all, you need to look into youth home ownership, not total home ownership, second of all you need to look into the rate of change and not the overall amount.

Beyond that, it's not arguable that you need to be into a so called 'elite' job to be able to afford homeownership in most of the country.

I think it maps onto the argument as an explanation for both 1) why youth feel entitled to homes and 2) why they are experiencing such disappointment.

Growing up through a bubble explains 1) and the rapid decline from the bubble popping explains the intensity of 2)*.

I agree that the youth ownership numbers are dismal and indicate housing is harder to get into for that age group[1]. On the other hand, ownership is going up for the elderly as fewer old folks fall into poverty and lose their homes, leading to a bit of a wash for the overall population.

It is hard to call home ownership an 'elite' while the majority of Americans are homeowners.

*There are a ton of other factors that play into the affordability crisis

-Increasing migration to more expensive urban areas.

-Housing stock not keeping up (NIMBY, regulation)

-Loss of blue collar jobs, and immigration depressing wages

-College debt burden

[1] https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/03...

I'm not even sure if he would argue that this is a bad thing?

I 100% think a society with a stratified lower caste could be more stable than one where everyone has equal resources - but I don't think that makes it better.

It's a bad thing if people feel entitled to things they cannot possibly have, of course. It's not even necessarily about how resources are actually distributed, it's just pointing out that we aren't supposed to be selling people a false bill of goods. Of course people can strive to be upwardly mobile and perhaps fail in these ambitions, but it should be a very clear, voluntary choice.

My argument does not preclude stratification as a concept - every competitive system has stratification by nature.

My point is that you cannot stratify people into two separate classes and then perpetually move one of those classes down into total barbarism and call it a better move than rewriting your existing inefficient system.

I'm not a believer in the idiotic communist ideology, and did not even mention equal resources in my post. Communism can burn, save for all of the people forced to live crippled lives under it. But you cannot have communism for 99.999% of people and true competitiveness for the leftover if you want a stable system. Specifically if you want a stable system.

Comparison without the means of acquisition will cause revolution.

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