This is the definition I am using:
a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit.
This is the definition I am using:
a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit.
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All of these arguments try to argue that implementing meritocracy perfectly is impossible.
But ask yourself, what is the alternative? A system in which the most capable person isn’t in charge? Should we go back to bloodlines, or popularity contests, or maybe use a lottery?
I agree it’s very difficult to determine merit, and even more difficult to stop power struggles from messing with the evaluation, or with the implementation. But I would still prefer a system that at least tries to be meritocratic and comes up short, to a system that has given up entirely on the concept.
I’ll try to answer some of your questions, as best as I understand it:
Ideally, a group of peers would vote for someone within the group, who is the most capable, with outside supervision to prevent abuses.
Popularity shouldn’t factor into it. Only ability. (and there’s no doubt Depp is the better actor :P )
Each one is worthy within the scope of their domain of expertise, in which they have demonstrated merit.
Always true in every system. That’s why we need checks and balances.
If kicking cats is wrong, it should be against the law, and no one should be above the law. All other things being equal, whoever has the most capacity to save the planet should be the one to do it.
For as long as you can demonstrate it. If someone better comes along, they should take your place.
More mathematical problems. And ideally, also lots of money and babes.
At the end of the day, it’s a cultural problem. Meritocracy can only work if there’s a critical mass of people who believe in it, understand it, and enforce it socially. The same can be said of democracy, capitalism, and basically any other social order.
Bony fingers!
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Sorry for the delay, I don’t visit here very often. But thanks for engaging, and excuse my know-it-all tone.
I think there’s a basic misunderstanding regarding meritocracy. It is not something that only occurs in the top branches of the government. It’s something that should occur in every level of every organization, in every office and in every pay-grade. It’s not meant to solve the question of “who is the supreme leader”, because such a question is impossible. It’s meant to describe how should society function.
That is sophism imho. We don’t have to have the perfect definition, we just need to be closer to it than the alternatives.
Popularity contests are a bad way of making choices, and it’s a big reason for why modern democracies have so many problems. Also, they are very often rigged, which is how you end up with “shit sandwich” situations (or Putin).
There will never be a 100% agreement on what is true, or what is beautiful, or what is virtuous. But if we aim there, we can get closer than if we don’t.
Free market. Bid on problems. There are many possible algorithms. Right we do the worst option, in which the governing body distribute funds based on political power.
I definitely believe in private property, if that’s what you’re asking. I think anyone who doesn’t is either dumb or delusional. Indefinitely is a bit much, but it should last long enough to be worth the effort.
The idea is that you get enough rewards (money, social capital, etc.) that you will find the work worthwhile. Also, a lot of people enjoy doing things that they are good at. Either way, there is a point when you contributed enough that you can just peace out for the rest of your life, aka retirement. This is already semi-possible even in today’s broken system.
That’s a problem by itself. Governments are very bad at solving complex problems.
That’s kind of true, because Americans refuse to implement a secondary choice. Just one little change would solve so much. (not that there aren’t 1000s of other problems).
I don’t really understand the question. The law is a bunch of rules, chosen by people in power. Ideally, those people would be competent, and create good laws. In my view, any system of law that doesn’t periodically remove or refactors outdated laws is incompetent. Yes, that’s basically everywhere.
You could try to enforce meritocracy in law. It would definitely help, but I don’t think it would be sufficient without cultural adoption.
It’s like you keep trying to find “who’s on top”, but in a perfect world no one is. Power should always be checked, and balanced. Monopolies should always be curtailed, both in the private and public sector. Meritocracy is just one algorithm out of many, like the free market, in order to have a better and more efficient society.
Hope that clears things up.
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That’s a very condescending comment. Maybe I came across as condescending too. Either way, if your criticism was supposed to be helpful, I’m sorry to say that it isn’t. You didn’t provide any evidence that I’m wrong. From my perspective, it sounds like you just don’t understand me, so you decided to give up.
Anyway, I’m not that enthusiastic about debating strangers over the internet, I only replied because you sounded curious. So I’m equally happy to bid you farewell.
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You touched on a really important point here: when humans are judging skill, it’s subjective and not really meritocratic.
One of my favorite psychology professors says that people really like the idea of meritocracy, when it’s actually present. He gives the example of sports, and how people aren’t bitter about a particular team winning, or that there’s big inequality between the players, and that the reason people are okay with that inequality is the presence of the playing field and the high speed cameras and whatnot means meritocracy is the actual basis for reward, not personality politics.
In business, government, etc it’s all people judging other people, and on an individual basis. A group of people evaluating is better, like star ratings for an uber driver are probably more trustable than performance evaluations from someone’s boss. The latter can be so heavily distorted by that one person’s judgment.
The ideal is using measurable performance as the measure of “merit”. Like when people run a marathon. As long as the course is visible to confirm nobody’s cheating, that marathon time is yours in a way your degree or your job or your salary isn’t.
It’s also why people are so in favor of free markets deciding resource allocation rather than people: the free market is at least a large crowdsourced combination of everyone’s needs, instead of just some mental image of those needs in the mind of a few committee memebers.
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