This was another stupid section of a debate. It’s not worth reading, but because I wrote a lot of shit it’s worth archiving here. I’ll try and turn it into a better set of articles later.
Thanks bro for a well thought out reply. Let’s use a couple good buzz words. There is a very very high amount of correlation between IQ and success in life. Pretty obvious right? If you are smarter and can think quickly you can learn things quickly and succeed with high paying jobs that require on-the-fly decision making. Problem is that you can’t do anything to increase your IQ, all you can do is prevent a loss of it. And the only things you can do to prevent that loss are avoiding lead paint and making sure you aren’t raised in a dark hole with no input. Dammit, that sucks. However there is a second trait highly correlated with success in life, and this is all before you even factor in any real knowledge or career path choices. Conscientiousness. And that can definitely be cultivated, especially during your formative years. The only curriculum that matters is one rooted in struggle, discipline, and proper socialization. I don’t have any kids nor am I really qualified to provide you with any advice, but I have definitely thought about this more than most. Step 1 is obviously providing a stimulating upbringing with consistency. Step 2 is making sure you don’t have any lead based paint. That’ll cover IQ. It’ll be as high as it can be. Next you need to instill as much conscientiousness as humanly possible. That means lots and lots of hard work. No matter what the work is, make it challenging and tedious. Make the work itself into a reward system. Insure your child can sit still and accomplish tasks as early as possible with little to no complaining. During that time make sure you let your kids be social with other kids. Everything I’ve read is that you have between the ages of 2 and 4 to make sure your kid knows how to play properly. Make sure your kid sticks to rules of games, and can lose gracefully. Make sure other kids want to play with your kid.
People in life with both High IQ (or at least medium+) and high conscientiousness are powerhouses of success and will be awesome no matter what they are up against. As soon as these kids hit formal schooling they will be a force to be reckoned with. Make sure at this point you provide your kid with all kinds of extra stuff to do, since the public school system won’t be near enough. Final bit of advice, no matter what you do, make sure the kid does all his work “the long way” His/her high IQ and conscientiousness will mean that tests will be easily passed and that he’ll easily find quick paths to answers. He’ll blaze through homework in minutes when it should take hours. This mindset completely screws the kid over later in life when he has to “pay the piper”.
Ok, let’s talk about “class stratification”. You aren’t really correct when you say that people end up like their parents. Your parents don’t even end up like your parents statistically. While the strata are definitely real, the people in them constantly shift. I don’t mean casually. I mean that if you are poor now, there is a very good chance you will be wealthy/much less poor/etc at some point and vice verse. Nearly 90% of America will shift over 20 percentage points in their life. The top 1% is constantly shifting around. The bottom rarely stays at the bottom generationally. Wealthy families are statistically non existent and can’t hold onto their money for more than 2.5 generations. Also (I’m sure you know) that the poorest people in America are some of the wealthiest people on earth, and easily the wealthiest in history. I am assuming you are in the US with a decently nice computer and broadband internet. That means you are doing a hell of a job! I do a lot of financial ranting on social media, at least lately. I retired at 37, and I get asked very often how I did it. I can promise you this: there is really only one rule you need to follow to become very wealthy. Don’t buy dumb shit. If you follow this rule, and have a “career” instead of a McJob, you can accumulate a massive amount of resources in between 10 and 20 years time. I have done this math in other posts and I’m happy to break it all down for you if you like. And I’m not even slightly joking about this either. This boggles people’s minds, but the only things you need to become wealthy are time and discipline.
If I were to make a change to the public school systems, I’d completely deregulate them 100% and insure they were 100% decentralized. I’d let each school do whatever it wanted with each kid. With any markets you’d have a bell curve. You’d have a few very good ones, and a few very bad ones, and most of them would be pretty good as opposed to pretty bad because at least they were competing. You’d have a bell curve of school consumers too. You’d have a few willing to send their kid to the best ones no matter the cost. You’d have a ton of people picking within 2-3 schools which are all about the same. And you’d have a bottom group that didn’t give a crap and sent their kids to the most convenient and cheapest one possible. Yeah, in my model some kids get screwed on this deal, I suppose. But are they really fully screwed? Just because you went to a bad primary school doesn’t mean your life is over. Are you not a good person because you didn’t go to the harvard of elementary schools? What if you only make 35k instead of 100k as a result. Is that really a crime against humanity? The worst off people in america are still living in paradise.