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by s1artibartfast 534 days ago
With a lot of caveats. You are in competition with these peers for grades, college admissions, and job applications. In many cases, the benefits of actually accruing knowledge and the consequences of failure to do so is delayed decades into the future.
2 comments

It is absolutely amazing just how long some people can "fake" it. Even in jobs that you would expect needing real expertise say being a medical doctor.

And corporation can be even simpler if you get in right types of roles, where no hard skills might be needed.

AI is "faking" it when you think about it. If a machine can "fake" skills and expertise, and we can measure its ability to fake it using the Turing Test, then why can't people fake it, too?
People may be able to fake it, but the opportunity to do so may go away.

An idiot may be able to fake being a medical doctor with the right AI, but only until someone realizes they can fire the useless human.

Homework weights on grades is going to go down.

Parents income and zip codes impact educational attainment more than class rank outside of the oligarchy anyways.

Opportunity and social mobility is far more restricted in the US than most people realize.

This is in part why the college debt is problematic, valuing a piece of paper over the education itself is already a bubble that has popped.

The US is one of, if not the most, socially mobile countries in the west. Countries like the Nordics have much more equality of outcome, but the chances someone leaves the economic quintile they are born into is lower.
Paging through the Brookings document, it tracks pretty closely with what I have seen before. I dont see anything that contradicts what I have said (mobility is higher in the US than elsewhere).

1) Do you have a comparison with European countries that makes you think the US is worse?

2) What do you think US mobility numbers should look like? Pure randomness is not desirable either.