You're not here to fish for acceptance by pleasing people in random positions of prestige. If you feel inferior, the quest is to learn to ignore it and find your own worth yourself. Then nothing can make you feel like crap because you know better anyway. Nobody needs to feel like crap because he didn't go to institution X, Y, or Z. (And because of many other things as well.)

You also don't need each and every possible advantage to yourself as if you couldn't make it otherwise. You just need enough and if you know enough to be able to help people, you'll surely get them.

Examples include credential requirements for many different occupations, licensing laws, and job eligibility.

Of course, there are also the more "unofficial" effects of these policies. Credentialism is widespread in society thanks in no small part to the massive, state-funded school system.

Either you're speaking metaphorically or you're pushing some crank theory, I can't tell which.

"A title of nobility grants special legal privileges to an individual at the expense of the rest of the people."

If you have a different definition, that's fine, of course. Then we're just down to semantics, and I guess you could say I'm speaking metaphorically. But I hope you're not just excluding certain titles because they don't fit the preconceived idea of a title of nobility in most people's minds.

Inventing a deliberately weak definition and declaring victory isn't an especially effective or honest debating tactic.

I'm not the first person to use such a definition. Here is one from over a century ago, from an opinion in a court case from Alabama:

"To "confer a title of nobility" is to nominate to an order of persons to whom privileges are granted at the expense of the rest of the people. It is not necessarily hereditary, and the objection to it arises more from the privileges supposed to be attached than to the otherwise empty title or order. Horst v. Moses, 48 Ala. 129, 142."

Again, if you have a different definition, fine. But don't accuse me of being dishonest when it's quite clear mine is at least as valid.

Incidentally, "nominate to an order of persons" is probably the operative text there, and is something that you probably neglected to include in your earlier definition. I do not think that Alabama court of a century ago, or indeed the drafters of the Constitution, intended university degrees to count as a title of nobility. Especially since many of them founded universities themselves.

As for the rest of your post, it no longer seems relevant.

Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness.

Or, in other words (since you are no doubt preparing to quibble that you weren't acting particularly smug), the onus is on you to clearly communicate your argument, and using phrases like "titles of nobility were supposed to be abolished" and then not answering my objections about the Constitutional text that did, in fact, abolish titles of nobility impeded getting your point across, rather than helping. You give the distinct impression that you're blaming me for misunderstanding what you so poorly communicated in the first place.

If your argument is simply that college degrees are anti-egalitarian, I will happily agree with you. But our society wasn't meant to be legally egalitarian in the first place. It had slavery. I'm also happy to point out that it's not possible to even have pure egalitarianism, which is one reason why meritocracy is so much better. (You will undoubtedly counter that reliance upon college degrees is not efficiently meritocratic, but see? Now we've got ourselves a truly interesting and worthwhile discussion.)

There is also the alternate hypothesis that whenever I debunk your argument, you start pretending you meant something entirely different from the outset. But I am choosing to be charitable and assuming you simply miscommunicated what you meant in the first place.

This seems to be a habit of yours, because even in this post, twice you claim that I'm "undoubtedly" about to respond in a certain way. Perhaps if you read what I write without jumping to conclusions about what must be in my head, this would be more productive.

"our society wasn't meant to be legally egalitarian in the first place. It had slavery."

You appear to continue with your US-centric perspective here. And even with that perspective, so what? The fact that it had slavery sounds like a good reason not to take what was "meant" as gospel.

As for legal egalitarianism being impossible, that's certainly not true. I'm not sure why you believe that.

In particular, the onus is on you to clearly define what "legal egalitarianism" means, why college degrees violate that principle, and why we should care. That's an honest discussion. Trying to cleverly redefine terms like "nobility" isn't.

For example, imagine that universities can no longer confer the noble title of medical doctor. How shall I determine who to select to remove my gallbladder?

Or, perhaps you prefer some sort of alternative medicine. Using whatever criteria you choose, you are allowed to have a procedure done regardless of whether or not your doctor has a title. After all, the majority is wrong sometimes.

Second (but related to the first difference), the main problem with a title of nobility is that it grants legal privileges, thereby erecting legal barriers for others. That doesn't happen in this scenario.

  > First, there isn't any reason there would only be one
  > ratings organization, one insurance company, and one Yelp
  > for-doctors. You would be able to reject or accept the
  > rating of any person or organization, and so would  
  > everyone else.

Now, as for your point about eliminating the legal barriers to practice-- ie anyone can practice medicine-- while removing licensing would eliminate direct legal action (ie no going to jail for practicing medicine without a license) I think it would instead lead to increased civil suits. Consider: right now if a licensed physician is prone to malpractice or has other deficiencies they are forbidden from practicing. This can happen without anyone being actually harmed. On the other hand, if a physician gets bad ratings from yelp-for-doctors then they just need to find uninformed consumers or at least people who chose to disregard those ratings. When members of the public are inevitably harmed by poor doctoring they will have no legal recourse but to sue the doctor. True, they could avoid going to that particular doctor again, but the damage is already done. I'm not sure if we actually want more lawsuits to be brought against professionals-- it may end up making the cost of their services even more expensive than they are now, wiping out any cost savings from them not having to go to school and become licensed.

I guess my point is that there is no free lunch: guilds and professional societies are ancient institutions and they enjoy legal status in recognition for the useful role that they have in serving society. It may be fun to speculate what would happen if they vanished but don't be surprised if the institutions that arise to replace them necessarily gain the properties of the original institutions.

I know you're speculating, but I don't think that's realistic. For that to happen, people would have to unanimously agree on a single rating mechanism.

As for doctors, their guild gives us a great example of what actually happens when guilds enjoy special legal status. Guilds and professional societies work to restrict entry into their fields, in order to prop up their own salaries. When they do this, they usually claim they are simply ensuring high quality.

Many? I can come up with law, medicine, professional engineer, architect, and CPA. What else do you have in mind?

Note that the vast majority of engineers aren't licensed....

Licensing laws cover plumbers, electricians, massage therapists,barbers, air conditioning contractors, auctioneers, boxing (judges, promoter, referees, boxers themselves, managers), cosmetologist(and their schools), tow truck drivers, moving companies, temp agencies, elevator contractors and inspectors.

Yes, let's. One of the claims was that there were credential requirements for many different occupations. (Licensing for other things is a separate claim.) I've listed a couple of examples and we're nowhere near many.

I'm perfectly willing to agree that state imposed licensing is widespread, but that's a separate claim. I note that licensing is largely independent of public supported schools.

I don't think this is an exclusively libertarian issue. Your original question could be generalized to include all titles of nobility, and that seems relevant because one of the purposes of such titles is to make titleholders feel superior, thereby making others feel inferior. In other words, you don't have to be a libertarian to oppose titles of nobility.