2 ms·

Not quite. Your past projects have become the new credentials. E.g. at most software shops, it tends to be the biggest factor in whether you get hired. The ess

by shawn 8y ago

Not quite. Your past projects have become the new credentials. E.g. at most software shops, it tends to be the biggest factor in whether you get hired. The essence of meritocracy is that anyone can do something like this. And in this case, it's simply not true. No one would be paying attention if Ballard didn't write this, and that's at odds with the idea that you yourself could create it. Another way of putting it is that in a meritocracy, each project should be judged on its own merits, independent of the author. Art is separable from the artist, but unless your culture values this, you get a clique of insiders.

notafraudster 8y ago
Who exactly is going to compensate us for the time spent giving every single proposal ever made by anyone a fair shake, given that we are no longer permitted to use heuristic shortcuts like "checking if the person has ever made something in the past" or "evaluating their formal training" or "acknowledging that they have a long term history of being a crank"? An author has a promising idea but asks for people to invest early in order to iterate the idea to the point where it's strictly superior to existing alternatives. Investors want to know that the idea will bare fruit, and that the author will not abandon it. How do they evaluate the author's capacity to see the project through without resorting to the author's past history of seeing projects through, references, or credentials? Moreover, what stops malicious actors from inundating us with garbage that takes longer to refute than to produce? We can't ban spammers because banning them is based on their past history, not what they're producing now. What if their next post isn't spam and has value? Surely these considerations mandate that even if you believe people are insufficiently charitable to new entrants in the market of ideas, you can't throw the babies (credentials, reputation, audience) out with the bathwater. This is a good opportunity to position yourself as having made a provocative statement that will, of course, require some concessions to reason.

by shawn 8y ago

notafraudster 8y ago

Who exactly is going to compensate us for the time spent giving every single proposal ever made by anyone a fair shake, given that we are no longer permitted to use heuristic shortcuts like "checking if the person has ever made something in the past" or "evaluating their formal training" or "acknowledging that they have a long term history of being a crank"? An author has a promising idea but asks for people to invest early in order to iterate the idea to the point where it's strictly superior to existing alternatives. Investors want to know that the idea will bare fruit, and that the author will not abandon it. How do they evaluate the author's capacity to see the project through without resorting to the author's past history of seeing projects through, references, or credentials? Moreover, what stops malicious actors from inundating us with garbage that takes longer to refute than to produce? We can't ban spammers because banning them is based on their past history, not what they're producing now. What if their next post isn't spam and has value? Surely these considerations mandate that even if you believe people are insufficiently charitable to new entrants in the market of ideas, you can't throw the babies (credentials, reputation, audience) out with the bathwater. This is a good opportunity to position yourself as having made a provocative statement that will, of course, require some concessions to reason.