Meritocracy

[Deej 76,568]

Stumbled across this today. The interviewee was my high school class valedictorian. 

Discuss.

 

[Snake Diggity 4,614]

Not sure why this is a CR topic or even how the thesis is arguable.  Of course there’s shades of grey in how much inequality is preventing true merit from shining through and that’s often where CR creeps in.  But it is undeniable that we live in a society in which the outcomes of people’s lives are almost entirely determined by how wealthy their parents are.

[TwiceHorn 31,283]

I assume Richard Markovits' kid.

[CooterBrown 17,913]

Being likeable and lucky far exceeds being good at anything.  Add good looking as the 3rd trait and you are an unstoppable force in any endeavor you want to pursue in America outside of professional athlete.

 

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by CooterBrown

[RomaVicta 29,794]

I can't tell you how fabuous life is when you have so much of all three.

[atomheartbevo 89,449]

2 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

I can't tell you how fabuous life is when you have so much of all three.

[Snake Diggity 4,614]

If I could make one change in our society, it would be to provide free, quality childcare/education for all starting at age 2 through age 16.  That means free quality daycare and dramatically lower student:teacher ratios in public elementary and middle schools. If we did that, it’d take 10-15 years but you’d start to see a whole lot of our societal problems start to recede.  Our obesity epidemic, opioid epidemic, crisis of democracy, and even most of our disagreement on how to address climate change can all be traced to a lack of educated citizenry.  If I were a politician, I would trade an awful lot to achieve legislation toward that objective.

Its not an issue that politicians even really talk about with any substance, but if it were, I would pretty much be a single issue voter.

[Poe It Up 126]

2 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Not sure why this is a CR topic or even how the thesis is arguable.  Of course there’s shades of grey in how much inequality is preventing true merit from shining through and that’s often where CR creeps in.  But it is undeniable that we live in a society in which the outcomes of people’s lives are almost entirely determined by how wealthy their parents are.

Or if they stay and raise them. 

[wildcat09 29,259]

*White-supremacist led government spends decades defunding and closing schools that serve black communities and passing laws to imprison black people for crimes white people don't get charged for*

Poe: "Lazy, irresponsible blacks!"

[SilasCoade 2,620]

Wait, was that not sarcastic from Poe It Up? It was just straight bald faced racism? WOW.

[Foosters 17,734]

[Deej 76,568]

3 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Not sure why this is a CR topic

Understand it now? 

[Poe It Up 126]

54 minutes ago, SilasCoade said:

Wait, was that not sarcastic from Poe It Up? It was just straight bald faced racism? WOW.

I didn’t mention race. But the mask on certain posters is slipping. 

[Foosters 17,734]

7 minutes ago, Poe It Up said:

I didn’t mention race. But the mask on certain posters is slipping. 

Your post does not exist in a vacuum. Its fair for posters to use your past explicit racism to infer your meaning. Its also a major talking point of the alt-right, of which you are a part. Stop trolling. 

[hpslugga 4,044]

1 minute ago, Foosters said:

Your post does not exist in a vacuum. Its fair for posters to use your past explicit racism to infer your meaning. Its also a major talking point of the alt-right, of which you are a part. Stop trolling. 

Hell, Mr. America was a better kept secret. 

Vince McMahon: "Shhhhh. That's not Hulk Hogan. Shhhhhhhh"

[Poe It Up 126]

6 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Your post does not exist in a vacuum. It’s fair for posters to use your past explicit racism to infer your meaning. It’s also a major talking point of the alt-right, of which you are a part. Stop trolling. 

Unfortunately, I think your inference says far more about you. With allies like y’all, who needs enemies. 

[Neonmoon 38,127]

A certain percentage of white Americans will never accept the idea they didn't earn their position in life without any help 

[hpslugga 4,044]

1 minute ago, Neonmoon said:

A certain percentage of white Americans will never accept the idea they didn't earn their position in life without any help 

Oh no, they're the only legit hard working people in the country while those lazy coloreds get all the breaks 🙄

I grew up around all that shit and heard every tedious variation of that argument. It's an absolute crock. This is about as accurate of an illustration of that whole dynamic as it can possibly get:

 

But hey, dittoheads gonna dittohead.

