Good point, that's pretty true. Much like software, there's a projected image which involves the ideal of 'meritocracy', and much like software that's not how i

Good point, that's pretty true. Much like software, there's a projected image which involves the ideal of 'meritocracy', and much like software that's not how it works on the inside. Unlike software, nobody who's been in or involved with academia for more than a year or two (read: grad students) holds on to that illusion or parrots that brand of nonsense. My suspicion about software's need to maintain a veneer of meritocratic legitimacy is that there's a lot of money being tossed around, and a lot of founders/entrepreneur types making and losing money. Those who succeed have the loudest voices, and they don't want their successes to have been be influenced by the whims of fate or chance. So we end up with this Horatio Alger mythos born of the dissonance between success and merit.