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> 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 n

> 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.
        learnstats2 12y ago
        Sure, before I was derailed by education, my point was that society is not meritocratic. So we're now agreeing. We don't know if genetics is an effect here because we can't eliminate background wealth - even twin studies are broken because twins get adopted into similar environments. But, the suggestion from twin studies is that income is primarily environmental, i.e. not genetic. Here's a fresh reference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141106113202.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141106113202.ht... I suggest that it's fashionable to say social inequality is down to genetics - it certainly happens a lot in these forums and it comes up especially when people would rather pass the buck for difficult social problems.
        12y ago

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.
      - learnstats2 12y ago
        Sure, before I was derailed by education, my point was that society is not meritocratic. So we're now agreeing. We don't know if genetics is an effect here because we can't eliminate background wealth - even twin studies are broken because twins get adopted into similar environments. But, the suggestion from twin studies is that income is primarily environmental, i.e. not genetic. Here's a fresh reference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141106113202.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141106113202.ht... I suggest that it's fashionable to say social inequality is down to genetics - it certainly happens a lot in these forums and it comes up especially when people would rather pass the buck for difficult social problems.
        12y ago