8 ms·

He ends up a 60 year old truck driver and the person he was switched with is the president of a real estate company - and meanwhile we pretend western society i

He ends up a 60 year old truck driver and the person he was switched with is the president of a real estate company - and meanwhile we pretend western society is mostly meritocratic.

forkLding 9y ago
Lets be real, western society is not perfect nor meritocratic. Its why we say networking and connections are still important for your career. Many kids just go to the same companies their parents go to (if their parents are high-up VPs) and receive great internships or positions. You're not going to expect a Rockefeller to die from poverty right?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- eanzenberg 9y ago
  Let’s be real, the western world is the most meritocratic. I don’t know anyone working at their parents company and I’ve met easily >200 people with about a quarter of them in high positions VP+ and all of them with great high paying careers.
  - marnett 9y ago
    what is the percentage of high net-worth individuals who earned their wealth vs. inherited it?
  - forkLding 9y ago
    Most meritocratic doesn't mean its very meritocratic, its really been 50-70 years since females got the vote, if we were so meritocratic maybe females would be getting equal pay by now. Just because you're a goose among chicken doesn't mean you're perfect. And for those complaining that its not real that women are being paid less in similar positions and its situational, if there wasn't data then nobody would be complaining. Things only start because theres a reason or agenda for starting.
    - eanzenberg 9y ago
      Women are getting equal pay when normalized to experience. I think it's within 2-5%. Or do you expect equal pay for same amount of time worked?
      - forkLding 9y ago
        Heres my sources: https://nwlc.org/resources/faq-about-the-wage-gap/ https://nwlc.org/resources/faq-about-the-wage-gap/ Meritocracy would mean disregarding skin colour, background and gender in my book. I would like your sources and stats
        eanzenberg 9y ago
        Your analysis and link proves my point. When accounting for job title there is virtually no pay gap. You cannot compare just the salaries when many women choose to stay home and enter the workforce years later. That makes no sense.
        forkLding 9y ago
        This is a prolonged internet argument, which is really just wasted time, I need your figures, using my data is just lazy without pinpointing where the "accounting for job title there is virtually no pay gap" comes from. Lets use Wall Street Journal data then, they're a reputable source no? This one examines using specific job titles: http://graphics.wsj.com/gender-pay-gap/ http://graphics.wsj.com/gender-pay-gap/ And give me actual links and sources or else your argument is invalid without evidence, if you don't have any data or evidence backing me up, I can move on and ignore you as a troll without data.
ars 9y ago
> and meanwhile we pretend western society is mostly meritocratic. Japanese society is much less meritocratic than US society. They prize conformity far far more than the US/Europe does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(Japanese_culture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(Japanese_culture) This result is actually entirely expected given their culture.
- bbctol 9y ago
  What does conformity have to do with meritocracy? They seem orthogonal.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    And how measure a societies level of either. Few would disagree that conformity was stronger in Japan than the US, but it’s got to be hard to measure.
  - alexbeloi 9y ago
    Stability is a more appropriate term. Japanese culture values stability very highly. People in this thread believe this kind of stability results in low economic mobility. In the US, people associate high economic mobility with meritocracy. There's a couple leaps to be made in both associations, but I think that's what the gist is.
  - ars 9y ago
    You have to conform to the "life plan" of your station, what your parents expect, what they raise you to, what your peers (from a similar background) are doing. From the wiki: "prefer the continuation of a harmonious community over their personal interests". That's directly opposed to meritocracy.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Conformity has nothing to do meritocracy? Besides I know that mobility and meritocracy don't map perfectly but Japan is actually a society with more intergenerational mobility than the US and about half of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve#/media/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve#/media/File...
jacquesm 9y ago
Is Japan part of Western Society?
- neaden 9y ago
  I would say yes, post WW2. It's a wealthy capitalistic representative democracy which seems to be what people say when they mean "the West", at least in terms of economics and meritocracy.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    I'm inclined to say yes as well, but it really depends on what aspect of its society we're referring to.
- titanix2 9y ago
  No. For two reasons: first talking of the "West Society" as a single entity doesn’t make sense. There are multiples societies such as the Fench, the German, the US ones which have common traits but also some differences. You could however put them under the concept of Western civilization. Secondly, Japan is very different from the West. Not so much about the institutions which were calqued on Europeans ones after the war, but because of how people think. Having living there speaking a bit of the language, it is a totally different world with different values and most people are just fine living in their country and nor caring about the West or any foreign countries.
- patio11 9y ago
  If you can describe a dividing line for Western society which puts Japan on the outside and all of the Pope, Barack Obama, all members of Congress, Hawaii, Ireland, and France on the inside, you’d get a really good East Asian Studies paper out of it. If your definition of Western society excludes any group in that second set, it is clearly a useless definition. (Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: yes. One has to be mendacious about definitions to come to any other result.)
jstanley 9y ago
This happened in Japan. You can't get much less "West"!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  "West" is frequently used to mean "developed world". Same goes for Australia/New Zealand, for example.
- spinlock 9y ago
  I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed that. It's amazing how oblivious some people are to their bias.
- marnett 9y ago
  21st century Japan is most certainly in "The West."
cdoxsey 9y ago
