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Is Believing In Meritocracy Bad For You? (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fast Company:
Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called "grit," depend a great deal on one's genetic endowments and upbringing.
This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates's stellar rise as Microsoft's founder, as well as to Frank's own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.
In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways.
The article cites a pair of researchers who "found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate.
"They suggest that this 'paradox of meritocracy' occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides."
This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates's stellar rise as Microsoft's founder, as well as to Frank's own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.
In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways.
The article cites a pair of researchers who "found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate.
"They suggest that this 'paradox of meritocracy' occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides."
The poison apple is the Tree of Knowledge. It represents Carnal Knowledge of Life and Death. We were told not to eat it because that shit is poison. The two in the garden Andruid & Lilly represent the Day and the Lilly opened to Day. Lilly becomes Eve when she brings about evening by killing Adam / Andruid / The aspect of Day (awareness). Lilly does not give the poison apple to Andruid / Andrew / Adam / Atom / Adom / Adoma (man/red/blood/clay/life). She eats of it herself. Her husband finds her in the garden, he finds her dead and in her hand is the poison apple (actually Yew berries, since some Yew trees are immortal, and used in magic potions for all of history).
Andruid is a very smart Magus. He knows the magic of resurrection, but one must make an Equivalent Exchange. Man first sacrifices Plants, then Animals, and soon realizes he must instead sacrifice himself. For a spell he entertains sacrificing a God to bring his love back, and ensure the future of all mankind... Andruid has necrophilic sex with his dead wife Lilly, to impregnate her. Then he casts a resurrection spell sacrificing himself. Lilly (know as Lilith to some) now awakens and sees her dead husband. She Knows what the Gods know now. Some call her Isis, Inana, Queen of Heaven, the Statue of Liberty is modelled upon her; However she has brought about the Setting of the Son/Sun of God, so she is now known as Eve.
Now a Sorceress having knowledge from the Underworld, Eve / Lilly / Isis, sets out to resurrect her husband. In some tellings Isis seeks out the parts of Osiris and preserves him, then extracts his semen from his sacrificed sex (putting it into water, hence "lost to a fish"), and artificially inseminates herself with a golden phallus containing his semen. In the ancient story my family preserves Andruid (the first druid), has already impregnated her.
That was the magic (11) of beginning. Now comes the 13 - a chaotic opportunity, a chance for luck, to tempt the fates -- A fork in the branches of Yggdrasil - the Tree of all Life. Eve preserves her husband who sleeps the sleep of the dead for nine months. There are no humans to sacrifice in this holy garden, so she must give birth. Depending on which magical school you descend from, Eve may have given birth to a male or female child.
If the child born was female, Eve can not breed with her. She must either mate with the animals to preserve life or sacrifice the child to bring her husband Osiris, the Living Dead God, back to life and bear his child Horus.
If the child born was male, Even must either sacrifice him as previously mentioned to resurrect her husband, or she may have an incestuous relationship with her own son.
No matter who eats of the fruit of life, The 1st Man will wind up dead (either by sacrificing himself or eating from the Tree of Knowledge first). How your magical school believes Eve's Conundrum was solved determines its morals. Hence, some ruling wizard elites sacrifice children, some are incestuous, some practice bestiality, some are attempting to sacrifice God, etc.
But they are all only half enlightened. Eve simply takes a cutting of Andruid, and grafts it to herself, becoming Hermes, Trismegistus, the Union of Opposites. She can then pollinate herself... for in my family, we are all Trees, and our All Father is the Tree of Knowledge. His bride is The Spirit of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, who's living branches glow green in the heavens... I could tell you another tale of how humans were made, and of the true 1st sin (the creation eating), but it wouldn't matter, because you silly folk look at your family tree and ignore half your DNA is shared with bananas.
Philosophy as it is taught to the masses is mind rot. I can explain scientifically and verifiability how druid souls are like programs stored and maintained in the minds of the Old Gods, and transfirr'd to new bodies, invoked to bring them back to life again, but you still haven't figured out that LIFE is an anagram for FILE.
I suppose you