Completely faulty premise. The British Empire was already globally dominant before the Victorian era. You cannot attribute success nor failure to something that came after the fact; I suppose the Victorian elites were not time travelers. That the Empire has since collapsed does not give an especially strong vote of confidence in their stewardship, however.

Moreover, the article presupposes the notion that STEM is associated with "success", but it has never been associated with the elite in any capacity. Generously, STEM might be considered elite for a peasant. Let us not forget who the current US president is, or the general makeup of both the American and British political systems. Hint: it's not composed of scientists and engineers.

This really is the takeaway for me. The elites of the Empire come off as lazy and ignorant even when Britain has a massive massive technological lead from the work of organizations like the Royal Society.

The scientific advantage was enormous, and it seems like virtually none of these elites bothered to study the sciences. During that era, the elites of other countries were far, far more ignorant. Compare the socializing and partying of the Victorians with the opium addicted and superstitious Manchurian Emperors of China or the hereditary inbred nobility of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they come off as absolutely industrious.

Yeah, exactly. British power came from technological advancements that occurred before the Victorian era: steam engine, spinning jenny, railways, electricity, etc. By the time the elite depicted in this article was running the country, they were largely inheriting that technological lead, and arguably had already lost it by the turn of the 20th century.

Disclosure: I did not read the whole thing. I, too, felt the premise was faulty and not worth reading beyond.

First paragraph: "Once adulthood is reached, life follows an austere pattern, with a 5am start, cold baths, daily visits to the gym, little or no alcohol, a Huel-rich diet, and Stakhanovite working hours. This last point generates particular excitement, and descriptions of powerful people dwell with eager fascination on how many hours they devote to their labors."

Why are we taking the CEOs words at face value? They are notoriously known for doing and saying whatever will most help them succeed. Do they say they do these things? Sure. Do we know if they do? If they look like they workout, they probably do, but otherwise how do we know what they do with their day? Anyone who probably actually does know probably has to sign some crazy NDA. Will lying about their routine help them succeed? Quite possibly. CEOs rarely work their way up in the same company over decades, starting on the factory floor. They are MBAs that hop from one company to the next. So they are incentivized to promote some kind of mystique about themselves to make them seem more deserving over the next hopper. Knowing the lack of ethics associated with CEOs, it is not a stretch to assume there is a lot of fluffery in their self-proclaimed routine.

The Empire ended far after the end of the Victorian age.

you're missing the point: this is a submarine propaganda piece to get the STEM nerds to low-key accept aristocracy

been seein a lot of it lately, yarvin eat your fuckin heart out

Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, both trained engineers albeit ideologues, just received leadership roles at the pentagon

Who is it sitting with Donald Trump at regular meetings? Who is it who was just put in charge of the American Military?

Are you really sure of what you are saying?