Is Believing In Meritocracy Bad For You? (fastcompany.com) 480
An anonymous reader quotes Fast Company:
Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called "grit," depend a great deal on one's genetic endowments and upbringing.
This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates's stellar rise as Microsoft's founder, as well as to Frank's own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.
In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways.
The article cites a pair of researchers who "found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate.
"They suggest that this 'paradox of meritocracy' occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides."
This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates's stellar rise as Microsoft's founder, as well as to Frank's own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.
In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways.
The article cites a pair of researchers who "found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate.
"They suggest that this 'paradox of meritocracy' occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides."
Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:2, Funny)
... Because there will always be some jackass that kisses the boss's ass while you work your hands to the bone and aforementioned jackass gets the promotion while you get the equivalent of a pay cut in the form of a tiny raise. That kind of crap gives you high blood pressure, stress, and anxiety.
Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not an example of meritocracy, it's one of nepotism. Affirmative action is another.
Societies that can't handle reality are doomed to fail. Some people are better, faster than others. Deal with it. People are tribal and place undue value in charismatic leaders. Deal with it. If you can't, there's always Sally Struthers' offer of TV/VCR repair and auto mechanic training. In the meantime, focusing on merit helps mitigate these tendencies.
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I"m more worried that they think that "There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates".
Is Gates the most skillful programmer in the world now?
Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
That sentence demonstrates without requiring much thought what the article demonstrates if you think about it -
the author is an idiot.
Bill Gates isn't a successful programmer, he didn't write DOS. He's an incredibly successful business person, he bought and sold DOS and managed a company to turn it into billions.
Here's a little story about luck. I recently got lucky and got a new high-paying job. Maybe my dream job. Lucky for me, the hiring managers were looking for someone to do the types of things I have been doing at work lately, such as teaching a CISSP course. My class consisted of about 50 employees ranging from our head of internal security to recently hired engineers. The reason I volunteered to do such a class was precisely to raise my profile as a security expert - to put self in front of these managers while I filled the role of security expert. If you want to eventually have options of good security jobs, it doesn't hurt to have the head of security see that you are an expert, I figured. Twice per month I attended a meetings of security groups like OWASP and ISC2. At those meetings I talked to dozens of people about the companies they worked for and which skill sets they were hitting for. I kept on eye on the open positions at three local companies I was interested in. I tried to learn more about the skills they were looking for. I kept my LinkedIn updated with accomplishments and fielded calls from recruiters several times per week - mostly pointless calls. I kept a copy my resume in my car and gave it to someone who might be able to hire me. I did a good job at my current role, asking my co-workers and my boss how I could improve. I struggled to actually be *nice* to co-workers, although my natural state is asshole.
Overall I did hundreds of things to increase my odds of landing a great job. Hundreds of things "didn't work" immediately, yet I kept doing them. Eventually I "got lucky" and two of the things I was doing aligned with what a company was looking for and I landed the great job. How lucky.
It's like wearing a seatbelt. 99.9% of the time, if you don't wear a seatbelt nothing bad will happen. But eventually there will be an accident, so if you don't wear a seatbelt 99.9% of the time, you're probably going to end up hurt.
A large percentage of people who found very successful businesses first started several businesses that were not successful. They learned from their failures and kept trying. Eventually they learned enough and try enough things to find one that worked well - they "got lucky" and did tell right things, by trying a lot of things that seemed likely to be right.
We all make a hundred decisions every day. Starting with whether to hit the anooze button and ending with going to bed in time. Do we stop to help the person on the aide of the road while we're on the way to work?
We have a hundred "luck" situations every day - the stranded motorist could be the president of our company, could be our future spouse, who knows. That's luck. When we cut someone off in traffic, or get cut off, the person we flipped the bird to might be in a rush to get to an interview on time - them interviewing us. In the elevator when we smile at someone oe don't, who that person is depends on luck. In any given year we have thousands of "luck" possibilities. Some will be great opportunities, some won't be.
Success and failure happens when our thousands of choices each year meet our thousands of lucky opportunities. Someone who is habitually rude will, by chance, end up being rude to the written person, eventually. Someone who is always helpful will, by chance, eventually be helpful to the right person.
Luck determines whether our fate happens on Wednesday or on Thursday. Our habits determine whether we'll be doing to right thing or the wrong thing when those opportunities come by.
Re:Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
That sentence demonstrates without requiring much thought what the article demonstrates if you think about it - the author is an idiot.
Bill Gates isn't a successful programmer, he didn't write DOS. He's an incredibly successful business person, he bought and sold DOS and managed a company to turn it into billions.
That's just getting started on the falsehoods with the Gates framing.
From Wikipedia: His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem... at 13, he enrolled in the Lakeside School, a private preparatory school.
Gates was a highly privileged child born into a wealthy, extremely well-connected family. His family, and their friends and acquaintances, bankrolled Gates start-up, and provided him a very cushy safety net. There is nothing "long shot" about Gates.
Re:Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
There is nothing "long shot" about Gates.
Bingo.
Gates had the backing to succeed pretty much no matter what he did. He had the resources to leverage (connections, money, etc), which most of us don't.
He was born a poor white millionaire and parlayed it into something bigger.
Re:Lots of lawyers, 1 Bill Gates. I was homeless (Score:4, Insightful)
So your theory that Gates' trillion dollar company is the result of having a successful parent doesn't quite work out, because 99.9999% of people who have successful parents do not build huge companies.
Can you back up your number with facts?
