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I believe its the kind of relatively meaningless achievements someone like him might count as "merit worthy". Whenever I say we should increase minimum wage or

I believe its the kind of relatively meaningless achievements someone like him might count as "merit worthy". Whenever I say we should increase minimum wage or unemployment benefits I hear its because I must be poor and a moocher. Whenever I say meritocracy doesn't exist someone chimes thats because I have never achieved anything. Whenever you want to help others someone comes out and says its because you want to take advantage of him. I work really hard, always have, always will. But the truth is that, that same amount of work, effort and knowledge would not be rewarded if I was born somewhere not in the first world. That I got extremely lucky both in birth, location, time and chances and while I worked hard I am not entirely responsible for my success.

jstanley 4y ago
Do you acknowledge that there are other people who are not capable of performing your job?
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
  Yes. But there are also people capable who are not doing it, or not being compensated like I am. There are people who could have performed it given my opportunities and people who with less chances would have performed even better than me. Stephen Jay Gould, a great biologist, once said that "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." I think your comment shows a profund misunderstanding of what meritocracy means. No one is saying everyone is equally capable. Merit, ability, knowledge, are all true and real. A meritocracy is a system where those who posses them triumph over those that do not. We do not live in a system like that, and as I mentioned its probably good we do not as the ethics of such a system are quite awful. I just used credentials to defend against the personal attack that was implying the only people against meritocracy are those with nothing to offer.

jstanley 4y ago

Do you acknowledge that there are other people who are not capable of performing your job?

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
Yes. But there are also people capable who are not doing it, or not being compensated like I am. There are people who could have performed it given my opportunities and people who with less chances would have performed even better than me. Stephen Jay Gould, a great biologist, once said that "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." I think your comment shows a profund misunderstanding of what meritocracy means. No one is saying everyone is equally capable. Merit, ability, knowledge, are all true and real. A meritocracy is a system where those who posses them triumph over those that do not. We do not live in a system like that, and as I mentioned its probably good we do not as the ethics of such a system are quite awful. I just used credentials to defend against the personal attack that was implying the only people against meritocracy are those with nothing to offer.