Still a good place to study, though.
The purpose of these institutions isn't to educate, it's to confer status (in a tax efficient and positive-eugenic way)
But I never said the education is bad. I just said their purpose is not to educate. Morill Act institutions were developed to educate, and by accepting the vast majority of people that apply University of Oklahoma will always exist to educate. The same cannot be said for Brown or Stanford.
But I can say that aside from intellect, attendees of top universities are not ethically superior to the average person.
I work with a lot of Stanford grads. They’re terrific folk.
But the concentration of corruption, delusion and depravity in its graduates, professors and administration begin to make one question if they were great and collected and resisted Stanford’s transformative effect, which increasingly (albeit with low confidence) looks like it may be net negative, or if they were transformed positively by the experience.
I believe the US possesses the human capital within it to compete with the likes of China in terms of STEM, but American society does not value this ability at nearly the same level as Asian (including India) countries.
Anyone who grew up in the US can gut check this. Which is more prestigious: MIT/Caltech or [insert almost any Ivy League]? The average American will pick an Ivy League. That, not our latent ability, is going to be the seed of our eventual dethronement.
Granted many from Asia might also pick an Ivy League, but I'd wager a lot of money that the proportion that picks a tech school will be much, much higher than America.
And it only "matters" to the extent that we care about whether China surpasses the US technologically within a few generations. If you don't care, then I suppose it shouldn't matter to you.
This is objectively false. Unless you believe fighter jets, semiconductors and AI are obsolete.
> whether China surpasses the US technologically within a few generations
China is experiencing demographic collapse. If they can’t gain the upper hand within about a decade, the opportunity will have likely passed as the surplus capital it has enjoyed to date as a result of its demographic dividend will reverse.
> China is experiencing demographic collapse. If they can’t gain the upper hand within about a decade, the opportunity will have likely passed as the surplus capital it has enjoyed to date as a result of its demographic dividend will reverse.
Even if their population collapses, their (STEM-proficient) population will still significantly outnumber America's - especially if America continues to implicitly funnel its brightest into non-STEM fields through societal pressure.