6 ms·

You know meritocracy† was coined as term to satirise the problem of promoting "greatness", which is hard to measure and results in promoting conformity and clas

You know meritocracy† was coined as term to satirise the problem of promoting "greatness", which is hard to measure and results in promoting conformity and class, as opposed to finding the creative minority who bring real progress? † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology

sunseb 6y ago
Here we go with the Marxist propaganda: "The creative minority who bring real progress." What is this "real progress" you are talking about? Guess what, 99% of the "real progress" in this world was done by high IQ people coming from the "majority".
- Robin_Message 6y ago
  Wow, I don't think I've ever been accused of Marxist propaganda before. Certainly not before lunchtime. Okay, I'm going to try and be charitable. I agree that high IQ people create "real progress" and they come from the majority. A good example I expect we would agree on would be Steve Jobs: very smart, responsible for lots of progress. The problem I see with meritocracy as it exists in the real world, for example, college admissions is that it doesn't reward Steve Jobs. It rewards the smart but boring, the clever but not too clever, the academically bright and socially conservative. When I quoted "minority", I didn't mean that there is some special cadre of people who are better; the quote refers to the fact that only a few people are responsible for human progress. There are plenty of high IQ people, but few Einsteins or Gates or Jobs. And returning to TFA, it seems obvious that selecting an ever-smaller fraction based on quantifiable measurements doesn't measure merit. I'd argue "merit" is simply not accurately measurable, certainly not on a large enough scale for college admissions. So the idea of selecting randomly from a fraction of "good enough" is likely to give as good a result, whilst also improving problems of social mobility and possible finding those diamonds in the rough who might have greater "merit" but not be good at standardised testing for whatever reason.
lhnz 6y ago
Nowadays, the term is widely used in a positive way to describe 'creative minorities who bring real progress'. It is confusing to use the old opposing definition of the word 'meritocracy' when everybody else around you is adhering to the original meaning of 'merit'. Of course, whether or not we're able to accurately evaluate 'merit' is a decent question, but it is better to ask the question using metrics, than to try to answer using personal bias and satire.
- Robin_Message 6y ago
  The point of the satire, and the point of TFA, is that measuring 'merit' is difficult, if not impossible, and a focus on 'meritocracy' will lead to promoting those that perform best at the measurable proxies to merit, not actual merit. It seemed worth pointing out that people are using a word conceived satirically to advocate for the very system that satire warned against. And it's an interesting bit of history.
  - username90 6y ago
    Every good system need to strive to be a meritocracy, anyone arguing anything else is just talking nonsense. If it is impossible to determine who has more merit then every system is doomed to fail.
  - lhnz 6y ago
    Best at 'measurable proxies of merit' is exactly what I think people should speak plainly about and fight for. But, instead we have people that think that because merit cannot be perfectly measured we should stop attempting to find meritocracy and instead to select randomly. Random selection must be worse than a measurable proxy. I gain nothing personally from this system, because I didn't travel through a top college. But I do not think it's in my interests to completely destroy societies way of selecting people into important positions based on some idea of 'merit'.

sunseb 6y ago

Here we go with the Marxist propaganda: "The creative minority who bring real progress." What is this "real progress" you are talking about? Guess what, 99% of the "real progress" in this world was done by high IQ people coming from the "majority".

Robin_Message 6y ago
Wow, I don't think I've ever been accused of Marxist propaganda before. Certainly not before lunchtime. Okay, I'm going to try and be charitable. I agree that high IQ people create "real progress" and they come from the majority. A good example I expect we would agree on would be Steve Jobs: very smart, responsible for lots of progress. The problem I see with meritocracy as it exists in the real world, for example, college admissions is that it doesn't reward Steve Jobs. It rewards the smart but boring, the clever but not too clever, the academically bright and socially conservative. When I quoted "minority", I didn't mean that there is some special cadre of people who are better; the quote refers to the fact that only a few people are responsible for human progress. There are plenty of high IQ people, but few Einsteins or Gates or Jobs. And returning to TFA, it seems obvious that selecting an ever-smaller fraction based on quantifiable measurements doesn't measure merit. I'd argue "merit" is simply not accurately measurable, certainly not on a large enough scale for college admissions. So the idea of selecting randomly from a fraction of "good enough" is likely to give as good a result, whilst also improving problems of social mobility and possible finding those diamonds in the rough who might have greater "merit" but not be good at standardised testing for whatever reason.

lhnz 6y ago

Nowadays, the term is widely used in a positive way to describe 'creative minorities who bring real progress'. It is confusing to use the old opposing definition of the word 'meritocracy' when everybody else around you is adhering to the original meaning of 'merit'. Of course, whether or not we're able to accurately evaluate 'merit' is a decent question, but it is better to ask the question using metrics, than to try to answer using personal bias and satire.

Robin_Message 6y ago
The point of the satire, and the point of TFA, is that measuring 'merit' is difficult, if not impossible, and a focus on 'meritocracy' will lead to promoting those that perform best at the measurable proxies to merit, not actual merit. It seemed worth pointing out that people are using a word conceived satirically to advocate for the very system that satire warned against. And it's an interesting bit of history.
- username90 6y ago
  Every good system need to strive to be a meritocracy, anyone arguing anything else is just talking nonsense. If it is impossible to determine who has more merit then every system is doomed to fail.
- lhnz 6y ago
  Best at 'measurable proxies of merit' is exactly what I think people should speak plainly about and fight for. But, instead we have people that think that because merit cannot be perfectly measured we should stop attempting to find meritocracy and instead to select randomly. Random selection must be worse than a measurable proxy. I gain nothing personally from this system, because I didn't travel through a top college. But I do not think it's in my interests to completely destroy societies way of selecting people into important positions based on some idea of 'merit'.