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Posted by G lib on 2005-03-03 16:50:41 +0000

"Good Genes.com"

As usual, Dawn and LadewTangClan are battling it out about Red vs. Blue, elitism, and newspaper opinion pieces. As an alternative to that, PChippy and I spent our pre-work coffee-sipping-time discussing an advertisement for a company we heard about on NPR--[url=http://www.goodgenes.com/]Good Genes.com[/url]. Their motto: "GoodGenes.com is an exclusive online introduction service. Our mission is to help Ivy Leaguers and similarly well-educated graduates and faculty find others with matching credentials. We introduce people who enjoy sharing thoughts, opinions and quality time." Well, you can guess what I think about this... Once we took a step back, it was fodder for some interesting discussion, such as:
1. Dubs would be a candidate for goodgenes.com. His daddy greased some palms to get him into an Ivy, his daddy was Ivy, his granddaddy was Ivy, and so on and so forth. Because he's a dummy, does this mean that their premise has holes? 2. True wealth in the US certainly stays within families, if the children aren't too dumb/too altruistic to hang on to it. 3. Elitism is certainly not reserved for red staters, and the truly elite (including those people the people who qualify for this online dating service) are more likely blue staters-- the red staters are just the ones that are unabashadly hoping to be elite one day and have their children qualify for goodgenes.com. 4. What kind of person would sign up for this? I would love to meet one and find out what it's like. 5. Because I went to a state school and my sister went to a qualifying goodgenes.com college, what does that make us? 6. Does the line of what schools qualify get fuzzy after a while? I might even have other topics to think about after lunch.

Posted by MrChuckles on 2005-03-03 18:03:40 +0000
Well, I certainly won't be signing up now that I know that "Illinois Institute of Technology" qualifies. I mean, just think what they would say at the club.. http://www.goodgenes.com/Pages2/schools.shtml

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-03-03 19:18:58 +0000
Squaredating.com and rightstuff.com have been doing this same thing for years as well...

Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-03-03 20:21:10 +0000
Michigan is in! Yes!

Posted by tgl on 2005-03-03 20:54:58 +0000
What about grade inflation? Is a B student from Amherst as desireable as an A- student from Harvard?

Posted by rladew on 2005-03-03 21:20:56 +0000
UMASS and UNH are out! Good! Just because My diploma doesn't have "Ralph Lauren" on it... Im an inbred mountain person.... _______________________________

Posted by MrChuckles on 2005-03-03 22:44:37 +0000
F Middlebury.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-03-04 01:15:50 +0000
I'm an inbred mountain person, and Midd was in...

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-03-04 01:17:10 +0000
Or a C+ at Middlebury... except the theatre department...

Posted by tgl on 2005-03-04 14:08:41 +0000
Mr. Chuckles must be a Williams grad...

Posted by tgl on 2005-03-04 14:09:57 +0000
As we're scrutinizing the list, and talking about grade point, I'm wondering your GPA is indeed used in the application process.

Posted by Miriam on 2005-03-04 19:09:06 +0000
Guess I should sign up since Brandeis qualifies. Wonder how they feel about Jews at Goodgenes? Or a Jew who studied Islam at a majority Heeb university? Maybe I'm not really that smart!

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-03-04 20:40:19 +0000
Ah, the original T-shirt circa 1978: "Williams Sucks" on the front, "Amherst Swallows."

Posted by frame609 on 2005-03-05 05:06:30 +0000
If UNH had been acceptable, I betcha my 2.6 GPA and 5.5 years would have been stunners.

Posted by pchippy on 2005-03-16 17:59:42 +0000
What really bothers me most about this particular outfit is not that it's elitist. I mean, OK, the elitism is a little offensive, but everyone likes to hang out with people who resemble themselves, right? The really irritating thing is the name: "GOOD GENES." Unlike "The Right Stuff," which leaves vague and unspecified just what makes the difference between themselves and everyone else, "Good Genes" implies that the educational, social, and financial successes of its members are due to an inherent biological superiority and not to the various educational, social, and financial advantages the members enjoyed in their various upbringings. How about a little humility, folks? -p chippy [who is very smart, but who knows better than to assume he owes whatever success he attains in life to his own inherent abilities and not to his middle-class background, his WASPy name, and his happy childhood in a stable home with two college-educated parents...]

Posted by tgl on 2005-03-17 04:05:42 +0000
*SLAP* from the Chipster.

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