There are only 1.1 million lawyers in the US. So unless there's only one "huge company" in the US founded by a child of a lawyer, your number cannot be right.
Moreover, founding one of the largest companies in the world is an unreasonable standard for success. There are many children of lawyers who have multi-million dollar businesses, most of whom you've never heard of. That's still a huge privilege compared to most other people.
Me too (Score:3)
I've been getting incredibly lucky too, lately.
For years, I did what I wanted to do, living for the now, and kept having incredibly bad luck. As I mentioned, I ended up homeless, living under a tarp on a vacant lot.
Then I switched to making it a habit to focus on five years down the road. Giving up what I wanted at the moment in exchange for what would most likely bring good things five years later. I keep having incredibly good luck since then.
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Well, Trump's counterpart in the UK, the guy that gives out the jobs/investment in The Apprentice here, the self-made billionaire, is a chap called Alan.
Alan was born in Hackney, a shithole in London and raised in a council flat - for you Americans that's social housing.
Could Alan become the UK's Prime Minister? Not now, due to age, but had he chosen to go that route, quite possibly. He's been offered jobs in Government multiple times, despite never even running for parliament, and was given a life peerage.
Re: Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:2)
I say something similar when it comes to karma. Good things happen more often to good people. Bad things happen more often to bad people. Criminals usually eventually get caught. Itâ(TM)s a numbers game. Yes, bad things happen to good people and vice/versa but in generally doing the right thing is rewarded more often than doing the wrong thing. Luck is a huge part of life but it helps to try to stack the deck in your favor by being nice, aquiring appropriate skills, avoiding stupid decisions, be
Re:Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget confirmation bias. The lucky business success does all the things you said and then the right things happen at the right time and he is successful. The unlucky one does the same things until he is out of money and out of time. Then he takes whatever work he can get to not end up on the street and he is tioo busy punching the clock to be there to shake the right hand at lunch or because he is a 3rd level flunky, the right person doesn't actually listen to the revolutionary idea he has over lunch.
You'll never hear about that guy. Nobody invites 3rd level flunkies to do interviews.
Skill, good decisions, and a willingness to work certainly can increase your odds, but they are not sufficient.
Re:Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, it's weird but preparation often seems to be a super-strong magnet for "luck".
Re:Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of when my son was young and we'd fix something together.
I miraculously always had the tool(s) we needed and my son would say, "It's lucky we had that (insert name of tool), huh dad?"
"Yes, very lucky," I would say, "very lucky that daddy just happened to go out years ago and buy it, huh?"
He got it after a couple of those go-arounds.
Yes, sometimes you do just have blammo-out-of-the-blue luck, but most of the time it's just being prepared.
Re:Not a programmer, author is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Hence, the quote: "Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation."
There is also the similar quote supposedly attributed to Seneca: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
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That reveals the real problem with merit, it's measurement. Best evidence suggests that Gates was an OK programmer, but needs supervision.
Luck got him an in withe IBM. Since he had the in, people assumed he simply MUST be a great programmer. That assumption of merit got him further ins which enhanced the assumption of merit.
In reality, he never actually delivered on his first product, BASIC for the Altair. His first delivery of DOS (which was a hack on someone elses project) had a brown paper bug. But becau
Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:5, Insightful)
A central tenet of post-modernism is that "there is no such thing as merit". Anyone who succeeds can only do so because privilege, as there is no such thing as merit. Every successful person is an oppressor, as there is no such thing as merit.
Meritocracy, the idea of meritocracy, is the very antithesis of post-modernism. And post-modernism is the most evil philosophy that has ever been conceived.
Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:5, Insightful)
While much of what you wrote is true, you clearly didn't RTFA.
A few quotes that demonstrate what they are referring to:
The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. ... wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe. ... Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth.
Thus their conclusions and the title. If you believe the world IS driven by merit, if your own actions and efforts alone can transform you into a C-suite executive or billionaire, the result ranges from being an unrealistic optimism about work, to a self-destructive attitude, to confusion and delusion about why their hard work is not being rewarded.
The belief is also why so many people tend to be self-praising, they write about that belief, "It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses.", and when used by the poor, destroys morale and self worth.
While it is valuable to put people in charge of projects because they have a demonstrated ability to get things done, hence meritocracy, the article is declaring that the world does not work that way and many other factors like family wealth, race, luck, nepotism, and good old fashioned boot-licking are the way a large part of how the world actually works.
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While much of what you wrote is true, you clearly didn't RTFA.
must be new here.
If you believe the world IS driven by merit, if your own actions and efforts alone can transform you into a C-suite executive or billionaire, the result ranges from being an unrealistic optimism about work, to a self-destructive attitude, to confusion and delusion about why their hard work is not being rewarded.
Which is just post-modernism light.
If you demonstrate merit you're going to be more successful than otherwise. We don't need to reduce the world to childish black or white, all or nothing. Live as if it were true that merit is rewarded, and you will be happier and more successful. That doesn't mean that's your only consideration in life, but don't simply be bitter and cynical and never try.
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Exactly. The odds of people relying on "luck" as the driving force for success are going to have their odds of being successful be about the same as winning the lottery. For the people who rely on working hard and doing the right things instead, the vast majority of them will be successful.
To think the first attitude is "better" than the second is crazy and self-defeating. Did the article writers "luck" into the article, having it appear magically fully formed for them on their computer, or did they put out
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Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it make you feel good to call people who disagree with you Nazis?
