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The appearance of a meritocracy is necessary so that people don't get discouraged and stop working hard. Almost every large organization acts as if things are f
by ikeyany 7y ago
The appearance of a meritocracy is necessary so that people don't get discouraged and stop working hard. Almost every large organization acts as if things are fair, otherwise morale would plummet.
- munk-a 7y agoThe problem is... the theatre is dissolving.
- kingkawn 7y agoNot the problem. The problem is that it is not egalitarian
- jessaustin 7y agoThe thread hypothesis is that egalitarianism is a merely instrumental value, which we pursue (or perhaps pretend to pursue) in order to keep the workers working. If this theatre dissolution led to less egalitarianism but workers working yet more mindlessly, then that would be fine. You might disagree, but in that case your disagreement should be lodged further upthread.
- wozniacki 7y agoIt surely appears that way. However, if you had to prognosticate, how will admissions at elite institutions look like 12-15 years from now, after all the dust had settled? More of the same (since people have short memories & outrage is short-lived)? or genuine change for the better? edit: grammar
- ikeyany 7y agoThen we need either better lies or a better reality.
- munk-a 7y agoCan I vote, personally, for the better reality?
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoProbably not through voting. But direct action can get you to a better reality.
- DuskStar 7y agoUnfortunately, all the proposed routes for a better reality start off by heading through a worse one, and no one's really made the trip successfully yet. But people still talk about the utopia just a little bit farther than the previous group went...
- ikeyany 7y agoAbsolutely. A good start is calling out injustice when you see it.
- astafan 7y agoIn our deeply flawed society, "pretends to be" can precede a whole slew of things in so many contexts. For example, the Web pretends to be secure. Universities pretend to be different than for-profit corporations. And so on... Sad.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoThe system is unfair. We want people to participate in this unfair system, so we tell them the system is fair. I understand what you’re saying, but to me the obvious answer is to stop supporting this old unfair system.
- ikeyany 7y agoThat's not realistic for most people. If you don't participate, you go broke. If you're broke, you have no power or voice of real consequence in our society.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoI want to work to build parallel power that can help others exit capitalism or dramatically reduce how much they rely on it.
- ikeyany 7y agoThose people exist among us and they're called homeless people. But less glibly, I bet you would find many such people in this thread.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoIt’s easy to find people who want to exit capitalism. I find them all the time. But I want to work to build institutions that will help people do that, at least to a large degree even if not entirely.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gamedori 7y agoTo fix the problem of capitalism, you would have to fix the problem of pricing (=efficient allocation of) goods into supply chains, which problem grows as the fourth power of the number of goods available. It's probably better to keep making our current system more transparent and work for prices to better reflect society's values than to "exit capitalism".