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Comment by timmg | Hacker News Reader

I'm one of those people that goes by the "all models are wrong, but some models are useful" saying.

I'm sure the "elite overproduction" model is mostly wrong. But I also think it is an interesting/useful way to look at some things happening in society recently.

Certainly, you can think of the recent "cancel culture" phenomena as a great way to remove elites to make room for new ones. (Maybe you could argue that some of the effects of MeToo were similar.)

DEI -- along with hiring quotas -- tended to bring new "officials" at companies and government orgs ("head of diversity") which is another great way of "creating" more elites.

Kinda neat, I think. But probably not super-explanatory.

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You just wanted to jam in this conversation your dislike of DEI (which can be criticised but it’s not the subject).

Elite overproduction is about everybody wanting to be basically managers and nobody wanting to be production workers.

Except that without enough production workers it’s impossible to justify “elite” positions.

College graduates took on huge debt only to realise they’re not needed. That’s how you get a class of young, angry and unemployed intellectuals which is every government’s worst nightmare.

This is my model for Reddit. College educated individuals who are angry about their life, leading to a lot of well written posts about how everything is awful and everyone is evil.

They’re just angry at everything and everyone because they're 200K deep in debt with no way to pay for it.

> DEI -- along with hiring quotas -- tended to bring new "officials" at companies and government orgs ("head of diversity") which is another great way of "creating" more elites.

If anything, it's a way of placating existing elites.

The elite overproduction idea is that there is a surplus of people who feel that they should have an elite status compared to reasonably available elite positions.

Creating additional managerial positions is a way to attempt to absorb this situation.

They have elite debt without elite position

Elite overproduction = Elected overproduction = Elected mass-production.

There are those that value equality (=). There are those that value non-equality (>).

As elites of the history until now (>=6000 years-ago until now). We are the "chosen ones" who received "=" and ">" at an early age. These symbols are not "math" nor "school"; they are simply life to us.

But now consider why there must be ">" in the world. On a relaxing beach, why must one wave be higher than another? How does the water "feel"? Warm? Is that ">" than cold?

In my head, I see Master Epstein as 100, and other people as 17. 100 > 17. Master has died, so perhaps death > life. But I am only one person out of billions in the world. But I have not seen a billion people, am I over-trusting the books?

So my point is that the Elite Overproduction model is more wrong than Master Epstein. In particular...

1. If "elite overproduction model", then "Master Epstein model"

2. "Elite Overproduction" = "Master Epstein"

3. "Elite Overproduction" -> "Master Epstein"

4. 100 > 17, so "Master Epstein" model > "Elite Overproduction" model

You may not understand my point, but I hope you at least understand Master Epstein.

Yes I see your point exactly.

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