Of course it does. The GP's entire psychology is based up it. When you see a messed up situation you can do one of two things: 1) Separate yourself from it, 2) try to help. Trying to help is hard. You have to work with people already in the situation. You need to understand the issue, have a solution and then implement it. Separating yourself from the situation and blaming others is easy. And we have been teaching complaining as some sort of social good in the school system for the last 10 or 15 years. Turns out, when you teach people to complain instead of help, you end up with a situation where nobody helps, everyone complains about everything and things gets worse consistently. Sound familiar? The GP probably has probably never done anything remarkable their entire life but has been told consistently how great they are despite all evidence to the contrary. So someone else who actually does remarkable things must be bad because they disprove the GP's worldview.
The real problem is that we see self-esteem as some sort of good by itself instead of something to be earned by mastering some other task or skill. This causes Trumpism (ignoring of experts) and this sort of post-modern anti-merit idea at the same time. Turns out, artificially created and unearned self-confidence is bad for kids and society. Who knew?...Probably every generation of parents before us
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"Everybody else is bad!" - What a convenient excuse for your abject failure in life.
Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, if an employer throws away the applications of minorities, then it's not a level playing field is it. And that HAS happened. Heck it's even been caught on camera. YOU just benefitted from racism. You didn't know it, but you did.
You might think so at first, because hey, you got a job you might not have otherwise received, but in reality you haven't benefited. You now work at a company that is willing to reject hiring talented employees because of skin color or some other characteristic that isn't meaningful to performance. That means you're going to be working with less skillful co-workers and that the competition is going to have a leg up on the company you work for because they hire more skilled employees. I would not want to work at such a place or be dragged down with it. Would you?
Sure, guys like you believe that we live in a Meritocracy, it makes you feel better about your selfishness, bigotry and racism: "Why those ghetto people are undeserving, they should do what I did. They're just lazy" But society as a whole was giving you XP boosts, extra loot, early access in the RPG of Life and you didn't even know it.
Now it's your bigotry that's showing. I'd look very carefully at the attitudes that lead to people living in ghettos and keeping them there. You'll find that there are plenty of people who manage to escape the unfortunate environment or situation that they were born into and that the poor attitudes and life choices that lead to ghettos don't care whether you're black or white. I'm sure that you're familiar with people who are referred to as trailer park trash. A pejorative typically used for white people, but essentially it's just a way of saying white ghetto. Why did they fail to receive all of these benefits, boosts, etc. that you think everyone else received? Black or white, ghetto or tailer park, it doesn't matter. One set of beliefs will keep you trapped where you've started, the other will allow you to escape and ensure a better start for your own children.
If you work hard and seek to create a world where merit is more important, then you will be more successful than when you started. Those who sit around blaming others for the world being unfair aren't going to improve and unfortunately they'll come to believe that their continued misery is only a manifestation of their beliefs and trap themselves further. Those people aren't undeserving, but they deserve exactly what they got. Perhaps you'll have an easier time in life because your parents worked hard to improve their own lives and by extension yours, but there's no shortages of cases where children squander all of the opportunity they're given and it amounts to nothing. Perhaps they're so wealthy that it's almost impossible for them to destroy the advantage that they had in their own lifetime, but given long enough to live and they would.
America is built on people rising far above their birth conditions, and as a result is one of the most prosperous nations on the planet. We've limited our potential as a nation only to the extent that we've failed to act as a meritocracy. If a close family member of yours needed surgery, would you not try to find the most qualified doctor you possibly can to perform it? Or would you base your selection on whether or not that person comes from some group that you consider more deserving? The problem isn't that meritocracy is bad, it's that we don't have enough of it. Do you think fighting inequality with inequality will help anything?
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That's not an example of meritocracy, it's one of nepotism.
Which proves that true meritocracy is a pipe dream believed in by people wanting to ensure themselves they're smart or whatever and earned their success instead of benefitting from the status quo/race/family money
Affirmative action is another.
Say you applied for a job and the employer threw away the applications of minorities...which has been known to happen and has been caught on camera, YOU just benefitted from racism. You didn't know it, but you did. And then if you say "I earned my sucess" you're wrong, you didn't earn it fairly
Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Say you applied for a job and the employer threw away the applications of minorities...which has been known to happen and has been caught on camera, YOU just benefitted from racism. You didn't know it, but you did. And then if you say "I earned my sucess" you're wrong, you didn't earn it fairly. You didn't have to compete on a fair playing field. The deck was stacked in your favor, you were rolling attack rolls in the RPG of real-life with a D20 modified to roll 20's more often.
Sure, guys like you believe that we live in a Meritocracy, it makes you feel better about your selfishness bigotry and racism: "Why those ghetto people are undeserving, they should do what I did. They're just lazy" But society as a whole was giving you XP boosts, extra loot, early access, and you didn't even know it.
So your company will be hiring programmers to your team by lottery then? Let me know how that goes for you...
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No. Nepotism would suggest some sort of familial connection.
The problem isn't merit itself, but the measurement of merit and when that merit is recognized. The guy that kissed ass and got the promotion will soon see every minor accomplishment lauded as evidence of his merit. The guy working his ass off will remain a face in the crowd.
The much brighter kid on the janitorial staff will be ignored until he stops talking about his genuinely better ideas on how to run things. His reward will be a pink slip in a
Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem comes when we mis-measure merit. The CEO makes a pile of money and is a CEO, therefor we bump up his measure of "merit", the bright kid cleaning toilets and cleaning toilets, so we bump down his measure of "merit".
