| ▲ | lapcat 11 hours ago |
| > Ivy League college students are, by definition, intelligent. I stopped reading after the first sentence. |
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| ▲ | cowanon77 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I’m not sure why that’s controversial - I have met many Ivy League students and grads; they are all intelligent, at least in an academic way. The only other common characteristic is that they almost always had some form of privilege. Either rich parents, or adults around them who worked very hard to get them to that level. |
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| ▲ | lapcat 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I’m not sure why that’s controversial Do you know what "by definition" means? > I have met many Ivy League students and grads; they are all intelligent, at least in an academic way. You probably wouldn't meet the dumb ones, because they're probaly not in your social class: > rich parents | |
| ▲ | yamillove 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If you have privilege, don’t be ashamed. USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! It’s yours anyway. You don’t owe society anything just because you have privilege. Everyone else, put on a helmet! Welcome to life. | | |
| ▲ | phist_mcgee 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | You owe society more than nothing, otherwise you end up with a sick society. | | |
| ▲ | yamillove 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you had read the whole sentence, you would have found a few other words, which say “just because you have privilege.” All men are created equal. Civic duties apply equally to everyone. Once people have met their legal obligations (say, paying taxes and obeying the law), any additional generosity is voluntary, not owed, so having more privilege does not automatically create greater moral obligations. Say, I am beautiful and you are ugly. That’s my privilege. Do I owe more than you? No. It sucks for you. Sorry but that’s life. Stop whining and keep making the best you have with your God-given privileges (maybe you are say, taller or have more money). | | |
| ▲ | otikik 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | - And remember, Peter, with great power comes great responsibility - No. It sucks for you. Sorry but that's life (Uncle Ben dies sad) | |
| ▲ | phist_mcgee 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What an odd world view. Of course the priviliged have greater social obligations, because they are greater benefactors of life. We're all equal under the law but that doesn't mean that those with greater means shouldn't have greater impacts on society. Meritocracy is often a buzzword of the elite to avoid paying their fair share. | | |
| ▲ | yamillove 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | They do have the opportunity to make greater impact. They just don’t owe you anything. You are just either jealous or privilege shaming, or just want to perpetuate victimhood. Either way, self-interest is the greatest force on earth. That’s why America is the Greatest Country on Earth, ever. | | |
| ▲ | sevenseacat 19 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > That’s why America is the Greatest Country on Earth, ever. hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahahhahahahahahahahhaahah | |
| ▲ | rbanffy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > That’s why America is the Greatest Country on Earth, ever You forgot the sarcasm tag. | | |
| ▲ | yamillove an hour ago | parent [-] | | Well, it’s the country that most people who leave their country risk their lives to move to. So at least most immigrants on earth agree with me. |
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| ▲ | Natfan 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | also the rich absolutely _do_ owe society at large something: taxes. a thing which, as you get richer, it apparently becomes optional due to financial engineering | | | |
| ▲ | Natfan 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | citation needed on that last claim. do you have universal healthcare free at point of service? do you have a healthy supply of public housing? do you let children starve, through no fault of their own but the circumstances of their birth? do you engage is ears of choice and murder 100+ innocent children in a primary school on the first day of the conflict? the answer to some of these questions should be yes, and others should be no, if you're going to make the claim that the United States of America is the "Greatest Country on Earth, Ever". | | |
| ▲ | yamillove an hour ago | parent [-] | | The greatest country on earth ever is that which most people of the world, if given a free plane ticket and permission to live in, would go to. I don’t know how you find it controversial. It’s just a fact. |
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| ▲ | phist_mcgee 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >America is the Greatest Country on Earth Yeah ok mate. Have a good one. | | |
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| ▲ | 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | eventualcomp 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why jump on the opportunity to prune reading by rejecting the lot as soon an unrelated premise you disagree with is presented? Perhaps at that point if you stop reading after the first sentence, you could churn the entire article through AI to summarize it into a single sentence, and see if the invalid premise is core to the message? |
