Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That’s the Point

https://outlookzen.com/2020/12/20/meritocracies-are-unfair-and-thats-the-point/

by ivanvas • 4 years ago

25 25 4 years ago

warrenm• 4 years ago

“There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.” --John F. Kennedy

olliej3• 4 years ago

That doesn't mean we should go and send a bunch off to die for no reason.

That doesn't mean you get to maintain old biases, and continue to deliberately discriminate against women, PoC, etc.

Some unfairness is unavoidable, but using the idea that some is unavoidable to to justify maintaining biases is bullshit.

Otherwise we might as well go back to segregated schools, and red lining, after all life is unfair

empressplay• 4 years ago

A rising tide floats all boats.

gunfighthacksaw• 4 years ago

And drowns those treading water.

vannevar6• 4 years ago

Unfortunately, the economy does not behave like a fluid, and a rising economy raises the wealthiest boats orders of magnitude higher than middle-class boats, and thousands of times higher than the poorest boats, which rise imperceptibly by comparison.

josephcsible• 4 years ago

If something helps everyone, it's a good thing even if it helps rich people more than poor people.

spacemanmatt3• 4 years ago

Good ole trickle-down theory, eh

robocat• 4 years ago

Do you think trickle-down maybe works for technology? The iPad I am typing on in New Zealand, communicating with the world. How many people in the world have a smart phone and access to fantastic public information on the internet?

Or is trickle-down working for the majority of people around the world that have moved out of extreme poverty? In 1990 36% of the world lived in extreme poverty. In 2015 that had dropped to 10%. Is that trickle-down?

The ultra-wealthy are obscenely richer, but that doesn’t mean that the poor are not better off too.

I agree with your sentiment: trickle-down doesn’t feel like it is working in New Zealand, but I’m unsure how much of the feeling is based on fact versus envy.

FFRefresh2• 4 years ago

I directionally agree with the author, but I wish they had defined what they meant by 'fair', since the concept is so prominent in their post.

The meaning of that word seems to vary depending on a speaker's intent and underlying beliefs about humanity.

vannevar6• 4 years ago

Corrupting this process by discriminating on the basis of family ties, personal friendships, wealth, race, or gender, is simply cutting your nose to spite your face.

Right. This is the precise argument in favor of diversity: that we have, for centuries now, been discriminating on the basis of race and selecting inferior performers over better choices because they were white, or male. The purpose of social justice is to bring us closer to meritocracy.

Social justice teaches us how to distribute the pie fairly, so that no one is left behind.

No. The purpose of social justice is to ensure equal opportunity, not equality per se.

FFRefresh2• 4 years ago

No. The purpose of social justice is to ensure equal opportunity, not equality per se.

Who is the authority on the 'purpose' of social justice? Or is what you state just your opinion?

Perhaps this is just the circles I am around, but there has been increasing insistence on 'equity' by those who purport to be championing social justice. With 'equity' being exclusively determined by looking at distributions of outcomes, not opportunities.

vannevar6• 4 years ago

Who is the authority on the 'purpose' of social justice? Or is what you state just your opinion?

This is a good question, but I would defer to liberal leadership, and their rhetoric consistently refers to equal opportunity. I think a lot of people rely on conservative commentary on "what liberals think" rather than simply reading the original sources. Equity refers to equality of opportunity. See, eg, the official White House executive order regarding racial equity:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...

"Equal opportunity" is literally the first two words of the very first section.

You can't ignore outcomes as a useful metric, of course, but the objective is clearly equal opportunity, which will ultimately generate more balanced outcomes naturally.

mrjangles2• 4 years ago

This is the precise argument in favor of diversity: that we have, for centuries now, been discriminating on the basis of race and selecting inferior performers over better choices because they were white, or male.

If people who believed this could actually present a shred of evidence that it is true, then a lot of people would be a lot more receptive to these ideas.

olliej3• 4 years ago

Are you fucking kidding?

We can look back to the 70s when black americans were legally prohibited from certain jobs. Or prohibited from from owning property in most areas.

In the 80s we have plenty of lawsuits demonstrating the black americans were routinely denied home loans because they were black.

Most of the Ivy League colleges denied entry to black americans no matter the quality of their character. This racism remains entrenched, and leaves a lasting legacy of bias through legacy admissions, formalized hereditary entrance: the original positive discrimination.

The legacy admissions also provide the formal evidence of the original claim: people who's admission to a good school has nothing to do with their skill, merely being white allowing their family to have attended any school.

karmakaze• 4 years ago

A description of a choice of definitions: Meritocracy and Fair.

I think what we're currently in is a period of Moneyball where we can do better.

zozbot234• 4 years ago

Meritocracies are both unfair and inconvenient, but that's not the "point"; the point is rather that assigning responsibility based on competence ought to lead to better social outcomes across the board. To the extent that this fails, there would be no "point" to an actual meritocracy, either.

Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That’s the Point

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