Then, having thumbed all the scales to fit the outcome, we proudly proclaim that merit is a useful measure and that we are obviously a meritocracy. Then, based on the pre-fudged values of "merit" we perpetuate the situation. The CEO gets more chairs pulled out and more golden parachutes, the bright kid gets more toilets to clean followed by more pink slips.
Occasionally (VERY occasionally), luck on the same level as winning the big lotto jackpot twice strikes and the toilet cleaner gets a real shot at the brass ring. Very occasionally, the CEO and his massive "merit" screw up so bad and so often that no amount of blinders, ear plugs and looking the other way can allow the board to ignore the lack of merit.
Actual merit is a useful thing, but our means of measuring it produce a largely useless and often harmful metric.
Re: Believing in meritocracy is bad for you (Score:3)
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You can be as good, as fast, as superior to your peers be as you want. If you aren't lucky, this leads to nothing (and even the fact that you are good and fast is mainly luck).
I find the whole premise flawed and reject the conclusions of the article.
I'm intelligent. Your reasoning is that this is luck, and any success derived from my intelligence is thus inherently lucky.
But I was at university with thousands of intelligent people. I've outperformed many of them in the workplace, and some of them have outperformed me. Is that luck, or is that other factors coming into play?
The same background that gave me high intelligence also gave me crippling social interaction difficulties, p
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Everything is a meritocracy. It's just the criteria may be hidden from you.
For example, perhaps the promotion went to not the best programmer or team leader, but the best at kissing arse. Still a Meritocracy.
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Except that they tend to lack in areas of knowledge actually required to do their jobs..or at least to understand the jobs of those who work for them. Then they fall back on their 'superior' social skills and gaslight subordinates who get closest to making them realize just how far away from reality their understanding actually is.
Social skills are important, but not at the expense of critical thinking, knowledge, and wisdom. Unfortunately, society today is obsessed with them and the deficiencies are alread
It's sort of like climate change. (Score:3)
Except that one of those doesn't exist and the other does.
Like climate change, it doesn't care if you believe in it or not.
Fortune favors the well prepared (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a really really old saying. So yes luck bestows merit but the important part isn't that. True Merit is needed to take advantage of Luck. Nearly every experimental graduate student will tell you it takes 2 weeks of work to get a PhD but it takes 5 years to find be prepared to recognize the 2 weeks.
It's also slightly like the repairman called in to repair the machine after the comapny techs have exhausted themselves with no success. He just taps it with a hammer on the side, it works, and he sends a $1000 bill. When they company thinks the hourly rate for just a single tap can't justify the bill they denad he itemize it. So he sends the new bill. $1 tapping in side, $999 knowing where to tap.
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It's a really really old saying. So yes luck bestows merit but the important part isn't that. True Merit is needed to take advantage of Luck. Nearly every experimental graduate student will tell you it takes 2 weeks of work to get a PhD but it takes 5 years to find be prepared to recognize the 2 weeks.
Working in a research lab, I feel that ratio is pretty far off. It's a lot more than 2 weeks. If stuff goes badly, maybe you have to chuck out 3/4 of your experimental work. If stuff goes well, all your experimental work goes into your thesis.
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well the stuff you chuck was time, the the works produced in the 2 weeks where you got the right outcome is what goes in the thesis. If only you could just start right there and do just those 2 weeks and not all the other times it didn't work for 5 years.
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This is true, but I don't think it invalidates the premise. You must be prepared in order to have success, and merit can improve your chances, but they're still chances.
I think the real problem is that we conflate success with merit. The successful have some merit, but usually no more than a great many other people. They were simply the lucky random draws.
Reading books directed at business people reminds me of Skinner's paper on superstition in the pigeon. This successful person rises at three am, clips his
It's not luck if it keeps happening (Score:3)
You must be prepared in order to have success, and merit can improve your chances, but they're still chances.
I invite you to read Mark Twain's story "Science vs. Luck".
What appears to you to be chance is not seeing all of the actions taken to deliver what is in essence a sure victory, the only thing in question is exactly what path it will take.
The only way chance enters the picture is by sometimes derailing those who have set up a path of otherwise certainty.
You truly can make your own luck, I have seen i
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The grand flaw in the whole original premise is the idea that all that Bill needed was to know how to code. Building a successful business takes a bit more than that. The ivory tower nit wits don't understand what they are supposed to be measuring so they declare that it doesn't exist at all.
The entire narrative plays great with people who don't want to take any kind of responsibility for themselves. They can easily externalize their own failings.
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The ivory tower nit wits don't understand what they are supposed to be measuring so they declare that it doesn't exist at all.
It seems really ignorant to assume this. The effect is that plebs try hard and don't stand a chance of competing with them. That seems less a case of not understanding that it's all dumb luck, social connections, generational wealth, and an economic system which prevents others from doing the same. If everyone knew how the rich were able to get and stay rich (essentially keeping wealth as close to them, their family, and their friends as possible while not pissing away 50% on every transaction in taxes)
Re:You're strawmaning (Score:4, Insightful)
But those aren't what anyone thinks about when they hear the phrase "meritocracy", especially in a context critical of the concept.
No, that's what you think about when you hear "meritocracy". The rest of us use the dictionary and realize that when you hear that word you think it means cronyism. Which is what you are railing about. But the rest of us think of meritocracy as hiring someone who can do the job and rewarding them when they do well.
I will say that bad corporate management rarely rewarding merit is the real problem. To add insult to injury they then hide behind the word "meritocracy". That's why you are mad at this word.
