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> Your problem is you can't define meritocratic in a way that everyone will agree with Of course you can't. One man's merit is another man's vice. The very no

> Your problem is you can't define meritocratic in a way that everyone will agree with Of course you can't. One man's merit is another man's vice. The very notion of a meritocracy is literally a sarcastic joke [1]. But the problem is even worse than that. EVEN IF if you could define a universally agreeable "meritocratic" system, you would still have the problem that people with power would abuse the system to lock out others. Suppose 100% "meritocratic" people were selected at random. They then immediately change the rules. Now 99.99% of people disagree with the legal definition of "meritocratic". But tough shit, cause this ain't a democracy, and the other 00.01% of people have all the power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology

keiferski 7y ago
What is considered “merit-worthy” is defined by the society implementing it. There is no such thing as objective universal merit across time and culture. I don’t see why this is controversial. It’s no different than “fair” or “justified” or innumerable other values that a society has to work out a definition for.
- mercer 7y ago
  > What is considered “merit-worthy” is defined by the society implementing it. There is no such thing as objective universal merit across time and culture. I think the point of the comment you're responding to is that it's not defined by the society implementing it, but by those in power. So whether the idea of 'merit' changes across time and culture might be true, but is beside the point.
thu2111 7y ago
It's not a joke, but it is relative (like most conceptual words). A vote decides on the definition of merit in the least relative way possible: by letting everyone contribute to the definition. A definition of merit decided by the heads of a bureaucracy is extremely relative - to whatever those few people think they want.

keiferski 7y ago

What is considered “merit-worthy” is defined by the society implementing it. There is no such thing as objective universal merit across time and culture. I don’t see why this is controversial. It’s no different than “fair” or “justified” or innumerable other values that a society has to work out a definition for.

mercer 7y ago
> What is considered “merit-worthy” is defined by the society implementing it. There is no such thing as objective universal merit across time and culture. I think the point of the comment you're responding to is that it's not defined by the society implementing it, but by those in power. So whether the idea of 'merit' changes across time and culture might be true, but is beside the point.

thu2111 7y ago

It's not a joke, but it is relative (like most conceptual words). A vote decides on the definition of merit in the least relative way possible: by letting everyone contribute to the definition. A definition of merit decided by the heads of a bureaucracy is extremely relative - to whatever those few people think they want.