Well, most babies will become fresh college graduates (or not even that), so I'm not sure I really follow your line of thought.

When your kid is still a baby, you can dream that he/she will become a neurosurgeon or an astronaut. By the time the child has actually grown up and graduated with a degree in French poetry, your best hopes for them are dead.

If your best hopes for your children are their career path you are doing it wrong.

Sounds like you shouldn't have children. If all that matters to you is being an astronaut or neurosurgeon or some other high-prestige but low-happiness job then you should do it yourself and stop talking about it on the internet: don't impose your twisted moral system where you judge human worth based on wealth on an innocent child who might create beautiful art or invent something new some day.

It's the same "logic" that values a startup without a product more highly than one with a product because if the product hasn't been developed yet, it could be amazing, but if it has, then we already know its not.

Yeah, but a baby hasn't chosen a major, developed any mental illnesses, experienced any crippling trauma, or really done anything at all yet. A fresh college graduate is very often set for life when it comes to their career, brand preferences, political beliefs, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, etc. but babies have a lot more variability in terms of possible outcome.

>Yeah, but a baby hasn't chosen a major, developed any mental illnesses, experienced any crippling trauma, or really done anything at all yet.

Well, they will or they will die trying.

Thought the sample of college graduates vs. all 22 year olds are a little different.

All babies will turn into all 22 year olds. Only some babies will turn into college graduates.

Therefore some of a population, if selected artificially (i.e. college graduates) will always be better than the whole population (i.e. all babies.)

College graduates are "better" than the whole population? Wow.

I completely disagree and as a college graduate I would never say something like that.

Oh come on -- that's orthogonal to the point being made. However you define "success," it is true that some subgroup will have a higher potential of being successful than the average, i.e. all babies. Babies have the widest potential, but not the greatest potential.

Are you objecting on the grounds that this speech is offensive to non-graduates or that it's generally not the case given the context?

A test statement may be: A certain population is at the top of the IQ bell curve therefore they are smarter.

The IQ bell curve being the context.

Hate to be that person, but it is true that most babies will turn into all 22 year olds.

You are correct.

Follow the line of thought further.

Most fresh graduates also become retired seniors. All retired seniors eventually become corpses. Can you maybe see potential declining over time now?

A baby could become anyone.

It is delayed onset of buyers remorse. When you have a baby you are still shopping, you don't know what type of adult you have created yet. Sometimes you'll end up producing the person that cures cancer and have no remorse. When you're looking at the college tuition bills for your offspring that has switched their major from Psychology to Philosophy to Art History to Archaeology you start to wonder if you could have made different choices.

Not most. Only ~22% of people finish college.

But it takes a baby some 20 years just to get to the lowly college graduate stage, so...

Roughly 34% of Americans go on to complete college. Strictly and mathematically speaking, the fresh college graduates are a much better bet than babies.

College grads are a "better bet" in terms of the probability that they'll succeed, but not in terms of additional investment making a difference. Spend time or money on/with a recent college grad who's already primed to succeed, and neither you nor society will get much that you wouldn't have already. Spend that same time or money on/with a child whose mind is still malleable and whose future is still uncertain . . now you're talking about a real possibility of making a difference.

Any random baby, maybe. Also there's the issue of malleability.

I think we need to coin some new acronyms after this thread:

FCG: fresh college grads (natch) LDE: lame-duck elderlies BMPP: babies; max-potential persons

Yeah and in the meantime they need a ton of investment, might die before they even get to the age to work or turn it idiots.

Actual ability is more valuable than potential ability.