But you have to understand that the world runs in cycles and that hack they promoted over you then gets the VP in trouble because they did someone dumb or at least didn't do the smart thing the company needed them to do. Bad management decisions often come home to roost but it just takes time. There is a huge pile of failed companies in the past to prove that. The problem is a bit of survivor bias, you don't think or see those companies that failed due to bad management because they don't exist anymore and you may not have even heard of them. Running your company the way you ideas seem to argue for, would likely end in everyone losing because whether you like it or not, customers will reward merit if they can. And usually they can somehow...
Re:You're strawmaning (Score:4, Insightful)
But those aren't what anyone thinks about when they hear the phrase "meritocracy", especially in a context critical of the concept.
The context of TFA is pretty clear on what "meritocracy" is:
"Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of lifeâ"money, power, jobs, university admissionâ"should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the âoeeven playing fieldâ upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. "
"In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either âoeessentialâ or âoevery importantâ when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. "
Also pretty clear in context of TFA being against meritocracy is the equivalent of being FOR straight up socialism.
What we're all thinking about are two things:
Who is we? The term Meritocracy is obviously totally meaningless in the absence of specific context. The context TFA provided is clearly not the same as the one you are working under.
a. People who coast to wealth on the backs of actual hard working folk. The Paris Hilton's the world. The Prosperity Gospel and the Divine Right of Kings.
Nearly every rich person on earth has done exactly this. They have all extracted value from those hired to labor for their benefit. What specifically is the problem?
b. People given a leg up in the world who act like they earned it all themselves. There's a phrase for this behavior: Pulling the ladder up behind you.
LOL... I wrote this program all by myself.
No no no! You didn't write the compiler or operating system stacks it has to call to operate. Nor have you designed or produced the hardware necessary for it to execute. You didn't develop the lithography devices making it possible to fabricate integrated circuits nor the enabling mathematics allowing for its development. You didn't mine raw materials nor develop processes for refining and processing them. You didn't develop the underlying models of governance that provided services necessary for any of these things to be developed.
Who fucking cares? What difference does it make how much credit or deference someone feels like belching out so long as you are not making fraudulent claims? Credits for every conceivable thing go back to the beginning of civilization.
You've set up your strawman (the hardworking PhD/repairman) and knocked him down, while completely ignoring people's real concerns over how the concept of meritocracy is abused to excuse wealth inequality, uphold a ruling class and punch down on the lower castes.
Seriously TFA is a subjective house of mirrors. It asserts "grit" is a function of genetics and upbringing explicitly dismissing all personal endeavor as "luck".
TFA also isn't so much about Meritocracy itself as it is a citation of a study of how internal perceptions of (nebulous) it as an ideal causes people to become full of themselves:
"Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this âoeparadox of meritocracyâ occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice."
"However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of oneâ(TM)s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles
well, then (Score:4, Funny)
Lucky I read this article.
I'll judge it on its merits.
More Like Idiocracy... (Score:3)
Which in itself is depressing and disheartening to see.
Re: More Like Idiocracy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Meritocracy is about identifying merit, not punishing those who lack merit in some way. Everybody lacks merit in some way. If you want the best answer, use a meritocracy. It doesn't mean you throw the losers off the lifeboat. The losers may very well win the next round. I find the people who eschew meritocracies generally enjoy some sort of secret advantage that would disappear if truth came out and the best solution were found. Ultimately trust makes meritocracy work best as the ultimate win in a meritocracy comes from putting yourself out of a job by training and encouraging those who seem to have more talent than you at different tasks. Winning by losing is a standard tactic in merit-oriented organizations.
Thole whole problem is perfectionism... (Score:2)
Absolutism is the biggest of them all. You want absolute perfection... in any system people dream up. The downfall to everything is trying to get to that 100%. Idiocracy is satire going the opposite way to highlight that we don't have enough. It is not arguing we need be extreme but only that we are not doing enough.
Any merit system becomes a huge mess of problems on how do you RATE merit. Any "fair" system will be defined in a commonly understandable reproducible set of rules. Those rules will be stat
What is a meritocracy anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Meritocracy is a concept so nebulous that it's hard to say much about because "merit" is a very nebulous concept. I can feel the downmods already.
The thing is very very few careers and jobs are solo ones. Engineering in particular is a team sport. Even the very best 10x engineers cant build the entire system all by themselves; there are too many niche areas of expertise and just too much stuff to get done.
The thing is once you are in a job with other people, merit isnt just about *technical* merit. Metit is about your ability broadly speaking to generate value for the company you work at.
Now here's where it gets trickier still: good people generally find it easier to move between jobs. Bad people cling on to their job like a life-raft because they don't know where the next one is coming from. Bad working environments tend to concentrate bad people because the good people cycle out faster and the bad people stay.
We have all (well probably many of us) been in or seen situations where that's happened. Even something as neutral as "attrition" where the budget is cut and they stop hiring new people (even replacements) and rely on natural cycling to redcue the workforce. As the project tems get strained the working environment gets worse until the good people start to leave.
Well, toxic individuals are part of it. A great programmer who causes other pretty good programmers to leave is not a net asset. Unless that programmer can do everything (which we know isnt the case), the company would be better off with someone with les sharp techincal skills who doesn't cause all the other techincally skilled people to leave.
And the thing is good people do leave. You spend a lot of your life at work. You've only got one life and there's a ton of interesting stuff to do in it, so why waste any time on arseholes?
And that is the point where merit becomes a whole load more than "can code well" and so on. Engineering is a team sport and teams do not work well with lone wolves no matter how skilled.
