Comment by CSMastermind

It's wonderful that the American elite has broadened as much as it has in the past 70 years or so. With it though there was some load bearing social infrastructure that got demolished.

When it was a little club, you had to think of your family's reputation in the club, and like you say there was a particular framework of their morality.

When the elite franchise was expanded, one problem was that everyone in the elite then had different ideas of morality. When they got into business, the only thing that really united everyone was that they all liked money.

One thing that used to help that we've lost is a moral code in the universities that elites have to attend to get into the club now.

Another thing, after it became illegal to teach the bible in public schools, was "secular bible stories." You had secular saints, like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ben Franklin. They each had a characteristic story, like George Washington and the cherry tree, Abraham Lincoln walking 10 miles to return 2 cents, and Ben Franklin flying a kite and discovering that lightning was electricity. Later on, MLK was added to the canon for a whole bunch of stories of courage in defense of justice. All of the stories had a moral lesson about what it meant to be a Good American.

Lately we've cancelled most of our secular saints, and my guess is that the few that are left are on borrowed time. That's not to say that these guys never did anything wrong by any means, but the point of teaching the story wasn't even necessarily even that the story actually happened exactly as it was told, the point was the moral lesson. We've basically just given up on moral education, and all we have left are things like Social Emotional Learning, but it is thin gruel.

Egalitarian?

Let me explain healthcare right now.

To get into a radiation tech program, there are 260 applicants, almost all with all As, for 20 slots at my local community college.

Maybe in the very first instant you’d think it’s merit based. But, EVERYONE is playing the game. Getting homework and tests from friends who already took the class, taking classes at several different schools to get the easier teachers, paying multiple times the tuition cost on tutors and other study aides (eg $2k+ for all the anatomy models), every demographic is using paid ChatGPT. We all know which teachers to take. We spend much of class strategizing like this.

Every single student. It’s just another game to play or you lose.

I'm skeptical that it is really more egalitarian in practice, anyways.

There is still a lot of bias and in -group preferences present in hiring. Not to mention that most places will weight candidates who are recommended by employees higher than unconnected external applicants. That might be a reasonable filter but it unquestionably is not egalitarian

That's probably the reference I meant.

You haven't explain how elite overproduction relates to what we've been talking about, namely, the shift from a hereditary or class-based elite to a meritocratic elite.

I'm interested in discussion around "high trust societies" and I look for clues because I want to live in one.

Here is just an example of one: Moving from Brooklyn to a small surbuban town:

- very few lock their bikes at the local schools, or "town center". Bikes aren't stolen and kids don't worry about it.

- "town center" has umbrellas out for public use, people use them and put them back.

- People generally don't lock front doors, or don't worry if they aren't.

- If there are problems, people call police, they show up quick [non emergency] and they sort out the problem.

- People happy to pay taxes and they know where it goes

I can go on... these are just examples I've seen.

Did you go to Princeton, or similar university with a honor code?

I think Trump is an exception, a cult leader in the worst place possible.

The elite in-group trust hypothesis would however explain Musk sustaining an unreasonable Tesla share price in the face of falling sales, delayed launches to the extent competitors pre-empt him on his own announcements, and political toxicity to the extent his showrooms got smashed up and burned.

> It's people who stopped believing anyone was watching.

Which, in the era of social media, video surveillance, smartphones and dashcams, is crazy. Once you leave your home, you have to assume everything you do is recorded and might end up online or in court.

These sort of unmanned roadside stands are all over the southern US.

Literally bought pumpkins to carve, firewood for the stove, and a carton of eggs from unmanned ‘honor system’ roadside stands last year. All three made it easy, venmo code posted, boop, on your way.

Something tells me this trust evaporated once the Vietnam War was in full swing and the USA started murdering labor activists in South America.

Being a high trust society isn’t the same thing as being a fully egalitarian society.

Getting to “high trust for the majority” is the 0 to 1 of civilizational development. Most societies never get there—they’re low trust for everyone.

What do you think my username mean? Some kind of a dog whistle? In reality it is me misremembering 196884 from monstrous moonshine.

Sort of, but there's a difference, the rise in anti-shoplifting stuff is in contrast to a decline in things like burglar bars. Stealing from residential property is seen as mostly the domain of drug addicts. Stealing from a multi-national corporation doesn't have the same stigma.

It is most definitely disputable that it destroy social cohesion. The US was cohesive after WWII, by that point we already had a LOT of non-white people. Also black Americans have been here since the start.

Tell that to Hawaii. Your whole argument is destroyed by Hawaii’s culture. America (the continent) is broken socially because American whites cannot get along with others and they’ve gone mask off, destroying the cohesion we once had when they were trying to seem less hateful.

you're just racist

Chicken or the egg: multiculturalism doesn’t work or multiculturalism doesn’t work because assholes treat people with different cultures like shit.

Also what’s the definition of multiculturalism? Can orthodox Christians be chill with Catholics? How about Japanese with Korean?

Stupid shit.

Also what’s your definition of white? Does it include Mediterranean climates? Fair-skinned Arabs? How about the Irish? What about a French citizen born in Morocco who has a passing French accent but is fluent in Arabic, but isn’t Muslim - is he white?

Can’t believe in the year of our lord 2026 we’ve still got buffoons writing shit like this in earnest.

I think he is alluding to increased immigration from low-trust cultures. Many of these visitors who were granted asylum or student stays are by now fully Canadian. So yes, Canadians.