[Poe It Up 126]

6 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

A certain percentage of white Americans will never accept the idea they didn't earn their position in life without any help 

My parents worked their ass off, I will be forever grateful. It has nothing to do with skin color. 

[softlynow 1,783]

Seriously folks. Do not feed the troll. If you find you have the urge to respond just remember that you're treating him like the media treats the GQP - as simply a side that needs coverage, and the individuals who have a legitmate viewpoint that needs addressing. Stop treating him as an equal. Please.

[Poe It Up 126]

12 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Oh no, they're the only legit hard working people in the country while those lazy coloreds get all the breaks 🙄

I grew up around all that shit and heard every tedious variation of that argument. It's an absolute crock. This is about as accurate of an illustration of that whole dynamic as it can possibly get:

 

But hey, dittoheads gonna dittohead.

It’s interesting because I don’t think it’s a black vs. white issue. It’s something that is very much an American issue that spans all demographics. Well, except the ones kicking ass I guess. 

[Poe It Up 126]

1 minute ago, softlynow said:

Seriously folks. Do not feed the troll. If you find you have the urge to respond just remember that you're treating him like the media treats the GQP - as simply a side that needs coverage, and the individuals who have a legitmate viewpoint that needs addressing. Stop treating him as an equal. Please.

Equal? Look, I think I gave you the wrong impression here. I think I’m better than you. 

[royiv 9,164]

4 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

If I could make one change in our society, it would be to provide free, quality childcare/education for all starting at age 2 through age 16.  That means free quality daycare and dramatically lower student:teacher ratios in public elementary and middle schools. If we did that, it’d take 10-15 years but you’d start to see a whole lot of our societal problems start to recede.  Our obesity epidemic, opioid epidemic, crisis of democracy, and even most of our disagreement on how to address climate change can all be traced to a lack of educated citizenry.  If I were a politician, I would trade an awful lot to achieve legislation toward that objective.

Its not an issue that politicians even really talk about with any substance, but if it were, I would pretty much be a single issue voter.

ETA: As long as the education is based in facts and science and not Christian nationalism ideals.

[Deej 76,568]

5 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I assume Richard Markovits' kid.

I believe so.

[Deej 76,568]

5 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

I can't tell you how fabuous life is when you have so much of all three.

I mean, of course you can't. How would you know?

[Bullneck 18,987]

1 hour ago, Poe It Up said:

My parents worked their ass off, I will be forever grateful. It has nothing to do with skin color. 

And look at how you turned out.

[Snake Diggity 4,614]

53 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Elements of the thesis are clearly true.  The questions / other issues then become:

1.  What policies can realistically be put in place to remedy this and level the playing field?  More childcare would make an impact, but that seems unlikely to pass.  The price tag would be huge, and half the country will paint it as communists stealing their children to indoctrinate them.

2. The public schools are a disaster, but fixing them is more complicated than just spending more.  Lack of resources and overcrowding is some of the problem.  But it’s definitely not all of the problem.  There are schools where teachers literally are instructed not to fail kids and aren’t allowed to hold them back even if they get a zero (this isn’t just an anecdote about Baltimore graduating illiterate people that I saw on Fox News;  obviously you’re free to take what you read on the internet with appropriate skepticism, but I know directly from the teachers that this is the case in some schools in a Texas school district that isn’t even rural or impoverished).  Part of the reason public schools fall behind is also because they don’t enforce high enough standards.  If you do enforce those standards, you’ll disproportionately affect the disadvantaged most likely, which goes against what you’re trying to do.  But at a certain point the public schools aren’t doing any of the kids any favors by catering to the lowest denominator if that lowest denominator is so low nobody makes any real progress.

3.  Again, acknowledging the negatives and the fact that there is unfairness in opportunity, there are still positives to a meritocracy that people won’t want to give up.  If you need brain surgery, you want the best surgeon. It doesn’t really matter to you whether he’s able to achieve a higher level than his peers because his parents were also brain surgeons and he had all the best education and training his whole life.  “Yeah, it’s not fair to these other people who were trying to be surgeons but didn’t have those advantages.  But I still want the best surgeon I can get.  I don’t really care if his family are Harvard graduates dating back to 1800, or if he’s a Saudi royal, or if Idi Amin paid for his medical school. Just fix me up.”