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Meritocracy is a concept so nebulous that it's hard to say much about because "merit" is a very nebulous concept.
The summary/article is a good example of that: it says Bill Gates got rich because of his programming skills.
Now, it is true that Bill Gates had some decent programming skills, and it is also true that I am a better programmer than he ever was, and I am still not as rich as him. But they are measuring the wrong thing: Gates didn't get rich because of his programming skills, he got rich because of his business skills (and he got lucky, but his business skills were good enough he would have gotten rich even
Re:What is a meritocracy anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Gates didn't get rich because of his programming skills, he got rich because of his business skills
Its a mix: he happened to need both to capitalise on that opportunity. Once the money started coming in its clear which skillset took the front seat. Its the business skill that took him from selling a successful product to mega rich.
and he got lucky, but his business skills were good enough he would have gotten rich even without the IBM mistakes. Just not as rich
And he got lucky in being born into a rich family. Its astonishingly hard to get rich without a hefty dose of working capital: its glibly said that its easier to make two million dollars from one million than two dollars from one.
Generally you need to be smart, hard working and lucky to strike it rich.
On the other hand there are a lot of people here who fetishise a narrow view on technical skills to the point where they believe a "true" metriocracy is concerned only with that, which is why my post is getting downmods.
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Its astonishingly hard to get rich without a hefty dose of working capital
If you know how to use money to make more, people will be falling over themselves to give you capital. Getting money isn't a problem in the real world.
Generally you need to be smart, hard working
That's conventional wisdom, right? "Gotta work ten hour days at your startup to make it a success." Interestingly it's not true, some startups succeed without overworking themselves. Really though, what are you going to do in those extra two hours that you can't hire someone to do? Working long hours is just penny-pinching and inefficient unless you are worki
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If you know how to use money to make more, people will be falling over themselves to give you capital.
How do you demonstrate that you can do more than talk a good game?
Getting money isn't a problem in the real world.
I counter your assertion with one of the opposite.
That's conventional wisdom, right? "Gotta work ten hour days at your startup to make it a success." Interestingly it's not true, some startups succeed without overworking themselves.
I said hard working, not pathological.
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How do you demonstrate that you can do more than talk a good game?
You don't. All you have to do is talk good game.
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You don't.
Yeah you do. You start off with $2 million (1970s dollars). You then show you were able to use money to make money. That's why being lucky and having a fat wad of cash from your parents is important.
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Yeah you do. You start off with $2 million (1970s dollars). You then show you were able to use money to make money
Oh yeah? You really think that's how venture capital and angel investing works? I seriously have no idea where you are getting this information.
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Oh yeah? You really think that's how venture capital and angel investing works? I seriously have no idea where you are getting this information.
Venture capital usually goes "friends and family", "angel funding", "series A" and so on. You can skip any stages, but it sure helps to have a nice fat wad for stage 1.
Like Bill Gates did.
WHICH IS THE ENTIRE POINT
Re:What is a meritocracy anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't you know? Bill Gates got EARLY access to computers at his high school. It's easy to get a head start as a programmer who later starts a business when 99 percent of high schools didn't have access to a computer.
Also when he met with IBM, one of the IBM execs said to him: "Aren't you Mary Gate's boy?"
Gates was appointed to the board of directors of the national United Way in 1980, becoming the first woman to lead it in 1983. Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed her son's company with John Opel, a fellow committee member and the chairman of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other IBM executives. A few weeks later, IBM took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer.[2]
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Yes, but Gates still benefitted from the NAME and from the early access to computers his family's wealth gave him.
As I said, it's easy to be a pioneer in BASIC for microcomputers when you had access to BASIC in middle school when some colleges didn't have computers.
Or as I said about Robert Tappan Morris, of Morris Worm fame. It's easy to be considered a Unix genius when you get access to a Unix machine when you're a kid (IIRC he was around 10) and have a Bell Labs guy as a parent who can teach you and giv
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Now, it is true that Bill Gates had some decent programming skills, and it is also true that I am a better programmer than he ever was, and I am still not as rich as him. But they are measuring the wrong thing: Gates didn't get rich because of his programming skills, he got rich because of his business skills
His father [wikipedia.org] was a well-connected lawyer, and his mother [wikipedia.org] was chair of the United Way (at which time she rubbed elbows with the CEO of IBM) and also on the board of the First Interstate Bank of Washington. He got rich because he had skills, and he was well-connected. He got those skills in the first place because of who his parents were, and because of the opportunities presented by that parentage [businessinsider.com]. If you want to tell the whole story [fivethirtyeight.com], it's best to start at the beginning. Let's also not forget that Microsoft,
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Rich people stay rich because they have rich habits and skills.
They stay rich because most other rich people want to help people like them, and don't want to help people who aren't like them. Ironically, Bill Gates' father was generally considered to be an all-around nice guy.
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For example, if an employer throws away the applications of minorities, then it's not a level playing field is it. And that HAS happened
Yeah, and sometimes you get rejected for a job because you are old. That has happened to me.
The question is, how do you respond to it? The answer to that question is going to be everything.
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He got the right answer. People who rant on the internet have the wrong answer. Willie Brown went on to change society in his own way, so th
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Meritocracy is a concept so nebulous that it's hard to say much about because "merit" is a very nebulous concept. I can feel the downmods already.
What's so difficult to understand. You can consult the dictionary to find the definition. Merriam-Webster gives three: (1) the qualities or actions that constitute the basis of one's deserts, (2) a praiseworthy quality, and (3) character or conduct deserving reward, honor, or esteem.
