doctors
wall street quants, traders
intellectual property lawyer
upper level corporate manager
owner of medium of information exchange or market

whereas in the past economic rent was more correlated with ownership

landlord
oil well owner
factory owner

and so ‘smart people’ had less of an advantage when it came to economic rent.

does your answer depend on this?

If we estimate that, on average, each new person makes the world better, then I might choose to have more children. Or I might encourage others to have more, or support government policies which increase population growth. Of course, these aren’t the only things to consider.

They do both, there’s no way to measure either, and absolutely no way to compare the two.

My best estimate is that new folks on average help, but I can’t be very sure.

I’m glad you’re not sure, because I can’t imagine how on earth you arrived at the conclusion in the first place.

If this line of thought is true, what difference does that make to anything? If it isn’t true, what difference does that make to anything? Explanations welcome, because I’m not one of the smart people.

It seems like smart people today are less likely to be doing something economically productive than they were in the past. It may be one of the problems with places like Africa is that the highest status jobs are essentially concerned with redistributing wealth created by others (often to one’s self). The same thing may be happening in America. There are few positions in private enterprise as prestigious as working in a University, for a think tank, at a non-profit, etc, or for certain parts of the beaurocracy (State, DOJ (not including FBI), etc.). Meanwhile, CEOs are villified, and middle management is a source of ridicule. There are hardly any “captains of industry” that are held in high regard. Steve Jobs may be an exception, but I think this may be because computers are associated with “science” which held in high regard. Perhaps some of these former positions contribute to growth, but as I believe Robin has pointed out before, most growth comes from marginal improvements in the process, not from R and D or “science”. So perhaps, the smart people are capable of becoming more parasitic than the dumb people.

It’s not who makes more mistakes, but who recognizes when a mistake is made.

Again, Paul Krugman does a better job explaining than I do. He has charts!

I also very much question whether the average or below are likely to be gainfully employed much less more likely than the bright. It has been variously estimated that as much as 50% of the population in developed countries is either directly paid by government, receives more handouts than it pays in or otherwise a net drain on the society by consuming much more than they produce. So mere increase in numbers is not an unmitigated good except perhaps that the hyper-productive relatively rare individuals are more numerous in a larger sample set.

Is there any actual data or is this just pure wool gathering?