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Meritocracy, like all words that reduce to "good thing", are always troublesome. No one ever claims to be a "bad thing"ocracy. The issue is the opacity of the c

Meritocracy, like all words that reduce to "good thing", are always troublesome. No one ever claims to be a "bad thing"ocracy. The issue is the opacity of the concept of merit. How do you distinguish being a meritocracy in some good sense from insisting you are a meritocracy and thus poisoning any discussion that you are not one? Using words to maintain a culture has a sort of Newton's third law. It might push you towards striving to be "good thing", but it also pushes back, making people resistant to the idea that you aren't striving for "good thing". This is an inescapable fact of how humans hold values. Better words are the ones that aren't exclusively evaluated by humans. These are things on which people can agree there exists an impartial measure of the thing. There is no such measure of merit. Merit is an undecidable value at best and an incoherent one at worst. So, counterintuitively, "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. It is easy to construe acknowledging their badness as thinking the underlying concept is bad. I think that is happening in this comment thread. I think rewarding people with trust and responsibility based on merit is a great idea! I think it is detrimental to the cause to codify that in your mission statement.

vanderZwan 8y ago
Very nice way to put it. What do you think of Google's "don't be evil" clause and that it was recently removed? Same thing, or subtly different? Not trying to be inflammatory, I don't know what to think myself: rationally I think it should feel the same, yet somehow it feels different.
- danharaj 8y ago
  I think it feels different, at least to me, because "don't be evil" doesn't signal any value about how I would be treated if I worked at Google. We often evaluate such value statements by empathizing with the people affected. Everyone here wants to be evaluated on their merit. Everyone thinks they're meritorious. So it's easy to see opposition to the word "meritocracy" and, putting oneself in the shoes of a member of the Mozilla org, feeling mistreated. On the other hand removing "don't be evil" doesn't feel like Google is going to start mistreating people I empathize with^. ^ I feel that way for different reasons :^)
sanxiyn 8y ago
This is why I support measured merit instead of merit. If you have merit but didn't show it, it doesn't matter.
TheAdamAndChe 8y ago
> "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. This makes no sense to me. Values are principles or standards of behavior. If I try to keep good values, this makes me evil somehow? Why would common standards of behavior for a group with a common goal be bad? Wouldn't it help the group continue in the same direction?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- danharaj 8y ago
  You have to separate the word from the underlying concept(s). They're not the same thing. If they were the same thing, I could conjure of invisible pink unicorns with an utterance and make all the world utopia by having everyone recite "I am a good person and I won't do anything bad". Words can fail and everyone acknowledges that at least tacitly. Hypocrisy is the purest form of words failing. Let's put it that way: Even if you call yourself a meritocracy you can still be a hypocrite. On the other hand being a meritocracy without calling yourself one is no problem. If you call your organization of 300 people a meritocracy, there will be 300 notions of merit. What benefit is there to calling yourself one if the word itself has no concrete, actionable content and doesn't unify people's vision? This sort of trickery is easier to see when you are part of the management of an organization. The bulk of my relevant personal experience is as a software consultant where I have been embedded in many organizations, all of which considered themselves "good thing"ocracies, but usually fell far short of the mark. We are all hypocrites like that. Words are tricky devils. If you don't treat them with a healthy suspicion you can get in trouble. You have to make them servants of your goal, not arbiters of what your goal is.
