3 ms·

One humbling thing I try to remember, is that before an asteroid struck the Earth 65 million years ago, mammals were no bigger than a field mouse and our warm-b

One humbling thing I try to remember, is that before an asteroid struck the Earth 65 million years ago, mammals were no bigger than a field mouse and our warm-bloodedness was specialized for hunting insects at night. Then this lucky strike caused a huge climate change, and those dinosaurs that hand't evolved warm feathers died off, and we were in the right place at the right time. The day before the asteroid strike, we had zero merit. Now, this is a narrative with many factual errors, but I like to remind myself that we happen to have been doing well for the last 100,000 years or so, but it's the blink of an eye and who knows what will happen next?

chrischen 14y ago
I didn't necessarily mean millions of years of evolution for humans (have we even been around for that long?). I meant evolution (the concept) as evidence that only those who deserve to live, live. Merit is a fundamental rule of the universe and that you have to be meritocratic. Anything but meritocracy is foolish and will ensure your demise and irrelevance. It's not one of many strategies you can use, it's the only strategy. It is a practice fundamental to survival just like breathing or procreating or being fit. Because it's fundamental, meritocracy should call for both minimizing false positives and negatives, as both work towards increasing survivability.