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Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

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Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#31

Post by cs702 »

Many people, including me, feel differently about two different kinds of unfairness:

* We are OK with the unfairness that stems from "winning the genetic lottery," which confers an unfair advantage regardless of the socioeconomic background of parents. Most of us want a society in which the most able, talented, hard-working, persistent among us can put those qualities to work for their most productive uses.

* We are NOT OK with the unfairness that stems from "winning the socioeconomic lottery," which confers an unfair advantage regardless of ability, talent, hard work, and persistence. Most of us do NOT want a society in which those who are less able, less talented, less hard-working, and less persistent can get ahead through other means.

Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#32

Post by jfengel »

arnvald wrote: post #17

> The reason meritocracies work so well, is not because they are fair, but because they produce peak performance. This is short-sighted. It optimizes for the "local maximum", the "today's maximum". Yes, if today you don't choose the best candidate based purely on their results, you are technically losing, because you could do better. But here's the thing, if you choose a candidate that is not the best, but that can h…

It doesn't even require generational returns. Underrepresented groups can bring a perspective to the project that you otherwise lack. Disabled team members can help you discover "curb cut effects" that improve usability for everybody. Women and minorities can point out hidden biases and opportunities. All of them can reveal assumptions you didn't even realize you were making in the way you run your team.

That goes far beyond "how fast can you write code" by any measurement because your end goal isn't to write code but to deliver a product -- as a team. Bringing in a diversity of ideas about the end product helps today, not just in the future. If you think of your team just as a bunch of high-performing individual code writers, you will miss opportunities to hit the real goal.

Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#33

Post by what2build »

The problem is meritocracy can be gamed to be unfair by selling the perception of improved performance.

Giving off a perception of peak performance is trivial for those that know how to shmooze, get that title bump.

We see it all the time with celebrities getting their kids into nicer schools, dads who own construction companies donating to unis, etc. the list of stereotypes is endless.

Biological reality does not really care much for our emotional constructs, as others will always come along with their own.

It was fact that pagan gods controlled reality until it wasn’t. At least those ideologies were backed by fun imagery. Meritocracy is also nonsense, but easier to see as it doesn’t distract by flooding the imagination.

Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#34

Post by remote_phone »

sjg007 wrote: post #9

>Hiring people who are “good enough” is simply not good enough. There has never been, and never will be, a team that won the world cup by selecting players who are “good enough.” This isn't actually true. You can have a team full of good enough players that can win championships. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/05/11/how-david-beat...

Paul Graham says differently. You need to hire A players because otherwise B players hire B and C players and water down the strength of the startup.

Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#35

Post by jariel »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #21

The hardest lesson I ever learned (the hard way!) was that meritocracy doesn't work in practice. At some point in time, some people accumulate more credit/reputation for their work, and can use that to earn more credit more quickly. This then snowballs as these people pull ahead of others out of proportion to their actual contributions. This makes a Meritocracy an unstable equilibrium, and such a system will not rema…

No, meritocracy works fine.

It's far from perfect, but the 'special case' you describe is actually rare.

There are people who are brilliant and hardworking in the academic sense slinging coffee for life, because both those attributes will result in 'good grades' which is a really good proxy for other things in life.

Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#37

Post by spacekitcat »

As a woman in tech, I feel that it isn't actually a meritocracy.

I think people have a habit of assuming men did the real work in a project, so they get a disproportionate share of the credit. People also have a habit of pushing women towards front end work, making the assumption that men are more 'technical' than women. It can be difficult to watch men get all of the credit for your blood, sweat and tears. It's especially bitter when they then say it's a meritocracy and you feel like saying 'what exactly did you contribute to this?'.

The concept of a meritocracy sounds nice on paper, but I think it ignores how humans work. The first issue is that I don't think we are especially good at identifying the best unless it's very easy to measure (sport for example). The second point is that it takes work to overcome your own biases and I think this feeds into how we evaluate 'the best' more than we like to admit.

Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#38

Post by jariel »

svrtknst wrote: post #12

In my opinion, all talk of meritocracy, when applied, is irrelevant. I mean, it sounds good in principle, but in most applications, there is no simple way of determining the "best" candidate in any given situation. Yeah, sure, we have some highly specialized environments, such as sports, where we have parameters to select from, but as much as no team has won by selecting players who are good enough, few teams if any…

"there is no simple way of determining the "best" candidate"

There is, it just so happens many people applying are already good by virtue of their credentials.

What you are not seeing are the zillions of truly unqualified people show up.

If you want to gain some confidence in meritocracy, then simply open up your next dev position to literally 'anyone' and start interviewing 'random people' for that high paying job.

Then, you'll quickly realize how very few people are actually qualified.

Interviewing is generally about 1) narrowing the pool of actually qualified and then 2) ... well, it's hard from there on in as you point out.

But it's mostly highly meritocratic at least, each hiring mechanism is in isolation.

Re: Meritocracies Are Unfair – and That's the Point

#39

Post by calibas »

>A society should delegate its jobs to those who are smartest, most capable, and most accomplished in that field. Because they are the ones who can best lead society through the worldly challenges we face everyday. 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.

I'm confused because it seems like the article is arguing for meritocracy. How else would you measure who's the "most accomplished" in their field without some concept of "merit"?

It's confusing as hell to even discuss this if we just switch the terminology all around, and we don't have to.

Discrimination based upon family ties or personal friendships is nepotism, based upon wealth it's classism, based upon race it's racism, and based upon gender it's sexism. To me, addressing these issues in our society is the priority.

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