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    If your argument against the use of "meritocracy" is true, it would apply just as much to "diversity" or "equality", meaning that you are arguing those generically good words should not be used as well. Am I missing something?
    - 8y ago
bluecalm 8y ago
Well meritocracy means we will try to select and give influence/recognition based on merit. When someone tries to push an idea like "let's have more Asians" or "let's have more men" in the project we can direct them to the very first statement where they see we do selection based on merit and not skin color, gender or sexual orientation. Any attempt to introduce gender/race/sexual orientation quotas will promptly be rejected on those basis. There is value in wording it like this beyond "let's do good".
- guitarbill 8y ago
  Who gets to define merit? Say a certain style was more likely to pass code review. And that style was more often associated with people with CS degrees, vs self-taught programmers. Even though it's a stylistic choice, functionally equivalent, one is "better" than the other and is introducing bias. It's very easy to do, especially because consistency is important for legibility, but a stylistic choice nonetheless. I think a decent, practical solution to some degree are prettifiers/code-formatters and linters. Because the style is codified, and trivial for anybody to apply.
  - sanxiyn 8y ago
    You should follow the project's style when you start contributing. If style is pointed out in code review, fix it.
    - guitarbill 8y ago
      Well yes, I agree. It's a bit of a toy example, simplistic, but hopefully one we can all relate to. It does illustrate the issue of using "meritocracy" without anything else. It's like saying "we follow a style guide", and then not providing that style guide. Obviously sub-optimal. (The example breaks down since providing a style guide is doable, whereas providing a "merit guide" is hard/impossible? In that case, is it better to remove that? I don't know.)
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    Just because it's hard to accomplish pure meritocracy doesn't mean we can't strive for it or have it our stated values. It has an advantage that we can reject all efforts which contradicting the principle and could possibly undermine the project.
deltron3030 8y ago
>The issue is the opacity of the concept of merit. How do you distinguish being a meritocracy in some good sense from insisting you are a meritocracy and thus poisoning any discussion that you are not one? Context. Is it helpful for x business goal?
nyxxie 8y ago
Better words are the ones that aren't exclusively evaluated by humans. These are things on which people can agree there exists an impartial measure of the thing. What do you propose we replace it with then? I happen to think that the word "merit" is apt to describe what any good software company is looking for in its employees. If an individual brings value to the company, they have merit and should be rewarded for it. The issue is the opacity of the concept of merit. How do you distinguish being a meritocracy in some good sense from insisting you are a meritocracy and thus poisoning any discussion that you are not one? How is this relevant? If someone is voicing dissent about a culture there's a million barriers they can hide behind instead of facing the allegations ("we're committed to working towards a more diverse and inclusive environment..."). Are we to cower away from any word that can be twisted to justify bad things as well as good things, for fear that people will abuse them? The word "meritocracy" doesn't seem like a line of code specifying an objective action that is to be taken to solve a problem, it describes a vision of how someone would ideally like their company to operate. How about we just call out bad behavior when we see it and not let it pollute the vision? That's what needs to happen, or we'll be locked in this battle until one political group manages to suppress the others (that, by the way, seem to have the exact same endgoals they do).
Presquare 8y ago
If you mean your post as a general argument against organisations claiming to value any vague "good thing", I can respect that. With few word changes in your comment, you could use it to argue against claims of valuing: privacy, diversity, inclusivity, environment etc. Do you believe organisations should remove all claims of valuing such things?
- danharaj 8y ago
  I never take such value statements at face value and neither should you.

