5 ms·

After we tackled gender inequalities, we can move on to name inequalities. How about introducing name-quotas, that ought to fix the problem.

learnstats2 12y ago
I gather you're being sarcastic, but high name inequality is just another illustration of a lack of social mobility. People of a certain social class are more likely to name their child certain names, and those children are more likely to grow up into particular professions. Name inequality represents clear evidence against the existence of a meritocracy.
- V-2 12y ago
  > Name inequality represents clear evidence against the existence of a meritocracy. Meritocracy in what sense? Coming from wealthier background, you're more likely to be well educated. While we may dislike that it is so, it doesn't mean there's no meritocracy in the sense that employers don't hire people based on their qualifications alone. Only that they don't care where these qualifications come from.
  - learnstats2 12y ago
    > Coming from wealthier background, you're more likely to be well educated. So, by your admission, education is not meritocratic. I claim that employment is non-meritocratic first by your measure: if access to a better education is not merited, then employers concentrating on qualifications alone are not hiring according to merit. I claim also that employment is non-meritocratic independently. The most obvious example is that wealth similarly gives you exclusive access to low-paying but prestigious jobs. I suspect overall that background wealth is still a better marker for job status than education.
    - Crito 12y ago
      I don't think anybody claims that higher education in the US is a meritocracy. When people on HN talk about the meritocracy as though it is something that exists, they are talking about it in the tech industry, not in the education system that precedes it.
      - learnstats2 12y ago
        If tech industry is a meritocracy via higher education, and higher education is not itself a meritocracy, then the tech industry cannot be a meritocracy. Putting the unfair part in an early funnelling step of the hiring process, and then abstracting that away, doesn't change that the whole process is unfair.
    - lmm 12y ago
      > I claim that employment is non-meritocratic first by your measure: if access to a better education is not merited, then employers concentrating on qualifications alone are not hiring according to merit. That doesn't follow. Maybe education changes your merit, and people with a better education actually are better at their jobs.
      - learnstats2 12y ago
        It follows. Or, in your meritocracy, people pay to increase their merit/the merit of their children? That contradicts my definition.
        lmm 12y ago
        What definition would that be? A nation where people were not allowed to learn outside of standardized government training might achieve equality, but only by grinding everyone down to zero.
        learnstats2 12y ago
        Haha. No, it's more like this for me: if the provided education system were good and appropriately diverse, few people would feel the need to pay to leave it. Then you might be able to say that everyone had access to a decent standard of education.
        lmm 12y ago
        That doesn't make the difference you think it does. There are European countries where barely anyone pays for education (and private schools/universities are less reputable than state ones). You still find the children of wealthy people are disproportionately likely to be wealthy themselves. Parental involvement, cultural attitudes to education - and, probably, as politically unacceptable as it is to say it, genetics as well - seem like bigger effects than expensive private education.
        12y ago
golemotron 12y ago
You're missing the fact that we can see gender inequalities in this data. All of the disproportionate names for fitness instructors are female. Either there's much wider variance of male names for fitness instructors or there's terrible gender disparity in that profession.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

learnstats2 12y ago

I gather you're being sarcastic, but high name inequality is just another illustration of a lack of social mobility. People of a certain social class are more likely to name their child certain names, and those children are more likely to grow up into particular professions. Name inequality represents clear evidence against the existence of a meritocracy.

V-2 12y ago
> Name inequality represents clear evidence against the existence of a meritocracy. Meritocracy in what sense? Coming from wealthier background, you're more likely to be well educated. While we may dislike that it is so, it doesn't mean there's no meritocracy in the sense that employers don't hire people based on their qualifications alone. Only that they don't care where these qualifications come from.
- learnstats2 12y ago
  > Coming from wealthier background, you're more likely to be well educated. So, by your admission, education is not meritocratic. I claim that employment is non-meritocratic first by your measure: if access to a better education is not merited, then employers concentrating on qualifications alone are not hiring according to merit. I claim also that employment is non-meritocratic independently. The most obvious example is that wealth similarly gives you exclusive access to low-paying but prestigious jobs. I suspect overall that background wealth is still a better marker for job status than education.
  - Crito 12y ago
    I don't think anybody claims that higher education in the US is a meritocracy. When people on HN talk about the meritocracy as though it is something that exists, they are talking about it in the tech industry, not in the education system that precedes it.
    - learnstats2 12y ago
      If tech industry is a meritocracy via higher education, and higher education is not itself a meritocracy, then the tech industry cannot be a meritocracy. Putting the unfair part in an early funnelling step of the hiring process, and then abstracting that away, doesn't change that the whole process is unfair.
  - lmm 12y ago
    > I claim that employment is non-meritocratic first by your measure: if access to a better education is not merited, then employers concentrating on qualifications alone are not hiring according to merit. That doesn't follow. Maybe education changes your merit, and people with a better education actually are better at their jobs.
    - learnstats2 12y ago
      It follows. Or, in your meritocracy, people pay to increase their merit/the merit of their children? That contradicts my definition.
      - lmm 12y ago
        What definition would that be? A nation where people were not allowed to learn outside of standardized government training might achieve equality, but only by grinding everyone down to zero.
        learnstats2 12y ago
        Haha. No, it's more like this for me: if the provided education system were good and appropriately diverse, few people would feel the need to pay to leave it. Then you might be able to say that everyone had access to a decent standard of education.
        lmm 12y ago
        That doesn't make the difference you think it does. There are European countries where barely anyone pays for education (and private schools/universities are less reputable than state ones). You still find the children of wealthy people are disproportionately likely to be wealthy themselves. Parental involvement, cultural attitudes to education - and, probably, as politically unacceptable as it is to say it, genetics as well - seem like bigger effects than expensive private education.
        12y ago

golemotron 12y ago

You're missing the fact that we can see gender inequalities in this data. All of the disproportionate names for fitness instructors are female. Either there's much wider variance of male names for fitness instructors or there's terrible gender disparity in that profession.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]