Comment by jmeister | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmeister | Hacker News Reader

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> An article on the decline of state capacity. Not a mention of affirmative action, disparate impact, or the ability to fire people. Liberals are committed to egalitarianism, simply unable to recognize massive differences in competence between humans.

> “we don’t invest in administration, partly due to ideological opposition to the ability of government do its job.”

> Yes, people don’t want to invest in government because we’ve seen what kind of people work in it since they unionized and we banned written exams.

> “In some areas, US administrative capacity remains world-beating, most obviously the military, which enjoys bipartisan and popular support, and vast investments of resources.”

> Yes, and it is the one place that uses IQ tests, and it has a lot of white males at the top.

https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/153487716566093004...

There is more on the guys Substack on how abuse of CRA and disparate impact has wrecked public sector competence.

This guy is a talker, not a doer. The top demographic is 50% above the next highest in median performance[0]. So drastically hyper-performant that the American people are terrified enough to restrict their immigration.

If he believed in a meritocracy he would permit them to come. But he's actually one of the terrified ones. And a fear of being out-competed naturally lends itself to this sort of rhetoric.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

I did a bit of googling around. As best I can tell, the person you're talking about wants the US to have more high-skilled immigration and is, himself, an immigrant.

He's talker class: psychology, international relations. You can tell because of his conclusion. The demographic he chose as exhibiting top performance is at median half-productivity of top-of-the-line, which just coincidentally aligns with his own.

But since the conclusion is staring him in the face at a +50% effect size, I'm glad he can connect the dots.

> Liberals are committed to egalitarianism, simply unable to recognize massive differences in competence between humans.

I don't believe this is true at all. Many socialists do vote for the Democratic Party as the lesser of two evils, but liberals are not committed to egalitarianism at all costs. They have used the Federal bureaucracy as a jobs program since the end of the civil war. Similarly, the mitilary tends to be a jobs program for the more conservative parts of the country. Efficiency and performance has rarely ever been the goal, employment has.

Yes he’s speaking relatively, employing hyperbole to make his point. It’s Twitter.

I don't know what you mean by that - his main point is wrong and misunderstands how liberals use the federal government post-civil war.

That person’s Twitter feed is toxic. Richard Hanania comes across as someone with a definite ace to grind. Homophobic and misogynistic, to boot.

I agree. But his analysis of CRA abuse is spot on. Check out interview with Gail Heriot, an experienced civil rights lawyer.

“The worst person you know just made a good point” etc.

Meritocracies can by tyrannical. Organizations select for sociopaths to rise to the top. People are unaware of their biases. Minorities - in race, gender, viewpoint, or along some other axis - are marginalized and it has a real cost to the organization and society. Things like affirmative action are an attempt to recognize and correct these biases. No one is looking to fill a quota except those who don’t understand the problem to begin with. And if you think the military is any more efficient a bureaucracy than any other government sector I have a bridge to sell you.

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