A meritocracy is the practice of hiring, retaining, and promoting individuals based on their qualities and conduct that make them deserving of that as opposed to family connections, kickbacks, etc. When the best baseball play
Re:What is a meritocracy anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Difficult to measure doesn’t mean it isn’t useful or practical. You probably can’t define exactly what constitutes “quality” either, but I still bet you use it as a factor when deciding what to purchase.
It seems like you can fathom the idea of merit being tied to value generation which is maybe the fairest way to measure it. Value generation doesn’t care where you’re from, who your parents were, where you went to school, or anything else that might bias a person against you. So why are you so hung up about using that as the basis for hiring or firing decisions? You might argue that a person merely got lucky as the article does, but if someone has heads come up twenty times in a row, there’s a better explanation than luck.
Similarly, people who ignore anything but technical skills will be limited just like a team that only values offense isn’t guaranteed to win any championships. People make poor decisions all the time. A meritocracy ensures that over a long enough period of time, good behavior is rewarded. Maybe you think it takes too long for people to get their just deserts, but the average person can’t run around being a prick all day without it catching up to them.
Based on your signature my only real guess is that meritocracy is a dirty word for you because the kind of people you don’t agree with politically always bag on about it. Guess what, they drink water and breathe air as well. You’re not going to start shunning those activities are you? Even if you don’t agree with someone due to ideological differences, it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong about everything. You likely use a merit based approach in your own daily decision making. If you aren’t, what are you doing that you think is a better approach?
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You're not managing to cast a stellar ray of sunshine here in advancing this argument.
One could just as easily divide humanity into A) those who live to work, and B) those who work to live.
For the second group, job hunting is a time-consuming, stressful, largely uncompensated PITA, where the prize for w
It wouldn't be the first time (Score:2)
that mythical equality has been used to justify inequality.
Sigh (Score:2, Insightful)
First, stop equating money with success. There are truly outstanding people out there who eschew money, use it to achieve better things (hoarding money isn't success... spending it to help things get better for everyone might well be!), or who don't value it enough over other things to bother to "succeed" in making more than they need. There are Nobek prize winners who rejected the prize or donated it.
Don't equate celebrity with success. The most successful people don't seek celebrity and often died in o
Ok Johnnie? (Score:2)
Finding the right people ... (Score:4, Insightful)
... to be successful with is a large part, among with avoiding people who waste your time being a code second.
I've spent 20 years working for countless projects and 10 years meeting a variety of women and only now, in my late 40ies am I finally bearing the fruits of my lessons. I see idiots, timewasters and opportunists coming from miles away and see my sexual interests plummet in seconds when I come across a latently schizophrenic chika, no matter how hot she may look.
On the plus side my relationship now is not only fun but actually productive and my career is starting to pick up simply because I've learned not to waste a single second on opportunites that aren't any or don't advance my own development. Out on people that talk bullshit and only claim to know more than I do but really don't.
Knowing to see through the fake is something people like me have to learn the harder way. I presume that accounts for many differences in the way things go for people.
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I wouldn't say it's *bad* for you..... (Score:2)
As long as you don't let disappointment stop you from trying, you'll be fine.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing factor (Score:4)
You have to be willfully blind to ignore obvious facts that not all racialized communities do poorly in America. So it can't be entirely about being visible minority, or all of them would be worse-off.
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Yes. The people who work hard (or at least see others work hard) and see no return believe success is 100% luck. Those who work hard and see a return believe it is 100% merit. Those who don't work and see a return anyway believe it is natural superiority.
People are crap at estimating distributions. Our brains seek simple, all-or-nothing direct cause and effect, usually based on biased sampling.
I seem the reverse myself (Score:2)
As for me? My mom was nuts. Alcoholic and abusive. Not the "beat you up
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
What a load of horseshit. In all my years, I have never come across a situation where I couldn't prove my worth to an employer or client through hard work.
I'm not particularly intelligent. I'm not good looking, nor am I all that charismatic. What I am is persistent, and I have an understanding of what it takes to succeed ( it may sound cliche, but "never give up" ).
Oh, I've had set backs because of nepotism. Idiot managers and bosses surely have gotten in my way. I don't let that slow me down, however; I keep pushing through it.
Meritocracy isn't perfect, but it works when you do that one thing; don't give up. What more could you ask for?
Yes and no (Score:3)
Believing in a meritocracy isnâ(TM)t a bad thing. I *wish* things were that way.
The problem is that *nothing* works that way. Literally nothing. If things were based on merit, Microsoft wouldnâ(TM)t have dominated the computer industry for several decades. A spoiled rich kid with a big mouth wouldnâ(TM)t be president of the US. There wouldnâ(TM)t be entire movements dedicated to the planet being flat, anti-vaxxinations, etc.
Every day we are reminded of the fact that we are absolutely not living in a meritocracy no matter how much we wish it could be, and the people who insist that it is just make the problem worse because they ignore the actual problems.
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To be fair, most anti-vaxxers are incredibly unsuccessful... we hear about the rich ones, but we mostly hear from the poor ones, as there are hordes of them.
