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RE: Another word for "trust fund kid" is "gifted".
Who is "we"? I don't see higher status given to the intellectually gifted at all. Where did you get this data?
Plenty of people on Steemit are intellectually gifted but cannot even legally invest in a crowd fund because they aren't a sophisticated investor.
Status is probably the wrong term to use for this (it can mean multiple things). The form of status given to intellectual accomplishment (or potential) is much more idealized than the form of status given to people whose parents were rich.
A person with lots of money has raw power and hence "dominance" type of status, but there is what could be called "prestige" from being known as a genius. Genius (including mental traits like charisma and skills like acting, music, arts, etc) is more often seen as in the category of earned traits like hard work. At least, that is my impression of the general consensus. Haven't tried to verify with in depth research or statistics, so beware the usual bubble effects etc. It could be US specific or subculture specific -- class means something different in India or the UK, for example.
Consider that the role of a trust fund kid (without being given additional information about the person apart from that description) is to spend money, whereas that of a genius is to contribute in unique ways (in fact, they are expected to to so in order to gain money).
Most poor people I know would rather be rich than have a Phd. I don't know who you are around that would rather be the homeless person with multiple Phds.
People who are known to be geniuses in my experience just get exploited more. Same with people who are physically pretty or people who are athletes or people who can make good music. These people get exploited in various industries and while people on the outside looking in do want to be like them it is almost a credulous envy in a way.
A lot of artists, geniuses, die broke, homeless, without any true friends. A lot of famous people don't have any privacy ever. This isn't to say that people born wealthy don't have similar hardships too but the point I'm making is that people do look up to success but not everyone wants the prestige. In fact I would even argue that it's not so common to want the prestige in certain cultures which may explain why you see a lot of Nobel prize winners from some cultures more than others.
Yes winning a Nobel prize is prestigious and a lot of people want that. A lot of people also want to make millions of dollars. And I don't think more people want a Nobel prize than want to make millions.
Well, that's not something I recall claiming. I concur that most people would prefer to live a comfortable or at least tolerable life instead of being homeless, to a degree that would override a lot of other considerations including obtaining a degree. I've dropped out of college to work a job personally, so I definitely see this.
As to preferring to be very rich instead of having a degree, a big part of the charm of being rich is that you can then afford to get a degree. Most people who are rich seem to get degrees. It boosts their social standing among other rich people and lets them select more fulfilling careers.
I also think people do sometimes prefer status over money, hence the oversaturation of the fiction market, and why people often pursue humanities/liberal arts degrees instead of profitable ones like STEM or business. The "starving artist" sterotype exemplifies this.
You make good points. Although I do think people want both status and money a lot of the time. Yes I would say there are people who choose status over money and so choose high status low money career paths.
The role of a trust fund kid is to be an investor in the future (spend money wisely).
By the way you are completely right about the perception of "earned traits". People who are born with the traits to be able to be conscientious are the sort of people who are perceived as "hard working" but this conscientiousness is also a born gift just like any other talent. It's not something people create from reading a lot of books but is a personality trait which means it's part talent at least in my opinion.
I don't see conscientious people as somehow having earned their trait any more than a tall or short person earned theirs, or a person with a short temper earned theirs, it's just a trait. What matters is how they choose to use it. Also hard work or conscientiousness is actually a very common trait, but to be truly gifted at it simply means it came natural. Perhaps people who aren't born with the natural gift to be able to focus and be conscientious are earning it even more if they manage to overcome their natural state to achieve goals.
But do I think earning something vs being a gift matters? At the end of the day you control certain resources and your traits either are used well to your benefit and to the benefit of others or they aren't. A person born with grit, conscientiousness, high ability to deal with stress, all gifts which fit into the beauty standard of the current culture where the "hard worker" is valued but it 's still a beauty standard of the current culture and not of all cultures during all times in history.
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