Vaniver comments on Open Thread, November 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 02 November 2012 02:11AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 08 November 2012 08:45:27PM 2 points [-]

This may be mitigated if a clade of transient elites actually takes off, with its own ingroup dynamics and everything - but I sense some internal contradictions within that idea.

It appears that this is happening among the billionaire class- residences in London, New York, and wherever else they like. It doesn't appear to be common among the millionaire class- there are a few people that have Ferris-style lifestyle businesses and travel wherever they like, but that seems like the sort of thing that is not very robust to global insecurity.

Comment author: Athrelon 08 November 2012 09:12:11PM 2 points [-]

Yeah, the billionaire class may be interesting but naturally I don't know much about it and at any rate it's mostly unattainable. The Ferris-style folks may be more interesting.

Another place to look is ethnic diasporas, but I don't really see a strong trend of ethnic ties superseding national ones. The incentives for success usually favor cultural assimilation over maintaining ethnic ties. (The aside one exception is Jews, who have some fairly unique history favoring cohesion).

Comment author: Emile 08 November 2012 09:18:49PM 3 points [-]

As an interesting aside, converting to Judaism may be one way to join something like a "clade of transient elites" (more attainable than the billionaire club, anyway).