vanderZwan 8y ago

Very nice way to put it. What do you think of Google's "don't be evil" clause and that it was recently removed? Same thing, or subtly different? Not trying to be inflammatory, I don't know what to think myself: rationally I think it should feel the same, yet somehow it feels different.

danharaj 8y ago
I think it feels different, at least to me, because "don't be evil" doesn't signal any value about how I would be treated if I worked at Google. We often evaluate such value statements by empathizing with the people affected. Everyone here wants to be evaluated on their merit. Everyone thinks they're meritorious. So it's easy to see opposition to the word "meritocracy" and, putting oneself in the shoes of a member of the Mozilla org, feeling mistreated. On the other hand removing "don't be evil" doesn't feel like Google is going to start mistreating people I empathize with^. ^ I feel that way for different reasons :^)

sanxiyn 8y ago

This is why I support measured merit instead of merit. If you have merit but didn't show it, it doesn't matter.

TheAdamAndChe 8y ago

> "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. This makes no sense to me. Values are principles or standards of behavior. If I try to keep good values, this makes me evil somehow? Why would common standards of behavior for a group with a common goal be bad? Wouldn't it help the group continue in the same direction?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
danharaj 8y ago
You have to separate the word from the underlying concept(s). They're not the same thing. If they were the same thing, I could conjure of invisible pink unicorns with an utterance and make all the world utopia by having everyone recite "I am a good person and I won't do anything bad". Words can fail and everyone acknowledges that at least tacitly. Hypocrisy is the purest form of words failing. Let's put it that way: Even if you call yourself a meritocracy you can still be a hypocrite. On the other hand being a meritocracy without calling yourself one is no problem. If you call your organization of 300 people a meritocracy, there will be 300 notions of merit. What benefit is there to calling yourself one if the word itself has no concrete, actionable content and doesn't unify people's vision? This sort of trickery is easier to see when you are part of the management of an organization. The bulk of my relevant personal experience is as a software consultant where I have been embedded in many organizations, all of which considered themselves "good thing"ocracies, but usually fell far short of the mark. We are all hypocrites like that. Words are tricky devils. If you don't treat them with a healthy suspicion you can get in trouble. You have to make them servants of your goal, not arbiters of what your goal is.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  If your argument against the use of "meritocracy" is true, it would apply just as much to "diversity" or "equality", meaning that you are arguing those generically good words should not be used as well. Am I missing something?
  - 8y ago

bluecalm 8y ago

Well meritocracy means we will try to select and give influence/recognition based on merit. When someone tries to push an idea like "let's have more Asians" or "let's have more men" in the project we can direct them to the very first statement where they see we do selection based on merit and not skin color, gender or sexual orientation. Any attempt to introduce gender/race/sexual orientation quotas will promptly be rejected on those basis. There is value in wording it like this beyond "let's do good".

guitarbill 8y ago
Who gets to define merit? Say a certain style was more likely to pass code review. And that style was more often associated with people with CS degrees, vs self-taught programmers. Even though it's a stylistic choice, functionally equivalent, one is "better" than the other and is introducing bias. It's very easy to do, especially because consistency is important for legibility, but a stylistic choice nonetheless. I think a decent, practical solution to some degree are prettifiers/code-formatters and linters. Because the style is codified, and trivial for anybody to apply.
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  You should follow the project's style when you start contributing. If style is pointed out in code review, fix it.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    Well yes, I agree. It's a bit of a toy example, simplistic, but hopefully one we can all relate to. It does illustrate the issue of using "meritocracy" without anything else. It's like saying "we follow a style guide", and then not providing that style guide. Obviously sub-optimal. (The example breaks down since providing a style guide is doable, whereas providing a "merit guide" is hard/impossible? In that case, is it better to remove that? I don't know.)
- bluecalm 8y ago
  Just because it's hard to accomplish pure meritocracy doesn't mean we can't strive for it or have it our stated values. It has an advantage that we can reject all efforts which contradicting the principle and could possibly undermine the project.

deltron3030 8y ago

>The issue is the opacity of the concept of merit. How do you distinguish being a meritocracy in some good sense from insisting you are a meritocracy and thus poisoning any discussion that you are not one? Context. Is it helpful for x business goal?

nyxxie 8y ago

Better words are the ones that aren't exclusively evaluated by humans. These are things on which people can agree there exists an impartial measure of the thing. What do you propose we replace it with then? I happen to think that the word "merit" is apt to describe what any good software company is looking for in its employees. If an individual brings value to the company, they have merit and should be rewarded for it. The issue is the opacity of the concept of merit. How do you distinguish being a meritocracy in some good sense from insisting you are a meritocracy and thus poisoning any discussion that you are not one? How is this relevant? If someone is voicing dissent about a culture there's a million barriers they can hide behind instead of facing the allegations ("we're committed to working towards a more diverse and inclusive environment..."). Are we to cower away from any word that can be twisted to justify bad things as well as good things, for fear that people will abuse them? The word "meritocracy" doesn't seem like a line of code specifying an objective action that is to be taken to solve a problem, it describes a vision of how someone would ideally like their company to operate. How about we just call out bad behavior when we see it and not let it pollute the vision? That's what needs to happen, or we'll be locked in this battle until one political group manages to suppress the others (that, by the way, seem to have the exact same endgoals they do).

Presquare 8y ago

If you mean your post as a general argument against organisations claiming to value any vague "good thing", I can respect that. With few word changes in your comment, you could use it to argue against claims of valuing: privacy, diversity, inclusivity, environment etc. Do you believe organisations should remove all claims of valuing such things?

danharaj 8y ago
I never take such value statements at face value and neither should you.