I mostly agree with your first 2 points, but to your 3rd point, I think it’s very debatable that the current version of meritocracy leads to the best outcomes at the top.  The idea that re-allocating resources to ensure more equitable opportunities for all would result in poorer outcomes at the top end of performances sounds wrong to me.  For one thing, I don’t think the resources people are advocating re-allocating in society are currently being used to achieve the best outcomes, even at the top end.  The idea is to produce more elite performers and increase competition at the highest level, not water down the entire system.

[Neonmoon 38,127]

I say we have some Hunger Games style competition for Harvard spots. Put it on TV. 

[BrickHorn 18,194]

I was talking about this the other day in the context of the Harvard affirmative action case. For centuries, Ivy League schools gave preference to wealthy elites. Until 1773, Harvard literally ranked students according to their family’s social status (not grades or other academic achievements). It was money and prestige that got you in the door. Hell even in the 20th Century, the school changed admissions policies specifically to exclude qualified Jewish applicants.

Only after the Ivies started giving preference to a few applicants from downtrodden minorities every year did conservatives decide Ivy admissions should be purely meritocratic. But of course, their preferred merit yardsticks (the SAT; high school GPA; attendance at fancy prep schools; legacy status) are really measures of income and social status. 

[Slacks 6,791]

8 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

  Of course there’s shades of grey in how much inequality is preventing true merit from shining through 

Suspicious. 

[F250 28,691]

3 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

I mostly agree with your first 2 points, but to your 3rd point, I think it’s very debatable that the current version of meritocracy leads to the best outcomes at the top.  The idea that re-allocating resources to ensure more equitable opportunities for all would result in poorer outcomes at the top end of performances sounds wrong to me.  For one thing, I don’t think the resources people are advocating re-allocating in society are currently being used to achieve the best outcomes, even at the top end.  The idea is to produce more elite performers and increase competition at the highest level, not water down the entire system.

I was about to make a similar comment. Currently, our system cuts out a big portion of the talent pool by primarily selecting from the upper class. Pushing for a more equitable society would increase the pool of talent and increase meritocracy not reduce it.

It's the same reason large 6A schools have better football teams than 3A schools.

 

[TwiceHorn 31,283]

8 minutes ago, F250 said:

I was about to make a similar comment. Currently, our system cuts out a big portion of the talent pool by primarily selecting from the upper class. Pushing for a more equitable society would increase the pool of talent and increase meritocracy not reduce it.

It's the same reason large 6A schools have better football teams than 3A schools.

 

The other thing is simply that the "best" education at the "best" schools doesn't necessarily get you the best lawyer, or brain surgeon, or engineer, or what-have-you.  It may get you about 2/3-3/4 of the way there, but not all the way.

[Deej 76,568]

18 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

and it occurs to me that this a bit self-serving for him given his background as well

He admits as much. 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Deej

[Deej 76,568]

I felt it came across as they are better on the merits because they received better attention to their education. 

He's saying that we rarely provide the opportunity for many who may be skilled to find success.

Not everyone who is groomed by rich parents for success will be successful. We just need to open up the avenues to opportunity to those that don't have that benefit. 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Deej

[The Original Greaser Bob 2,799]

Harvard was my safety school.

[TwiceHorn 31,283]

I think in the end it comes down to less wage inequality.

He makes the point about finance people, but what about law professors?  They aren't THAT highly compensated, but why are they highly compensated at all?

All of this high-falutin talk about nebulous concepts like equality of opportunity or outcome is less important if there's not such a staggering  earning difference between those who had (and maybe took advantage) and those who had not.

[Deej 76,568]

14 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think in the end it comes down to less wage inequality.

He makes the point about finance people, but what about law professors?  They aren't THAT highly compensated, but why are they highly compensated at all?

All of this high-falutin talk about nebulous concepts like equality of opportunity or outcome is less important if there's not such a staggering  earning difference between those who had (and maybe took advantage) and those who had not.

Be careful about talking about the lawyers. The Surly lawyer mafia will come and put a bullet in the back of your head

[TwiceHorn 31,283]

Just now, Deej said:

Be careful about talking about the lawyers. The Surly lawyer mafia will come and put a bullet in the back of your head

Being a capo of said mafia, I ain't scurred.

[The Original Greaser Bob 2,799]

11 hours ago, Deej said:

Be careful about talking about the lawyers. The Surly lawyer mafia will come and put a bullet in the back of your head