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Who cares? The point of meritocracy is to select people who can solve problems and make the world better. It's not to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy. To pu
by slibhb 5y ago
Who cares?
The point of meritocracy is to select people who can solve problems and make the world better. It's not to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy.
To put it another way, if rich people raise their children to be more capable of making the world better then why is that a problem? Let's say Einstein was only a genius because his parents bought a nice house with no lead paint. Who cares? Why does that matter? What matters is the work he did.
Now, if you want to pass a law that says "no more houses with lead paint" that's lovely. But it has nothing to do with meritocracy.
- endisneigh 5y agoI’m not really sure what to tell you - you don’t see the problem my example highlights? Lol. How would you feel if people with merit actively prohibited those without from improving? Still don’t care? You’re right though, meritocracy wouldn’t be a problem if merit existed only to objectively improve the world. Is that true?
- slibhb 5y agoI see the problem your example highlights. It has nothing to do with meritocracy. It has to do with social policy. > You’re right though, meritocracy wouldn’t be a problem if merit existed only to objectively improve the world. Merit doesn't have to be objective. All we can do is subjectiviely do our best to determine merit using whatever tools we can. If we're wrong, we're wrong (and we will often be wrong). Being wrong is fine and inevitable. It's not an excuse to say "meritocracy is bad".
- endisneigh 5y agoI’m not following you - meritocracy and subjectivity are inherently contradictory. Also, the example I gave and the problems it illustrate are inherent to the example - there’s no policy you could invoke that would remedy it. Feel free to share an example of how you’d fix the example to remove the dilemma, if you would like.
- slibhb 5y agoI don't agree. We have meritocracies based on things most people consider subjective (art, music, writing). What makes it a meritocracy is not that there's some objective measure of merit, just that there's an attempt to determine merit severed from factors deemed irrelevant (usually birth, class, race, sex, gender, beauty, etc). No one is saying we have determined God's own concept of merit. "Merit" can and will shift over time. Different individuals will assess it differently. All we can do is our best.
- AstralStorm 5y agoAnd by doing the best, you mean doing the most to pervert that system into a hereditary feudalismn for own reproductive fitness, just like happened everywhere this was attempted. It starts with placing kids in better schools, cheating, disabling help programs and ends up at modifying tests to serve themselves better. And most importantly, by design creates an underclass of undesirables. People less able or outright disabled, who could be used by others to seize power.
- ip26 5y agoWasn’t the point of meritocratic institutions to create opportunities for everyone, so that even those of low birth have a chance at success? A rejection of the fixed aristocracy? That’s the problem with iterative meritocracy, late in the game it becomes indistinguishable from aristocracy.
- slibhb 5y ago> That’s the problem with iterative meritocracy, late in the game it becomes indistinguishable from aristocracy. In a functioning meritocracy, if a genius is born into to a poor family, he will be recognized and promoted.