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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."
... Because there will always be some jackass that kisses the boss's ass while you work your hands to the bone and aforementioned jackass gets the promotion while you get the equivalent of a pay cut in the form of a tiny raise. That kind of crap gives you high blood pressure, stress, and anxiety.
Except that one of those doesn't exist and the other does.
Like climate change, it doesn't care if you believe in it or not.
It's a really really old saying. So yes luck bestows merit but the important part isn't that. True Merit is needed to take advantage of Luck. Nearly every experimental graduate student will tell you it takes 2 weeks of work to get a PhD but it takes 5 years to find be prepared to recognize the 2 weeks.
It's also slightly like the repairman called in to repair the machine after the comapny techs have exhausted themselves with no success. He just taps it with a hammer on the side, it works, and he sends a $1000 bill. When they company thinks the hourly rate for just a single tap can't justify the bill they denad he itemize it. So he sends the new bill. $1 tapping in side, $999 knowing where to tap.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Lucky I read this article.
I'll judge it on its merits.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Which in itself is depressing and disheartening to see.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Meritocracy is a concept so nebulous that it's hard to say much about because "merit" is a very nebulous concept. I can feel the downmods already.
The thing is very very few careers and jobs are solo ones. Engineering in particular is a team sport. Even the very best 10x engineers cant build the entire system all by themselves; there are too many niche areas of expertise and just too much stuff to get done.
The thing is once you are in a job with other people, merit isnt just about *technical* merit. Metit is about your ability broadly speaking to generate value for the company you work at.
Now here's where it gets trickier still: good people generally find it easier to move between jobs. Bad people cling on to their job like a life-raft because they don't know where the next one is coming from. Bad working environments tend to concentrate bad people because the good people cycle out faster and the bad people stay.
We have all (well probably many of us) been in or seen situations where that's happened. Even something as neutral as "attrition" where the budget is cut and they stop hiring new people (even replacements) and rely on natural cycling to redcue the workforce. As the project tems get strained the working environment gets worse until the good people start to leave.
Well, toxic individuals are part of it. A great programmer who causes other pretty good programmers to leave is not a net asset. Unless that programmer can do everything (which we know isnt the case), the company would be better off with someone with les sharp techincal skills who doesn't cause all the other techincally skilled people to leave.
And the thing is good people do leave. You spend a lot of your life at work. You've only got one life and there's a ton of interesting stuff to do in it, so why waste any time on arseholes?
And that is the point where merit becomes a whole load more than "can code well" and so on. Engineering is a team sport and teams do not work well with lone wolves no matter how skilled.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
First, stop equating money with success. There are truly outstanding people out there who eschew money, use it to achieve better things (hoarding money isn't success... spending it to help things get better for everyone might well be!), or who don't value it enough over other things to bother to "succeed" in making more than they need. There are Nobek prize winners who rejected the prize or donated it.
Don't equate celebrity with success. The most successful people don't seek celebrity and often died in obscurity (famous scientists among them).
A meritocracy, like democracy, isn't a bad thing to strive for, but impossible to achieve with human nature. But you have to judge by actual merits.
Though Gates has his foundation he still has more money than he could ever reasonably use for his entire family and friends for generations to come. Is that a merit? I'm not sure.
Like evolution, merit is not about every outlier on the scale... it' s about pushing the average upward overall over time. There will always be freaks of nature and 'the lucky' who thrived by chance rather than their genes or outlook (e.g. living in an enclosed valley witg no predators, ot literally avoiding every predator, or living in a food-rich environment from birth, etc.) That doesn't mean that how they operated was what made them successful... merely chance.
People win the lottery or inherit fortunes and then buy manors and act like lords. They always have. It doesn't mean *they* are inherently more successful.
Put Trump back in the streets, penniless, without contacts or influence, or inheritance and see how well he does.
But, if anything, it means we should all strive for success and should spread the luck we do have around. Because singular examples of success are far outweighed by multitudes of examples of failure despite enormous hard work and efforr and determination.
... to be successful with is a large part, among with avoiding people who waste your time being a code second.
I've spent 20 years working for countless projects and 10 years meeting a variety of women and only now, in my late 40ies am I finally bearing the fruits of my lessons. I see idiots, timewasters and opportunists coming from miles away and see my sexual interests plummet in seconds when I come across a latently schizophrenic chika, no matter how hot she may look.
On the plus side my relationship now is not only fun but actually productive and my career is starting to pick up simply because I've learned not to waste a single second on opportunites that aren't any or don't advance my own development. Out on people that talk bullshit and only claim to know more than I do but really don't.
Knowing to see through the fake is something people like me have to learn the harder way. I presume that accounts for many differences in the way things go for people.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Those of us who have "underclass" relatives, no matter our race, have also see how black, white, etc. they almost always dismiss the role that hard work plays in others' success. Most of the time "life just happens to them." Drugs, booze, kids out of wedlock? Shit happens. Little concept of "damn, I did this to myself."