This story doesn't undermine the idea of meritocracy. A rich child may end up a rich adult and a poor child a poor adult purely because of nepotism, with the two individuals being roughly the same in terms of skills and abilities. But another explanation is that the rich child ends up a rich adult because his rich parents actually instill more merit in the child and he ends up with more skills and abilities. In the latter case the standard could still be meritocratic. I think there's truth on both sides - things like growing up in an intact family, or learning the value of thrift, are going to inevitably lead to better outcomes for the child - but I think there's also a whole lot of unmeritocratic signaling (who you know, where you went to school, etc) and on the reverse side, measures to prevent people from getting ahead (regressive taxation, poor schools, etc)
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  If your merit is dependent on your parents instilling that merit in you it's hard to say it's merit at all, it had nothing to do with you, just the environment you happened to be born into.
  - yathern 9y ago
    If merit is independent of your upbringing - the only thing that remains is your genetics. If you are suggesting some are predisposed at birth to be better than others, which is obviously out of their control, then is a meritocracy even a goal we wish to achieve?
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      I can't go all the way to luck egalitarianism, I'll admit that. But I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It seems to me that a "meritocracy" where merit is primarily earned by being born into a wealthy family is just smuggling aristocracy into the public consciousness under a nicer name. I think that is a goal that society definitely wishes not to achieve and to be honest it doesn't seem much like a meritocracy at all.
wyager 9y ago
Career outcomes are strongly correlated with IQ in the US, suggesting a fairly robust meritocracy. Japan is also not “The West” - if you’re being sarcastic, it was a bit under the radar.
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  Tell that to any chemist laid off by Pfizer & their ilk.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >Career outcomes are strongly correlated with IQ in the US I'd actually love to see that study. But before you link it I'll dispute it anyways which is that this a problem with a third variable, wealth. Wealthy parents raise IQs by being more attentive, allowing children to attend better schools, etc. >Japan is also not “The West” - if you’re being sarcastic, it was a bit under the radar. Yes it is. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/08/why-are-rich-kids-smarter/348268/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/08/why-are... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritability_and_socioeconomic_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritabilit...
  - wyager 9y ago
    http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-worries/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-w... https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf Assuming I understand your motivation for posting the IQ heritability article - yes, higher IQ parents will have higher IQ children, leading to compounding effects. This could (at most) lead to widening of IQ distributions where intelligence-based selection effects are amplified. However, since meritocratic positions sample from a fraction of the population, not an IQ or “merit points” range, this shouldn’t really have any strong anti-meritocratic effect. > Yes it is. Well I’m glad you settled that.
- danharaj 9y ago
  What is the effect size?
chapill 9y ago
>meanwhile we pretend western society is mostly meritocratic The poor kid was raised by a single mother in a 100sqft apartment. You don't expect a prize winning plant if you never water it, right? This story says nothing of the merits of the rich kid. You seem to assume the rich kid is a layabout wastrel, because he was born from a poor lineage. I think the mother of this kid would have been conflicted if she were alive. She wanted the best for her offspring, and he got it, but not due to her efforts. Your jaded prejudice has derailed what other boards might have made into a thoughtful discussion.
- marnett 9y ago
  Please, tell us all how you really feel about the poor. Do you think it's the curse of a bad mother when she is no-fault evicted and they live in the streets for a stint of time? sounds like you want the caste system and the untouchables back.
  - chapill 9y ago
    >Please, tell us all how you really feel about the poor. The poor are naturally disadvantaged. That's an uncontroversial statement.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > The poor are naturally disadvantaged. That's an uncontroversial statement. “The poor are disadvantaged” is an uncontroversial statement; adding the “naturally” part in makes it far less uncontroversial.
      - chapill 9y ago
        Poor animals don't fare as well in nature either. Monkeys who have a fig tree will do better than the monkeys who are forced to scavenge. They will defend their tree, because they recognize the value of the resource. They will likely defend it successfully, because they are well fed. Wealth is a positive feedback loop. There's really no controversy in that either. "The rich get richer"
itsjustme2 9y ago
It seems pretty obvious that it usually takes more than one generation's effort to gain certain things in this world. My wife and I work very hard so we can afford to optimize the development of our children as best we can so they can eventually do better than we did. My parents did the same. My parent's parents did the same. If people struggle raising their children, then their children will be at a disadvantage. I guess you could say it's a kind of multi-generational meritocracy. Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better systemic alternatives. Can someone please help me understand?
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better alternatives. Can someone please help me understand? A society which doesn't massively privilege the children of the wealthy? What are you having trouble with? We just reduce the influence of class and wealth.
  - itsjustme2 9y ago
    So instead of a multi-generational meritocracy, you want everyone in the same generation to have the same resources starting out? How do we determine the best resources for each generation? How do we distribute the wealth? How do we keep parents motivated to work when their main motivation is to provide a better life for their children?
    - danharaj 9y ago
      Multi-generational meritocracy sounds antithetical to post-enlightenment thinking. It sounds like someone sneezed while saying "aristocracy".
      - itsjustme2 9y ago
        Calling multi-generational meritocracy the same as aristocracy is a misunderstanding of what these two words mean. Yes, societies are messy, and what happens in one societal structure can sometimes happen in another, but that does not mean that the underlying rules defining the two are equivalent.
jl6 9y ago
Beware a pure meritocracy. In a meritocracy there will still be people at the bottom, and they will be told they deserve to be there.
abritinthebay 9y ago
We do? Maybe here on HN but it’s pretty widely acknowledged in most places that it’s not.
aaronbrethorst 9y ago
The word "meritocracy" was not coined as a positive term. It was intended to describe a dystopia. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

