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Comment by codexon | Hacker News Reader

> There are more white male billionaires than any other demographic in the world. If I wanted to maximize my output of billionaire alumni in the short term, my class would mostly be white males. Old money has proven to be the most effective route here.

That is short sighted.

1. Old money does not last as frequent revolutions and redistribution of wealth have shown throughout history. By gradually enrolling minorities as they come into power, Universities hedge against their current positions.

2. The color of your skin is a worse predictor of Nobel prize winning capability than your academic performance.

> You should exercise more care throwing around such a serious term in the future.

And you should exercise more caution in down voting and throwing out 1 line knee-jerk comments and then totally rediting both your comments after being downvoted yourself.

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Anyone who's been in a conversation with me before knows I always edit my comments after I post them. Nothing wrong with it, and I clearly acknowledge my change. I hardly care about down votes. I care about being clear about my position.

Let's get back to the original point. You claimed that Universities should be more concerned with making billionaires and Nobel prize winners than having diversity. It's an incorrect claim and I tried to show you how silly a class meant to maximize that potential would look.

You also were an idiot and called me a racist, because you seem incapable of addressing the complexities that go along with a discussion about race, gender, success, and the works. I took race out of it, and maybe you wont be able to avoid what's actually being said.

> You claimed that Universities should be more concerned with making billionaires and Nobel prize winners than having diversity. It's an incorrect claim

How can this claim be incorrect? You might not share his goal, but does that make it "incorrect"?

Fair question.

If you're running a University as a business to make money, it's incorrect because attracting highly talented students capable of such feats is expensive. Far better to find less talented students that will attend and pay tuition.

If you're running a University as an educational institution it's also incorrect. Your students are not going to become deep, consciousness thinkers in a homogeneous group. Also, as an educational institution is it your goal to improve society as a whole through education? If there are minority students capable of finishing your degree program, giving it to them is going to have a far greater impact than giving it to a slightly more talented member of the majority. Minorities do not have the support structure that the majority does. They are less likely to have both parents around, less likely to have parents with degrees, and less likely to have parents with money and connections.

> If you're running a University as a business to make money, it's incorrect because attracting highly talented students capable of such feats is expensive. Far better to find less talented students that will attend and pay tuition.

That depends. Isn't it possible that you'd get more money by investing in attracting the highly talented students and reaping the later benefits, like large alumni donations?

> If you're running a University as an educational institution it's also incorrect. Your students are not going to become deep, consciousness thinkers in a homogeneous group.

I hear this very often and it sounds like wishful thinking, not fact. Usually it's heard in the context of justifying race-based admissions.

> Also, as an educational institution is it your goal to improve society as a whole through education.

Are you stating this as fact? I'm honestly not sure since you wrote, "is it". If so, what if some do not share this goal?

> If there are minority students capable of finishing your degree program, giving it to them is going to have a far greater impact than giving it to a slightly more talented member of the majority.

How can you possibly know something like this with such certainty? It literally takes just one person to make this statement false.

That depends. Isn't it possible that you'd get more money by investing in attracting the highly talented students and reaping the later benefits, like large alumni donations?

If you want money and the numbers say that, than obviously you should do that. I don't think either of us know enough to say for sure, I was simply speculating.

Are you stating this as fact? I'm honestly not sure since you wrote, "is it". If so, what if some do not share this goal?

Than in my mind they are not a University whose mission is education. Anything else is a business University, whether their commodity is money or publications.

How can you possibly know something like this with such certainty? It literally takes just one person to make this statement false.

I'm claiming that for society (underprivileged * degree) + (privileged * talent difference) > (underprivileged) + (privileged * degree * talent difference). Less people collecting welfare, less crime, less single moms, etc. I'd like to look at data that contradicts this. I can't offer up data myself though at the moment, so I certainly don't expect it.

> I don't think either of us know enough to say for sure, I was simply speculating.

Agreed, but I'd think you'd have to be sure to say it was incorrect.

> I'm claiming that for society (underprivileged * degree) + (privileged * talent difference) > (underprivileged) + (privileged * degree * talent difference). Less people collecting welfare, less crime, less single moms, etc. I'd like to look at data that contradicts this. I can't offer up data myself though at the moment, so I certainly don't expect it.

There is no data that proves your statement. There are millions of unknowns hidden in your inequality, any one of which could reverse the sign completely.

> I can't offer up data myself though at the moment, so I certainly don't expect it.

Then stop passing it off as fact and saying that I am an "idiot" or wrong.

Underprivileged minorities don't need to go to the best school in order to lift themselves out of poverty. There are plenty of other schools capable of giving them the education they want without displacing smarter individuals.

> Far better to find less talented students that will attend and pay tuition.

And here you contradict yourself. By your own reasoning, minorities are statistically poorer, likely to require more financial aid, and less likely to end up less rich than their white counterparts. So in order to enroll less talented students that will attend in pay tuition, you are suggesting a white monoculture again.

> If there are minority students capable of finishing your degree program, giving it to them is going to have a far greater impact than giving it to a slightly more talented member of the majority.

Does this have an impact on the minorities? Yep. Does it necessarily have a greater impact than if it went to a white or asian? Doubtful.

Great teachers are usually paired with great students to great effect. A world-class professor teaching preschool in Harlem is not optimal.

And here you contradict yourself. By your own reasoning, minorities are statistically poorer, likely to require more financial aid, and less likely to end up as rich as their white counterparts. So in order to enroll less talented students that will attend in pay tuition, you are suggesting a white monoculture again.

You don't seem to be following the conversation correctly. johnnybgoode and I are talking about whether having a class aimed towards billionaires and Nobel winners is a valid goal or not.

You are building your argument on flawed assumptions such as "attracting highly talented students capable of such feats is expensive". There are no shortage of smart and intelligent candidates capable of paying being turned down at Harvard for a less capable minority on financial aid. And you are somehow arguing that Universities should be settling for dumber but richer minorities??

How is this not following the conversation correctly?

and I clearly acknowledge my change

You did not acknowledge your change until I mentioned it.

You did not acknowledge your change until I mentioned it.

Google cache proves I acknowledged it long before you mentioned it: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycom...

It bothers me how you do not assume good faith on this site.

That does not prove anything. That was already your 3rd or so edit.

You must be a troll. Either that or your incapable of having a logical thought. The cache shows an acknowledgment of my removal of white male before you mentioned my edit. Your either too oblivious to have a conversation with or you are deliberately trying to provoke me. Either way I wont be responding to you anymore.

No, I mentioned it in my comment and removed it when you put it back in. Your original comment above mine was a snide 1 liner that said something like:

"That's dumb, you are suggesting college accepting only white males."

Which you then deleted after people started downvoting you, so you replaced it with that longer 4 line comment that had no trace of the original line.

I think its you who is being needless inflammatory by calling me an "idiot" and down voting every comment here that even remotely opposed your views.

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