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The interesting thing about this - if we assume for a moment that it is true, which I think it mostly is - is that it implies one of three things should be true

The interesting thing about this - if we assume for a moment that it is true, which I think it mostly is - is that it implies one of three things should be true. ----- CASE 1: This gatekeeping is wrong, and is actually excluding a lot of good people and imposing a lot of arbitrary if not outright stupid requirements. In that case, there ought to be a huge market inefficiency. You should be able to build an elite university by finding all the smart people who didn't do a bunch of dumb signaling extracurriculars, or build a great company by hiring all the smart people who don't have great resumes, etc. CASE 2: This gatekeeping would be wrong in isolation, but the smartest people mostly "play the game", and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we collectively agreed that smart people spend six months when they're 16 hopping on one foot in a purple clown suit, then everyone smart would do that, and it would actually become a good signal of e.g. conscientiousness and class. CASE 3: This gatekeeping is right even in isolation, and we've gotten to a point where we can, with some reasonable reliability, tell who really won't amount to anything. And if that's the case...is it really a matter of hard work or virtue if we can tell ahead of time what you will or won't succeed at? And if it isn't, is it just to leave you to suffer because you happen not to be gifted in particular ways, whether in intelligence or in motivation or in class signals? ---- I'm not really sure which one of these is true, to be honest. I've got my chips on case 1 at the moment, but I have no idea whether I'm right. And I think it's a decent ethical test to ask yourself what you believe about "meritocracy" in each of those cases. Personally, I think: - In case 1, we don't really run into a conflict, because the incentives run the right direction. The market is just being irrational right now, and you can make your fortune exploiting that irrationality. That would be great news! The problem in case 1 ought to solve itself, if perhaps only to create new variants of the same problem. - In case 2, the problem is fundamentally one of class. Like a peacock's tail, we've effectively created a system that demands costly signals of ability, signals that are costly to everyone. If that's the case, we should figure out how to minimize the "peacock factor" as best we can, perhaps via some form of regulation, so that we're not wasting a bunch of resources on things that fundamentally don't matter. - In case 3, the problem is fundamentally one of (somewhat indelible) inequality. Some people will be ahead, and others behind, and it's not a matter of their decisions, but of their personalities or natures or formative experiences or whatever. And in that case, I'm not sure the idea of competing for a place in the world has any ethical justification, because it effectively means we reward those whose lives will already be inherently better and punish those whose lives will already be worse. Case 3 would undermine the entire case for a competitive social system, really.

ndriscoll 2y ago
Personally, I believe in case 4: the gatekeeping is imagined. Maybe I just haven't perceived the changes and haven't noticed myself losing touch, but I was a B student who graduated from the local state university in the early 10's, and I've done fine. In fact, I've done far better than I could've imagined as a kid. My estimation is it's maybe people who are already in good careers that have created a bubble for themselves where they think their kids' only options are to go to Stanford or live in poverty. I'm not seeing the issue with case 3 though. Our "competitive" social system isn't about being sporting or "fair" (in some cosmic sense where we consider counterfactual universes to try to distill some idealized metric for intrinsic "goodness" of each person). It's (ideally) about people's actual merit. What can they contribute? What do they contribute? The real world is full of people that have needs, and it makes sense to reward and appreciate people who help meet those needs. If you had upper-class parents who had plenty of time and resources to raise you to be kind, thoughtful, wise, knowledgeable, strong, and driven, then congratulations! You're actually a great person. We should reward that because we want to see more of it.
- portaouflop 2y ago
  It’s all luck and randomness - that’s why both of you fail to come up with any rational explanation. You can be upper class and get all the best resources etc and still be a piece of shit human being that has a net negative impact. You can be dirt poor and not have any education or even hope - and you can become one of the most influential people on the planet.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    Yes, there is an element of randomness. I was addressing the idea that if someone is nominally a great person, then it "doesn't count" as much if they were lucky enough to have good genetics or mentorship or circumstances or whatever, which is nonsense. The only reason to care about circumstances is so that we know what to encourage more of to shift that probability distribution (evidently I don't think "money" is the critical factor here).
- clayhacks 2y ago

ndriscoll 2y ago

Personally, I believe in case 4: the gatekeeping is imagined. Maybe I just haven't perceived the changes and haven't noticed myself losing touch, but I was a B student who graduated from the local state university in the early 10's, and I've done fine. In fact, I've done far better than I could've imagined as a kid. My estimation is it's maybe people who are already in good careers that have created a bubble for themselves where they think their kids' only options are to go to Stanford or live in poverty. I'm not seeing the issue with case 3 though. Our "competitive" social system isn't about being sporting or "fair" (in some cosmic sense where we consider counterfactual universes to try to distill some idealized metric for intrinsic "goodness" of each person). It's (ideally) about people's actual merit. What can they contribute? What do they contribute? The real world is full of people that have needs, and it makes sense to reward and appreciate people who help meet those needs. If you had upper-class parents who had plenty of time and resources to raise you to be kind, thoughtful, wise, knowledgeable, strong, and driven, then congratulations! You're actually a great person. We should reward that because we want to see more of it.

portaouflop 2y ago
It’s all luck and randomness - that’s why both of you fail to come up with any rational explanation. You can be upper class and get all the best resources etc and still be a piece of shit human being that has a net negative impact. You can be dirt poor and not have any education or even hope - and you can become one of the most influential people on the planet.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  Yes, there is an element of randomness. I was addressing the idea that if someone is nominally a great person, then it "doesn't count" as much if they were lucky enough to have good genetics or mentorship or circumstances or whatever, which is nonsense. The only reason to care about circumstances is so that we know what to encourage more of to shift that probability distribution (evidently I don't think "money" is the critical factor here).
clayhacks 2y ago