He ends up a 60 year old truck driver and the person he was switched with is the president of a real estate company - and meanwhile we pretend western society is mostly meritocratic.

forkLding 9y ago

Lets be real, western society is not perfect nor meritocratic. Its why we say networking and connections are still important for your career. Many kids just go to the same companies their parents go to (if their parents are high-up VPs) and receive great internships or positions. You're not going to expect a Rockefeller to die from poverty right?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
eanzenberg 9y ago
Let’s be real, the western world is the most meritocratic. I don’t know anyone working at their parents company and I’ve met easily >200 people with about a quarter of them in high positions VP+ and all of them with great high paying careers.
- marnett 9y ago
  what is the percentage of high net-worth individuals who earned their wealth vs. inherited it?
- forkLding 9y ago
  Most meritocratic doesn't mean its very meritocratic, its really been 50-70 years since females got the vote, if we were so meritocratic maybe females would be getting equal pay by now. Just because you're a goose among chicken doesn't mean you're perfect. And for those complaining that its not real that women are being paid less in similar positions and its situational, if there wasn't data then nobody would be complaining. Things only start because theres a reason or agenda for starting.
  - eanzenberg 9y ago
    Women are getting equal pay when normalized to experience. I think it's within 2-5%. Or do you expect equal pay for same amount of time worked?
    - forkLding 9y ago
      Heres my sources: https://nwlc.org/resources/faq-about-the-wage-gap/ https://nwlc.org/resources/faq-about-the-wage-gap/ Meritocracy would mean disregarding skin colour, background and gender in my book. I would like your sources and stats
      - eanzenberg 9y ago
        Your analysis and link proves my point. When accounting for job title there is virtually no pay gap. You cannot compare just the salaries when many women choose to stay home and enter the workforce years later. That makes no sense.
        forkLding 9y ago
        This is a prolonged internet argument, which is really just wasted time, I need your figures, using my data is just lazy without pinpointing where the "accounting for job title there is virtually no pay gap" comes from. Lets use Wall Street Journal data then, they're a reputable source no? This one examines using specific job titles: http://graphics.wsj.com/gender-pay-gap/ http://graphics.wsj.com/gender-pay-gap/ And give me actual links and sources or else your argument is invalid without evidence, if you don't have any data or evidence backing me up, I can move on and ignore you as a troll without data.

