How the Ivy League Broke America

The age of the Well-Bred Man was vanishing. The age of the Cognitive Elite was here.

Being smart doesn’t mean that you’re willing to try on alternative viewpoints, or that you’re comfortable with uncertainty, or that you can recognize your own mistakes. It doesn’t mean you have insight into your own biases. In fact, one thing that high-IQ people might genuinely be better at than other people is convincing themselves that their own ... See more

Waldsterben , or “forest death.”

We need to stop treating people as brains on a stick and pay more attention to what motivates people: What does this person care about, and how driven are they to get good at it? We shouldn’t just be looking for skillful teenage test-takers; we want people with enough intrinsic desire to learn and grow all the days of their life.

One observational study that followed four children between the ages of 14 months and 5 years found that they made an average of 107 inquiries an hour.

The University of Pennsylvania psychologist and political scientist Philip E. Tetlock has found that experts are generally terrible at making predictions about future events. In fact, he’s found that the more prominent the expert, the less accurate their predictions. Tetlock says this is because experts’ views are too locked in—they use their knowl... See more

As the education scholar Todd Rose writes in The End of Average, this system is built upon “the paradoxical assumption that you could understand individuals by ignoring their individuality.”

“If someone truly is creative and inspiring,” they write, “it will show up in how they allocate their spare time.” In job interviews, the authors advise hiring managers to ask, “What are the open tabs on your browser right now?”

These results suggest that sometimes talent inheres in the team, not the individual. In an effective meritocracy, we’d want to find people who are fantastic team builders, who have excellent communication and bonding skills. Coaches sometimes talk about certain athletes as “glue guys,” players who have that ineffable ability to make a team greater ... See more

I once asked a tech CEO how he hires people. He told me that after each interview, he asks himself, “Is this person a force of nature? Do they have spark, willpower, dedication?” A successful meritocracy will value people who see their lives as a sacred mission