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| ▲ | lapcat 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Why jump on the opportunity to prune reading by rejecting the lot as soon an unrelated premise you disagree with is presented? Ars Technica has already trashed its reputation with the infamous controversy over publishing AI hallucinated quotations. I couldn't decide whether the opening sentence of the submitted article was so dumb that it had to be written by AI or so dumb that it had to be written by a human, and coming to a conclusion on that question didn't seem worth it. > you could churn the entire article through AI to summarize it I don't do AI summaries, ever. |
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| ▲ | midtake 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I agree that they are intelligent, just don't know about the "definition" part. A typical Ivy Leaguer isn't a dumbass. What's wrong with calling one intelligent? Try visiting a Walmart and interacting with literally anyone. That's the average. Let's not allow our egos to gatekeep who we consider intelligent, fellow HNians. |
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| ▲ | lapcat 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > just don't know about the "definition" part Yes, that's the point. > A typical Ivy Leaguer isn't a dumbass. But that's not what the quoted sentence said. > Try visiting a Walmart and interacting with literally anyone. That's the average. I've been to Walmart. Does that make me average? (You say literally anyone.) Do you think that Ivy Leaguers never go to Walmart? > Let's not allow our egos to gatekeep who we consider intelligent, fellow HNians. You say this in the same paragraph where you rip on Walmart customers. |
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| ▲ | tangenter 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Ars Technica has gotten very bad over the years. IMHO not worth reading for many, many years now. |
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| ▲ | lifthrasiir 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Hey, a typical person should be intelligent because we human have used ourselves as a de-facto definition of intelligence anyway. That sentence probably means something like "no intellectually disabled person here". Even though we don't normally feel so because higher educations seem "typical" to us. |
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| ▲ | drdaeman 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the article used a different colloquial meaning of “intelligent”, more akin to “intellectual” (the noun), as in “well educated”. Either way, an odd statement shouldn’t normally instantly invalidate the whole article. |
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| ▲ | cyanydeez 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| technically, they invented the IQ to test their IQs so, this mighe be strictly correcg. |
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| ▲ | otikik 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| “Rich” |
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| ▲ | jimt1234 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I didn't attend an Ivy League, but I think I went to a good school. I was very nervous before I left for school - a little intimidated, so I talked to an academic mentor. He told me something I'll never forget: "You're gonna be around a lot of really smart kids. No doubt about it. But, mostly, what you're gonna find is you're surrounded by a lot of rich kids." He was 100% correct. Lots of smart kids, and lots of kids from well-to-do families. I think I met, maybe, 2 other kids that were as broke as my family. | | |
| ▲ | raddan 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | The first time I attended a selective school was graduate school. Like you, I was extremely nervous. “They’re all going to be smarter than me. I’m going to feel like an idiot.” And it turned out to be true. Many of the students I went to school with had far better preparation than I did. And not only did I feel like an idiot, another person called me an idiot in front of everyone. Suspicion confirmed. The thing is, once I accepted that, yes, maybe my preparation was worse, and that it was possible that I was admitted by mistake, I found a way forward. After all, if literally everyone is smarter than you, then in a way, you’re the luckiest person there: you’re surrounded by smart people, and almost any conversation you have with your peers will benefit YOU more than it benefits THEM. Over time, I realized that the thing that mattered most was “time on task.” Unlike my peers, who had better instruction, because they went to better schools, had private tutors, etc. I had to work for everything. And I started graduate school late: I turned 30 the year I enrolled. So I was not distracted by social events, finding a romantic partner, or deep questions like “what do I want to do with my life?” I was all-in. I may have started a bit behind, but I finished well ahead of most of my peers. I think it’s easy for students from my kind of background to wither under the pressure of an elite environment. As a faculty member, I’ve seen it happen many times, sadly. But there IS a way through it, and largely, the way forward is to value oneself, to develop one’s internal compass for good work, and to not let the social pressures overwhelm. I don’t mean to make this sound easy, but it IS possible. |
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