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I'm conflicted about this essay. I agree with many of the points but fail to see how it relates to and ultimately disagree with the thesis that meritocracy is b

I'm conflicted about this essay. I agree with many of the points but fail to see how it relates to and ultimately disagree with the thesis that meritocracy is bad. Taking the tennis example, sure, it would be beneficial for the top players to have a flatter payout structure. But this ultimately leads to the ATP tour being solidified and newcomers being barred from entry as now the player ranked 250 is now earning an income that they can afford much better training than outsiders. It isn't immediately clear that this system is better from a social point of view. Relating it back to elite institutions, randomly assigning professors and students to random institutions definitely raises the floor but also lowers the ceiling. Is that socially better? Not immediately obvious. I'm of the opinion that we want to maximize the max possible achievement of an individual to improve the human condition. Very few individuals are responsible for key advancements of civilization. Finally, the closing statement about Milton Friedman seems rather contradictory to me. The argument that changing the entire cultural attitude of business is somehow different than regulation seems odd to me. Stigmatizing certain actions is just merely the weakest form of regulation that allows for unethical behavior to be rewarded even greater.

jgwil2 5y ago
> But this ultimately leads to the ATP tour being solidified and newcomers being barred from entry as now the player ranked 250 is now earning an income that they can afford much better training than outsiders. No, it would make it more worthwhile to invest in promising players, who now would have the prospect of making a decent living as a top 250-ranked touring pro, rather than needing to be in the top 50 or 100 in order to do so. I think more generally the idea is that we should focus on equality rather than equity: people should be able to live well even if they "lose" the meritocratic contest.
- hervature 5y ago
  That logic is the exact opposite approach of VC investing. They invest in moonshot ideas for the chance at a unicorn, not because it makes a solid lifestyle business. Again, this doesn't solve the meritocracy problem. If the top 250 get a steady source of income, which ones do you invest in? You wouldn't bother with the moonshot talent because the expected payoff is lower. It only becomes worthwhile to invest in those that have a good chance of breaking into the top 250. That is, the well established. It doesn't follow that a flatter pay structure is fairer in any way.
  - jgwil2 5y ago
    Well yeah, the tennis example is pretty limited as an analogy because it's the players themselves, their parents, and maybe coaches who do the investing. Also, flattening the payouts is better if you want more people playing tennis professionally, but that might not actually be a desirable outcome. I think it's mainly useful as an example to show how minor skill differences can lead to massively different outcomes. It's up to us to decide whether and how much income redistribution will lead to the kind of society we want to live in.
deilline 5y ago
> Very few individuals are responsible for key advancements of civilization. Is this true? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_theory_of_invention_and_scientific_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_theory_of_invention_and... Another example is the Finnish education system aiming to raise the floor instead of increasing the ceiling. I can think of counterexamples in Hungarian mathematicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) A lot of them knew each other growing up, but you could argue they would've succeeded anywhere. If this question were more carefully explored I think it'd do a lot for the author's argument as a whole.
- hervature 5y ago
  This is exactly the argumentation I would love to see as well. It would be very interesting to compare scientific achievement coming out of Finland compared to, say, Alabama which is the first state to cross 5M people and thus comparable in population. Of course, I'm sure that analysis would be plagued by what subjectively counts as achievement. Also, I was loose with my words. I didn't really mean few as in you could actually count the individuals. I meant more along the lines of the 1% of the population that has a PhD and at least making some minor contribution to academia.

jgwil2 5y ago

> But this ultimately leads to the ATP tour being solidified and newcomers being barred from entry as now the player ranked 250 is now earning an income that they can afford much better training than outsiders. No, it would make it more worthwhile to invest in promising players, who now would have the prospect of making a decent living as a top 250-ranked touring pro, rather than needing to be in the top 50 or 100 in order to do so. I think more generally the idea is that we should focus on equality rather than equity: people should be able to live well even if they "lose" the meritocratic contest.

hervature 5y ago
That logic is the exact opposite approach of VC investing. They invest in moonshot ideas for the chance at a unicorn, not because it makes a solid lifestyle business. Again, this doesn't solve the meritocracy problem. If the top 250 get a steady source of income, which ones do you invest in? You wouldn't bother with the moonshot talent because the expected payoff is lower. It only becomes worthwhile to invest in those that have a good chance of breaking into the top 250. That is, the well established. It doesn't follow that a flatter pay structure is fairer in any way.
- jgwil2 5y ago
  Well yeah, the tennis example is pretty limited as an analogy because it's the players themselves, their parents, and maybe coaches who do the investing. Also, flattening the payouts is better if you want more people playing tennis professionally, but that might not actually be a desirable outcome. I think it's mainly useful as an example to show how minor skill differences can lead to massively different outcomes. It's up to us to decide whether and how much income redistribution will lead to the kind of society we want to live in.

deilline 5y ago

> Very few individuals are responsible for key advancements of civilization. Is this true? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_theory_of_invention_and_scientific_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_theory_of_invention_and... Another example is the Finnish education system aiming to raise the floor instead of increasing the ceiling. I can think of counterexamples in Hungarian mathematicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) A lot of them knew each other growing up, but you could argue they would've succeeded anywhere. If this question were more carefully explored I think it'd do a lot for the author's argument as a whole.

hervature 5y ago
This is exactly the argumentation I would love to see as well. It would be very interesting to compare scientific achievement coming out of Finland compared to, say, Alabama which is the first state to cross 5M people and thus comparable in population. Of course, I'm sure that analysis would be plagued by what subjectively counts as achievement. Also, I was loose with my words. I didn't really mean few as in you could actually count the individuals. I meant more along the lines of the 1% of the population that has a PhD and at least making some minor contribution to academia.