Now that I think about it, I haven't even seen a case made for strong economic support for intelligent poor children.
Does there need to be a case made for that? This seems like one of the earliest identified reasons for redistributing wealth. You had people and organizations sponsoring poor talented youth and this being considered virtuous since ancient Greece. And the reform of education and welfare in the 19th and 20th century often emphasized this example, thought they may not have always done much about it.
In Slovenia at least we have scholarships handed out to people who preform very well on aptitude tests, is this something that doesn't happen as reliably in the US?
In Slovenia at least we have scholarships handed out to people who preform very well on aptitude tests, is this something that doesn't happen as reliably in the US?
Several states have merit-based scholarships (though these usually require performance in classes as well as aptitude tests, so there is a conscientiousness element as well as an intelligence element). I myself am going to university on a Bright Future scholarship. However, my impression is that federal need-based aid is a lot more common than state merit-based aid.
A long blog post explains why the author, a feminist, is not comfortable with the rationalist community despite thinking it is "super cool and interesting". It's directed specifically at Yvain, but it's probably general enough to be of some interest here.
http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/
I'm not sure if I can summarize this fairly but the main thrust seems to be that we are overly willing to entertain offensive/taboo/hurtful ideas and this drives off many types of people. Here's a quote:
The author perceives a link between LW type open discourse and danger to minority groups. I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Take race. Many LWers are willing to entertain ideas about the existence and possible importance of average group differences in psychological traits. So, maybe LWers are racists. But they're racists who continually obsess over optimizing their philanthropic contributions to African charities. So, maybe not racists in a dangerous way?
An overly rosy view, perhaps, and I don't want to deny the reality of the blogger's experience. Clearly, the person is intelligent and attracted to some aspects of LW discourse while turned off by other aspects.