ars 9y ago

> and meanwhile we pretend western society is mostly meritocratic. Japanese society is much less meritocratic than US society. They prize conformity far far more than the US/Europe does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(Japanese_culture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(Japanese_culture) This result is actually entirely expected given their culture.

bbctol 9y ago
What does conformity have to do with meritocracy? They seem orthogonal.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  And how measure a societies level of either. Few would disagree that conformity was stronger in Japan than the US, but it’s got to be hard to measure.
- alexbeloi 9y ago
  Stability is a more appropriate term. Japanese culture values stability very highly. People in this thread believe this kind of stability results in low economic mobility. In the US, people associate high economic mobility with meritocracy. There's a couple leaps to be made in both associations, but I think that's what the gist is.
- ars 9y ago
  You have to conform to the "life plan" of your station, what your parents expect, what they raise you to, what your peers (from a similar background) are doing. From the wiki: "prefer the continuation of a harmonious community over their personal interests". That's directly opposed to meritocracy.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Conformity has nothing to do meritocracy? Besides I know that mobility and meritocracy don't map perfectly but Japan is actually a society with more intergenerational mobility than the US and about half of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve#/media/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve#/media/File...

jacquesm 9y ago

Is Japan part of Western Society?

neaden 9y ago
I would say yes, post WW2. It's a wealthy capitalistic representative democracy which seems to be what people say when they mean "the West", at least in terms of economics and meritocracy.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  I'm inclined to say yes as well, but it really depends on what aspect of its society we're referring to.
titanix2 9y ago
No. For two reasons: first talking of the "West Society" as a single entity doesn’t make sense. There are multiples societies such as the Fench, the German, the US ones which have common traits but also some differences. You could however put them under the concept of Western civilization. Secondly, Japan is very different from the West. Not so much about the institutions which were calqued on Europeans ones after the war, but because of how people think. Having living there speaking a bit of the language, it is a totally different world with different values and most people are just fine living in their country and nor caring about the West or any foreign countries.
patio11 9y ago
If you can describe a dividing line for Western society which puts Japan on the outside and all of the Pope, Barack Obama, all members of Congress, Hawaii, Ireland, and France on the inside, you’d get a really good East Asian Studies paper out of it. If your definition of Western society excludes any group in that second set, it is clearly a useless definition. (Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: yes. One has to be mendacious about definitions to come to any other result.)

jstanley 9y ago

This happened in Japan. You can't get much less "West"!

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ceejayoz 9y ago
"West" is frequently used to mean "developed world". Same goes for Australia/New Zealand, for example.
spinlock 9y ago
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed that. It's amazing how oblivious some people are to their bias.
marnett 9y ago
21st century Japan is most certainly in "The West."

cdoxsey 9y ago

This story doesn't undermine the idea of meritocracy. A rich child may end up a rich adult and a poor child a poor adult purely because of nepotism, with the two individuals being roughly the same in terms of skills and abilities. But another explanation is that the rich child ends up a rich adult because his rich parents actually instill more merit in the child and he ends up with more skills and abilities. In the latter case the standard could still be meritocratic. I think there's truth on both sides - things like growing up in an intact family, or learning the value of thrift, are going to inevitably lead to better outcomes for the child - but I think there's also a whole lot of unmeritocratic signaling (who you know, where you went to school, etc) and on the reverse side, measures to prevent people from getting ahead (regressive taxation, poor schools, etc)

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
If your merit is dependent on your parents instilling that merit in you it's hard to say it's merit at all, it had nothing to do with you, just the environment you happened to be born into.
- yathern 9y ago
  If merit is independent of your upbringing - the only thing that remains is your genetics. If you are suggesting some are predisposed at birth to be better than others, which is obviously out of their control, then is a meritocracy even a goal we wish to achieve?
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    I can't go all the way to luck egalitarianism, I'll admit that. But I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It seems to me that a "meritocracy" where merit is primarily earned by being born into a wealthy family is just smuggling aristocracy into the public consciousness under a nicer name. I think that is a goal that society definitely wishes not to achieve and to be honest it doesn't seem much like a meritocracy at all.

wyager 9y ago

Career outcomes are strongly correlated with IQ in the US, suggesting a fairly robust meritocracy. Japan is also not “The West” - if you’re being sarcastic, it was a bit under the radar.

