English countries like UK and USA are shaped around 'clubs'. You can only join one if you're appointed
Japan has a set of corporation leaders who exchange informations, who came from families.
And some countries like France are being weird. There, your social status isn't decided that much by your family, but by which college alumni you belong to.
As an engineer, for example, you hit a glass ceiling if you don't come from a few specific schools that have a network. Join Paris X to be in the board of a large company. Join The Mines to be a well paid engineer in these large companies. And graduate from the INSA to still be an engineer, but the proletarian kind in consulting firms, which is ironically not so bad to continue build a network.
You can't even really apply to phd either when you graduate, as you're recommended by your school researchers to other coworkers, as gifts of goodwill.
The most ridiculous is the standard to be a high ranking politicians like presidents, ministers, or CEOs. In the 20 years before 2017, they used not only have studied at the same school, the ENA, but where mostly from the same prom : 1978-1980, the (in)famous Promotion Voltaire. News articles about them are all over, but in French, because the topic interested journalists at some point. They were giving each others formal orders of merit, and they are retiring and being replaced by the Senghor prom, from 2004.
So in various contexts, 'elite' is a club you can't join because of who you are at a specific moment in time, and not just skills. It makes decisions about you, and you can't influence them.
This reliance on networks is why I don't like current social media like LinkedIn or Twitter. It just emphasizes networks, instead of allowing everyone to join and publish. And I don't like 'federated' social media either, because they're the same. I feel like even mainstream media like radio or TV allow a better blend of news, made by journalists, who can invite whoever has something interesting to say.
So for me it's an open question ! I didn't like Twitter, and I don't know what I would prefer.
Maybe I would like one of these projects that aimed to build a platform for local citizens.
Let's check out what they do in Taiwan, the digital democracy.
For context, the ÉNA was a civil service school, i.e. it was for French civil service what West point is for the US Army.
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[0] - https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-wor...
It's unsubstantiated because it's easily proven wrong. Twitter was home to Trump's presidential campaign. It's home to groups like ISIS, the Western output of the Kremlin, of the CCP, of Bolsonaro. Of Musk.
There is a point to be made about the changing role of Twitter. In my mind it is for some definition of 'elites' - but for expressing their views to their followers, not for coordinating. Sad that this opportunity to discuss such has been co-opted by conspiratorial rhetoric.
Well not necessarily. In some contexts that may be how it is used - I've heard GOP hardliners in the US using it this way. But for example the "elite" in the UK would largely refer to the right-leaning upper-class who attended "public schools" (note: discussed on HN previously, public school == very fancy, expensive, exclusive private schools) and Oxbridge, and who stumble into well-paid careers in finance and politics. I wouldn't say religion is a big part of it - both Jacob Rees-Mogg (Catholic) and Rishi Sunak (Hindu) would be considered members of the "elite", but their religious beliefs are orthogonal to their place on the class hierarchy.
The best answer I saw in this thread was from "bakuninsbart" but it was downvoted and appeared in greytext so many won't have seen it: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bakuninsbart
Elite can also mean a person or group of people that is better at something than others, there's some obvious overlap with the definition above, but it is less useful in the context of political elites, which we are mostly talking about in the context of Twitter.
The President of the US / any country on earth is an "Elite". Despite many claiming to fight against the Elites.
> Trump famously was never really a part of the NYC wealthy elite
However, he clearly was part of the NYC wealthy elite. His towers would get planning permission, politicians lobbied on his behalf, he was in Whos Who, he was invited to the Met Gala every year.
The richest people in the world ... but not the ones that agree with me?
The politicians ... but not the ones on my side?
The athletes ... except for my team?