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Thank you & I'm glad to be called out on that. Yes in a just meritocratic world, everyone gets the same opportunities subject to their ability to provision them

Thank you & I'm glad to be called out on that. Yes in a just meritocratic world, everyone gets the same opportunities subject to their ability to provision them or ability to learn same. And as an introvert I certainly feel the pain that when it comes to attracting resources that sometimes appear unmerited, my perception is that extroverts & the socially-connected seem to own this game hands-down. To use parent comment's example, there are many times I wish I could 'professionalize' or increase the perceived production value of something I've put together of a natively raw-looking technical bent (think duck tape & kite string applied to whatever prototype-y technical problem is at hand). In a world where presentation is everything, I might lack the resources to provision that pricey production value (worth not forgetting that as consumers our perceptions update over time on what signals high production value, creating exactly such a market for production value resources). So given an unjust world, when one really needs to make their splash, they manage to network their way to getting asymmetric support for their offering. Is the system unjust? Yes I agree that it is & merits ongoing broad-based effort to even the playing-field. Are consumers (of anything) ever going to stop updating their (our) perceptions of what constitutes high production value? Unlikely, seems like a natural human cost-reducing trait to find signal in noise. So at least in this unjust world, parent comment has narrated a very real, very human approach to achieving asymmetric support: meeting people in the real world & getting them to appreciate the intrinsic value of whatever it is you're producing. Does such an approach too often get exploited? Obviously - we have plenty of headlines attesting to that, and need to be vigilant to such practices. Parent comment's story doesn't ring to me like that. Does comment-parent shine light on a pathway for those of us trying to get our little-piece-of-value-addition-to-the-world perceived in the needed context? Yes, I believe it does shine that light. And this introvert is off to the next networking event.

kiliantics 4y ago
In a way, I believe the idea of a "just, meritocratic world" masks the actual underlying problem -- that we do not have measures in place to prevent individuals or small groups from gaining grossly disproportionate levels of power in our society. We wouldn't need to keep the natural human inclination of socialising and networking in check if all it ever resulted in was a few nicer looking photo books. In my interactions outside of professional life, I find such happy coincidences of skills and connections to lead to outcomes that simply enrich everyone, like how this photo album surely pleased the commenter, the gf, the school teachers, etc. Rarely does anything like this hurt anyone. Sure, someone might be a little more popular in a social circle for a time because of some cool thing they made with their cool friends, but these kinds of things are transient and -- in a context of conditions of fairness -- some other person with some other cool new thing will eventually displace them. In a capitalist world where "cool new things" can lead to concentration of wealth that can be guarded and leveraged to create more, then networking (familial/nepotistic or otherwise) can lead to unfair outcomes. But the idea of a meritocratic system still leads to the same unfair outcomes, just decided on a different and still somewhat arbitrary set of requirements.

kiliantics 4y ago

In a way, I believe the idea of a "just, meritocratic world" masks the actual underlying problem -- that we do not have measures in place to prevent individuals or small groups from gaining grossly disproportionate levels of power in our society. We wouldn't need to keep the natural human inclination of socialising and networking in check if all it ever resulted in was a few nicer looking photo books. In my interactions outside of professional life, I find such happy coincidences of skills and connections to lead to outcomes that simply enrich everyone, like how this photo album surely pleased the commenter, the gf, the school teachers, etc. Rarely does anything like this hurt anyone. Sure, someone might be a little more popular in a social circle for a time because of some cool thing they made with their cool friends, but these kinds of things are transient and -- in a context of conditions of fairness -- some other person with some other cool new thing will eventually displace them. In a capitalist world where "cool new things" can lead to concentration of wealth that can be guarded and leveraged to create more, then networking (familial/nepotistic or otherwise) can lead to unfair outcomes. But the idea of a meritocratic system still leads to the same unfair outcomes, just decided on a different and still somewhat arbitrary set of requirements.