there’s a far more interesting conversation to be had about how insane it is to send sheltered and underprepared aspirant class girls into environments like UF where they will immediately be confronted with access to every possible folly and vice imaginable

I think one element of why asians and increasingly yuppie striver whites have such abysmal replacement rates is that they had so much responsibility as kids and so little time for themselves, they don't want to do anything for anyone else as an adult - least of all raise a kid in conditions that if anything will be harder than they went through to succeed. They also don't have a lot of joyful memories of childhood because of it; their inner child is hurting, it's not a world they want to revisit I'm grateful, though academic excellence was important in my family, it never got to striver level. I did meet many people at UPenn who grew up with it though. They either had non-existent personalities or began to crash out once they left parental supervision. That's why there's so much mental health focus at these schools these days; the game doesn't produce healthy people. And university is only the first striver benchmark not the last. Then there's the companies you get into, the grad schools... that's why I bailed at going to Cornell Law at the last minute and decided to ultimately take the unconventional (but freeing) path I did in business. I realized the expectations would never stop.. I'd have to be in the top third of the class so I could get the right firms, then I'd have to work 80+ hour weeks for years at those firms to pay off debt or move laterally, even if I didn't want to go for partner. Years would blow by, opportunities to LIVE would be missed. I know, because I've worked with guys who also grew up in this ecosystem and while they are successful financially, their emotional lives have suffered tremendously for it. They're playing major catch up in love a decade or more late This is why I consider it one of the worst cultural phenomena we've imported; it's terrible for the soul and kills risk-taking and creativity. Your mind is trained to perform under external pressure for standard, not based on exerting Will to express your own values and vision. The only "good" thing about how pervasive it's become this past decade is that it has gotten so bad it's forced myself and others to abandon any consideration of putting our kids in this pipeline; we are starting fresh from first principles and homeschooling. There is so much competition now for such few slots, you just get less juice than ever for the squeeze of participating in the prestige funnel. It's not worth it - your kids have a better chance of success if you teach them how to reason, to be bold & agentic, and creative - especially with AI to now back them up.

Books that arrived in my life when I needed them to