False post-modernist narrative (Score:2)
This is a false narrative. Merit is not on large part the result of luck, unless you redefine luck to mean competence, ability, determination, and perseverance. Merit is small part of luck, that is, you can get drastically unlucky with life's circumstances and not have any opportunities to demonstrate your merit. However, opposite is not true - you can't get merit with pure luck. There are no people that got Nobel purely by luck,
False dichotomy (Score:2)
The study presents a forced choice between two incorrect belief systems-- "Merit is the sole determinant of success" and "Merit has nothing to do with success"-- and then tries to determine which belief system is "worse" from a psychological standpoint. Of course, both belief systems are irrational and stupid, and no one with an ounce of common sense would subscribe to either one of them. It's a classic example of how *not* to do psychological research.
Disclaimer: I haven't RTFA. Maybe the actual resear
Article is bunk (Score:5, Insightful)
Meritocracy is NOT the problem. The problem is what kind of controls are in place to ensure that Meritocracy continues to exist when those in power begin to find way to abuse the system. This argument goes to everything in existence.
Every system is fine so long as it is run by benevolent actors... any malevolent actors will cause damage... be it meritocracy or otherwise. The ONLY system that is the best system is one that creates controls for the "ocracy" to overcome the inherent corruption that humans will bring as they institutionalize the practice being used. This argument is at the core of our very political beings and everyone is missing that key important factor in favor of their political dogma..
Any "ocracy" you create will work well when it is run by benevolent actors. any "ocracy" you create will fail when it is run by malevolent actors. You must always count on a malevolent actor gaining a position of power and controls must be in place to treat that as a certainty, otherwise the system fails because there will be no control to remove malevolent actors without resorting to methods that are likely considered chaos.
Meritocracy is fine, the problem is when a person merits their way to the top and stops being meritorious of that position and finds a way to remain at the top despite no longer meriting this. So really the problem is closer too... how to start being a Meritocracy and STAYING a meritocracy.
With that argument, almost anything is 'luck' (Score:5, Insightful)
Genetics = luck?
Great teacher in school = luck?
Choosing to follow intuition = luck?
Seems to me that, with a sufficiently large value of 'luck', you could encompass almost all circumstances. And I mean ALL.
How about;
Genetics at birth = luck, but study and intellectual exploration = merit
Great teacher = luck, but putting forth the effort to learn and developing your intellect with challenges (from the teacher) = merit
And I can't even touch the third one: if you develop the ability to use intuition to solve problems and choose the 'best' option, that's merit.
In other words, luck is a circumstance, but merit is the result of a series of choices.
And with that, my PhD thesis is complete.....
What's the alternative? (Score:2)
If merit isn't the answer to success, then what's the point of learning anything? Let's just be drooling idiots, because success might come around no matter what.
This makes me think of the saying "It's not what you know, it's who you know". It's problematic because at the end of your social network chain, there still has to be someone who actually knows something that gets the job done.
There were no "coincidences" in Gate's life (Score:2)
The only "luck" in Gate's life was IBM was too short sighted to see PCs coming and didn't just buy DOS ought right. Even that mighta been up to his mom and Dad's connections in the boardroom.
While I'm on the subject, 60% of wealth in America is inherited wealth (google it). Yes, believing in meritocrac
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She was on the United Way board with John Opel of IBM. There is zero evidence that she knew anything about the IBM PC project or had anything to do with Bill meeting with IBM.
She didn't have to. All she had to do was have the same name.
"Aren't you Mary Gates boy?" THAT itself is a benefit.
and then after Kildall blew it, all it had to be was "Let's go back to Mary Gates boy and see if he can come up with something"
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are you an idiot, don't you understand the value of the NAME alone? she didn't have to know anything about the project. All that had to happen was for the NAME to be recognized.
the NAME is how some kid of some business owner can keep getting loans to start up new businesses say like say an ice cream shop or sandwich shop or computer repair or web hosting even if those businesses keep FAILING
And then say that fellow can run for mayor as a "Successfull businessman who says government should be run like a bu
lol what (Score:2)
Whoever wrote this is pretty wildly confused, if they think they can pass off "it's not who you are, it's that your genes are luck" as coherent thinking
Both Perhaps? (Score:2)
Why does it have to be either one or the other (merit or luck), and not a bit of both, with a heavy dash of gottawanna thrown in? :)
Believing post-modern, far-left BS is bad for you (Score:2)
Marxists said they wanted to fight the rich and force distribution of wealth, because they couldn't accept some people have more than others, but it really was because of their envy of success and wealth, disguising it as virtue with a lot of BS and wishful thinking.
Post-modern leftists say they can't accept any differences of what people can accomplish, blaming any success on privilege. But it's really the same old envy dis
what's the take-away? (Score:2)
It's true that better programmers than Bill Gates never became rich. I think passing it off as "luck" is oversimplifying. Being at the right place in the right time may be a matter of luck, but recognizing that, and having the sense and the drive to take advantage of it, are quite different things.
Passing other's success off as "luck", even if true in some cases, becomes an excuse to stop trying. And then what? As Cake said, is it you or your parents in that in
The harder you try... (Score:2)
It's a continuous scale, not binary (Score:2)
There are only two relevant questions: (Score:2)
1) can you do the job better than the other candidates?
2) can we teach you to be better than the other candidates for cheap?
Anything else end being some sort of classism or sexism or racism or nepotism.
Hmmmmm (Score:2)
"Is Believing In Meritocracy Bad For You?"
Not necessarily, but it's definitely naive.
There is a meritocracy, but there's also corruption. Those things aren't mutually exclusive and can both exist in the same space.
broken link (Score:2)
the meritocracy story links to this page.
Fix?
Can't we all just get along... (Score:2)
And accept our lowest common denominator overlords.
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https://reason.com/blog/2019/03/12/reed-colle