HarryHirsch 9y ago
Tell that to any chemist laid off by Pfizer & their ilk.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>Career outcomes are strongly correlated with IQ in the US I'd actually love to see that study. But before you link it I'll dispute it anyways which is that this a problem with a third variable, wealth. Wealthy parents raise IQs by being more attentive, allowing children to attend better schools, etc. >Japan is also not “The West” - if you’re being sarcastic, it was a bit under the radar. Yes it is. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/08/why-are-rich-kids-smarter/348268/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/08/why-are... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritability_and_socioeconomic_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritabilit...
- wyager 9y ago
  http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-worries/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-w... https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf Assuming I understand your motivation for posting the IQ heritability article - yes, higher IQ parents will have higher IQ children, leading to compounding effects. This could (at most) lead to widening of IQ distributions where intelligence-based selection effects are amplified. However, since meritocratic positions sample from a fraction of the population, not an IQ or “merit points” range, this shouldn’t really have any strong anti-meritocratic effect. > Yes it is. Well I’m glad you settled that.
danharaj 9y ago
What is the effect size?

chapill 9y ago

>meanwhile we pretend western society is mostly meritocratic The poor kid was raised by a single mother in a 100sqft apartment. You don't expect a prize winning plant if you never water it, right? This story says nothing of the merits of the rich kid. You seem to assume the rich kid is a layabout wastrel, because he was born from a poor lineage. I think the mother of this kid would have been conflicted if she were alive. She wanted the best for her offspring, and he got it, but not due to her efforts. Your jaded prejudice has derailed what other boards might have made into a thoughtful discussion.

marnett 9y ago
Please, tell us all how you really feel about the poor. Do you think it's the curse of a bad mother when she is no-fault evicted and they live in the streets for a stint of time? sounds like you want the caste system and the untouchables back.
- chapill 9y ago
  >Please, tell us all how you really feel about the poor. The poor are naturally disadvantaged. That's an uncontroversial statement.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > The poor are naturally disadvantaged. That's an uncontroversial statement. “The poor are disadvantaged” is an uncontroversial statement; adding the “naturally” part in makes it far less uncontroversial.
    - chapill 9y ago
      Poor animals don't fare as well in nature either. Monkeys who have a fig tree will do better than the monkeys who are forced to scavenge. They will defend their tree, because they recognize the value of the resource. They will likely defend it successfully, because they are well fed. Wealth is a positive feedback loop. There's really no controversy in that either. "The rich get richer"

itsjustme2 9y ago

It seems pretty obvious that it usually takes more than one generation's effort to gain certain things in this world. My wife and I work very hard so we can afford to optimize the development of our children as best we can so they can eventually do better than we did. My parents did the same. My parent's parents did the same. If people struggle raising their children, then their children will be at a disadvantage. I guess you could say it's a kind of multi-generational meritocracy. Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better systemic alternatives. Can someone please help me understand?

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better alternatives. Can someone please help me understand? A society which doesn't massively privilege the children of the wealthy? What are you having trouble with? We just reduce the influence of class and wealth.
- itsjustme2 9y ago
  So instead of a multi-generational meritocracy, you want everyone in the same generation to have the same resources starting out? How do we determine the best resources for each generation? How do we distribute the wealth? How do we keep parents motivated to work when their main motivation is to provide a better life for their children?
  - danharaj 9y ago
    Multi-generational meritocracy sounds antithetical to post-enlightenment thinking. It sounds like someone sneezed while saying "aristocracy".
    - itsjustme2 9y ago
      Calling multi-generational meritocracy the same as aristocracy is a misunderstanding of what these two words mean. Yes, societies are messy, and what happens in one societal structure can sometimes happen in another, but that does not mean that the underlying rules defining the two are equivalent.

jl6 9y ago

Beware a pure meritocracy. In a meritocracy there will still be people at the bottom, and they will be told they deserve to be there.

abritinthebay 9y ago

We do? Maybe here on HN but it’s pretty widely acknowledged in most places that it’s not.

aaronbrethorst 9y ago

The word "meritocracy" was not coined as a positive term. It was intended to describe a dystopia. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment