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The real question, I think, is when did news.ycombinator turn into reddit/r/politics?

When software entrepreneurs put 10% of the population out of work and then used social darwinism to justify the lack of a social safety net.

"When we allowed 20% of the population to assume ownership of 80% of the wealth, forcing everyone else to scramble for scraps"

Allowed? I suppose you mean we didn't tax them at 90% to "redistribute" it.

"the loudest complaints about "socialists" and "redistribution" seem to come from people who need it the most, but don't recognize it."

Or the people that have nothing and would rather have the government give it to them than try and earn it themselves. We do need some social nets, but if those social nets are too large, we create a system of people that feel entitled propped up by the people that are actually working. When that system starts to collapse, there are riots in the streets because there are too many people relying on it.

"The American public, IMO, needn't look much further than a mirror to see the cause of their woes."

There are many countries in Europe that are struggling just as hard (if not harder) than the US. They had all of these social nets that you speak of. What happened?

What is possibly the only coherent comment in this entire discussion is already being down-voted. Sorry Hacker News, but your "cultivated community" demonstrably fails to perpetuate very little more than a disinterested, self-serving, center-right frame of reference with a strong undercurrent of elitism.

Not to pick on this too much, but elitism is a good thing.

Do you want 1000 random links from the internet or 10 ordered blue links on Google?

Do you want to send your child to a "mediocre" school or have them operated on by a "mediocre" surgeon, or do you want them to go to the best schools and have the best medical care?

If you are an investor, do you want to invest in mediocre companies? If you are searching for work, do you want to work at a middle of the road place? And if you are an employer/entrepreneur, do you want anything other than the best employees?

Everyone is an elitist when they are doing the selecting. Some people don't like it when they are on the other side of the selective filter. But let's not kid ourselves, elitism is not an "undercurrent" and it's not objectionable by any means. It's the whole ball of wax in any functioning society.

Every example you give is in terms of an individualist view point, and yet understanding what makes a "functioning society" requires some conception of a common good. It is impossible for any significant portion of society to be treated by the very best doctors, or to send their children to the very best schools. To do what's best for society, the majority merely need access to good and decent services.

From the dictionary: Elitism is "the advocacy or existence of an elite as a dominating element in a system or society."

A society that favors the elite individual above all else is by nature hierarchical, exclusionary, and anti-democratic. Elitist societies by definition disempower the majority for the enrichment of a few. And as per the definition of "society" — "the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community" — elitism is an absolute failure.

Your attitude epitomizes this online community, and that's not a good thing. Frankly, it's pretty repugnant.

> It is impossible for any significant portion of society to be treated by the very best doctors

Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine, which was used to inoculate millions. Just about every medical procedure used in practice and documented in textbooks was developed by the best doctors, systematized, and then scaled out.

> or to send their children to the very best schools.

Take a look at ai-class.org, ml-class.org, db-class.org. Textbooks were version 1.0 of this concept, and also tend to be written by the best educators.

The point: different people in different areas have different talents. The key is to come up with models that allow the efforts of the talented in each area to scale out so that more can access them, and so that the less talented can benefit from the solutions even if they couldn't think them up in the first place[1]. This is a process of iteration.

But the iteration won't even get started if one rejects quality/elitism from the beginning.

[1] How many of the tens of millions of people operating browsers, iPhones, refrigerators, or automobiles can understand them, let alone improve them, let alone invent them? Civilization is based on finding the best, allowing them to amass resources, and rewarding them for distributing their discoveries to as many as possible. Denying that a technical elite exists is counterproductive.

>rewarding them for distributing their discoveries to as many as possible

If the 80% has no money, then the 80% cannot reward the elites.

Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine, which was used to inoculate millions. Just about every medical procedure used in practice and documented in textbooks was developed by the best doctors, systematized, and then scaled out.

You pretty much sunk your argument with the very first example. Salk gave the polio vaccine away for free so that kids wouldn't have to die anymore from it.

Elitism states that only the best should have it. Altruism states that everyone deserves to have it.

Has there ever been an advanced society that did not have elites? That was not hierarchical or exclusionary? How do you propose that humanity rid itself of these troublesome qualities? It seems like you're just here to proclaim your own moral superiority.

The OP was obviously making a "wake up and think about what you're saying post". What did you contribute exactly?

Allow me to expand on my point. To me the OP was obviously engaging in a worthless semantic debate. The post to which he was replying said (paraphrased) "elitism is good, everyone wants to best for themselves and their kin." It was clear from the post what temphn meant by elitism.

Then scrod came in with the dictionary definition of "elitism". And my point is that people will always favor their family, their friends, people who have been through similarly trying circumstances. The formation of factions of people who cooperate is inevitable, and some will be successful. Furthermore the beautiful, the intelligent, the charismatic, the ruthless will always have an advantage over the masses. Does anyone really want to live in a society that's NOT run by people who are in some way "the best"? I understand that some people are against hereditary wealth and privilege, but in a meritocratic society it's just a different set of people who are the elite. Again I ask, where is the society which is not dominated by an elite?

At this point it's impossible to tell if the post was edited, but when I read it last night, I don't recall seeing the phrase "above all else". It's not implied by his dictionary definition, so that part of his statement is too strong - "dominating element" vs "above all else". It's clear that scrod has contempt for any society with an elite (which I again emphasize is every advanced society on earth right now).

And then finally the moralizing came in: "Your attitude is pretty repugnant", in an attack on a strawman!

The thing that deeply troubles me about the best schools (and my son goes to an excellent private school) is that the ability to attend is primarily based on the ability of the parents to pay and perhaps to come from the right socio-econmic grouping so that your child "fits in".

Elitism based on merit is perhaps defensible, elitism based on inherited wealth and status is troubling for although it is entirely natural for the individual passing on benefits to their offspring I seriously doubt that it is the best thing for the long-term health of any society.

>Not to pick on this too much, but elitism is a good thing.

When calls someone/something out for being an elitist/elitism they are actually calling out a false sense of superiority. So no, it's not a compliment or a good thing. It puts you in the same group as Nazi's/racists/xenophobes.

@temphn

I think you're missing a middle ground & the analogy with Google is pretty weak at best...

As far as school & healthcare go I think a lot of people just want access to "decent" healthcare & education, it doesn't have be cutting edge. No one wants mediocre, true, but there are many levels in between mediocre & elite. Often though many people don't have a choice where their kid goes to school or the resources to really know how good their doctor is.

While people may want the best or people may want to be the best, often people are realistic in what's achievable. Most of our society is kept together by people doing a "decent" job, no reason they shouldn't be rewarded with a "decent" lifestyle.

> It happened when we started penalizing people for having anything less than perfect health.

It's my understanding of history that it wasn't until very recently that some societies started to mitigate some of the effects of being in "less than perfect health".

I thought the modern idea of welfare programs (old age pensions, accident insurance, medical care and unemployment insurance) originated in the 19th century in Prussia with Otto von Bismarck:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Paternalistic...

That doesn't strike me as "very recently" - even the UK "cradle to the grave" NHS is over 60 years old:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/your_...

That's very recent in civilizational terms.

You're right - progressive societies are a relatively new invention, but is that really an excuse?

The history of the world is dominated by oligarchies because these ideas and systems didn't exist. We now have working examples of a better way - and in fact the USA's closest peers (in terms of economic output, political stability, etc) are practically all progressive socialist nations. And yet all I can see in this country is the poor cheering madly while the oligarchs trample all over their faces.