Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

I don't see the connection; it is a well established fact that no two people have the same opportunities, regardless of country. In one country you might see large differences between skin colours, in another the prime opportunity differentiator is parental income and so forth.

Therefore you would expect that differences in opportunity (which are infinitely greater than innate differences in ability relevant to software engineering between the various popular subdivisions of humanity [1]) more or less transfer directly to the composition of meritocratic organisations.

If that statement is meant to imply that an actual meritocratic organisation would closely track the composition of the general populace, then I'd say that it fails to acknowledge bias in society, because then the assumption backing the statement is society already providing equal opportunities, which we know is patently false.

[1] Just because something is statistically significant does not mean it's relevant; effect magnitude must always be considered.

Clearly you have never dealt with a white man who is better off than certain women, or people from ethnic minorities, and thinks it's because his being white/male makes him inherently better and invokes "meritocracy" all the freaking time.

I have. And I'm a half-Asian male - I can't imagine what it's like to deal with that jerk if I were a woman or an ethnic minority he didn't consider inherently intelligent (yes, really - he was actually surprised I was upset at the things he said because he wasn't talking about me, as if that was the reason for me to disagree with him).

When the word "meritocracy" is used to structurally shut down debates of sexism and racism, it is no longer about meritocracy.

For a concrete example, a programmer in Seattle has much higher opportunities than the same programmer in rural Burundi, so he can put the same effort into much more work, and ultimately be much more relevant in supposedly meritocratic governance.

However, the original post is not concerned with opportunity due to geographic location or access to technology, but rather to a bias where code submitted by programmers with a feminine username and profile picture is approved less often than average. Note that the linked study does not refer to Mozilla explicitly, though.

They advance their 'help' to these groups and rely on the cooperation of people who want 'do the right thing' when they go about forcing their agenda on everyone.

It is about cementing their own personal and political power, it does little to actually improve diversity, and has nothing to do with code.

They are radical authoritarian thugs who come bearing gifts wrapped in feel-good language.

You can see how quickly this movement turns on members of groups they believe to be marginalized who reject their help.

They also inevitably turn against even moderates who are just trying to the right thing.

Funny enough the first reply to this in the listserv is calling out use of politically incorrect language in the proposal.