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Meritocracy at Scale

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11–20 of 70 posts

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#11
Nothing is a meritocracy. If you believe your workplace is different, there's some obligation to provide evidence of why that is the case.

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#12
post #9

My hot take: a meritocracy will never fully exist in a workplace so long as there’s a hierarchy of power and therefore politics. But I’m not advocating for removing a hierarchy.

Out of curiosity, are you implying that "no hierarchy" is possible? And would "no hierarchy" somehow mean no politics, as your statement seems to imply? I'm personally convinced that "no hierarchy" or "flat hierarchies" mostly means that hidden hierarchies will form anyway, and thus the situation you end up with, while different to traditional strict hierarchies, is still extremely hierarchical in the end.

I don’t believe it exists. I don’t think we can have both. I think it might be healthiest option to appreciate that the system, while possibly being the least bad option, is still irrational, and to operate with that knowledge.

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#13
I was eating lunch at a place I'm applying to, and volunteering at, and someone casually dropped a hateful comment towards "straight white males." At work! Nobody called her out on it. It boggles the mind. So I stopped volunteering and applying there. Good luck with the hate, that's my thought.

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#14

[flagged]

If you make a poll with two options, you can force people into two camps, and declare on the "winner". I would bet that most of us have slightly more nuanced positions, where we may be influenced by arguments made by either the "Tankies" or the "evil earth destroying capitalists" depending on context.

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#16

> Hiring on merit will be a permanent policy at Scale. Isn't this what everyone tries to do? > A hiring process based on merit will naturally yield a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas. It might, but probably not because you have found people who have 'merit' whatever that nebulously defined thing might be.

> > Hiring on merit will be a permanent policy at Scale.

> Isn't this what everyone tries to do?

You seem to have missed that meritocracy has recently become a bad word and undesirable in some political circles.

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#18

[flagged]

If you make a poll with two options, you can force people into two camps, and declare on the "winner". I would bet that most of us have slightly more nuanced positions, where we may be influenced by arguments made by either the "Tankies" or the "evil earth destroying capitalists" depending on context.

By all means do the poll as best you see fit. I’m none binary when it comes to polling.

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#19
Max Levchin (Paypal) said this on diversity:

"The notion that diversity in an early team is important or good is completely wrong. You should try to make the early team as non-diverse as possible"

I'm not saying I agree, just seemed a good time to drag it up.

Re: Meritocracy at Scale

#20

[flagged]

DEI is fundamentally anti-marxist. The core principle of marxism is that capitalism cannot be reformed. DEI is an attempt to reform capitalism.

Not to mention Marx was quite explicit that class (not nebulous identities) was the primary division in society.

Proponents of DEI are radical liberals.

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