It's conveniently fatalistic and ignores the fact that yes, you can make your own luck in many cases even if it's not the level you would like to have.
What a load of horseshit. In all my years, I have never come across a situation where I couldn't prove my worth to an employer or client through hard work.
I'm not particularly intelligent. I'm not good looking, nor am I all that charismatic. What I am is persistent, and I have an understanding of what it takes to succeed ( it may sound cliche, but "never give up" ).
Oh, I've had set backs because of nepotism. Idiot managers and bosses surely have gotten in my way. I don't let that slow me down, however; I keep pushing through it.
Meritocracy isn't perfect, but it works when you do that one thing; don't give up. What more could you ask for?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Believing in a meritocracy isnâ(TM)t a bad thing. I *wish* things were that way.
The problem is that *nothing* works that way. Literally nothing. If things were based on merit, Microsoft wouldnâ(TM)t have dominated the computer industry for several decades. A spoiled rich kid with a big mouth wouldnâ(TM)t be president of the US. There wouldnâ(TM)t be entire movements dedicated to the planet being flat, anti-vaxxinations, etc.
Every day we are reminded of the fact that we are absolutely not living in a meritocracy no matter how much we wish it could be, and the people who insist that it is just make the problem worse because they ignore the actual problems.
Meritocracy is NOT the problem. The problem is what kind of controls are in place to ensure that Meritocracy continues to exist when those in power begin to find way to abuse the system. This argument goes to everything in existence.
Every system is fine so long as it is run by benevolent actors... any malevolent actors will cause damage... be it meritocracy or otherwise. The ONLY system that is the best system is one that creates controls for the "ocracy" to overcome the inherent corruption that humans will bring as they institutionalize the practice being used. This argument is at the core of our very political beings and everyone is missing that key important factor in favor of their political dogma..
Any "ocracy" you create will work well when it is run by benevolent actors. any "ocracy" you create will fail when it is run by malevolent actors. You must always count on a malevolent actor gaining a position of power and controls must be in place to treat that as a certainty, otherwise the system fails because there will be no control to remove malevolent actors without resorting to methods that are likely considered chaos.
Meritocracy is fine, the problem is when a person merits their way to the top and stops being meritorious of that position and finds a way to remain at the top despite no longer meriting this. So really the problem is closer too... how to start being a Meritocracy and STAYING a meritocracy.
Genetics = luck?
Great teacher in school = luck?
Choosing to follow intuition = luck?
Seems to me that, with a sufficiently large value of 'luck', you could encompass almost all circumstances. And I mean ALL.
How about;
Genetics at birth = luck, but study and intellectual exploration = merit
Great teacher = luck, but putting forth the effort to learn and developing your intellect with challenges (from the teacher) = merit
And I can't even touch the third one: if you develop the ability to use intuition to solve problems and choose the 'best' option, that's merit.
In other words, luck is a circumstance, but merit is the result of a series of choices.
And with that, my PhD thesis is complete.....
That sentence demonstrates without requiring much thought what the article demonstrates if you think about it -
the author is an idiot.
Bill Gates isn't a successful programmer, he didn't write DOS. He's an incredibly successful business person, he bought and sold DOS and managed a company to turn it into billions.
Here's a little story about luck. I recently got lucky and got a new high-paying job. Maybe my dream job. Lucky for me, the hiring managers were looking for someone to do the types of things I have been doing at work lately, such as teaching a CISSP course. My class consisted of about 50 employees ranging from our head of internal security to recently hired engineers. The reason I volunteered to do such a class was precisely to raise my profile as a security expert - to put self in front of these managers while I filled the role of security expert. If you want to eventually have options of good security jobs, it doesn't hurt to have the head of security see that you are an expert, I figured. Twice per month I attended a meetings of security groups like OWASP and ISC2. At those meetings I talked to dozens of people about the companies they worked for and which skill sets they were hitting for. I kept on eye on the open positions at three local companies I was interested in. I tried to learn more about the skills they were looking for. I kept my LinkedIn updated with accomplishments and fielded calls from recruiters several times per week - mostly pointless calls. I kept a copy my resume in my car and gave it to someone who might be able to hire me. I did a good job at my current role, asking my co-workers and my boss how I could improve. I struggled to actually be *nice* to co-workers, although my natural state is asshole.
Overall I did hundreds of things to increase my odds of landing a great job. Hundreds of things "didn't work" immediately, yet I kept doing them. Eventually I "got lucky" and two of the things I was doing aligned with what a company was looking for and I landed the great job. How lucky.
It's like wearing a seatbelt. 99.9% of the time, if you don't wear a seatbelt nothing bad will happen. But eventually there will be an accident, so if you don't wear a seatbelt 99.9% of the time, you're probably going to end up hurt.
A large percentage of people who found very successful businesses first started several businesses that were not successful. They learned from their failures and kept trying. Eventually they learned enough and try enough things to find one that worked well - they "got lucky" and did tell right things, by trying a lot of things that seemed likely to be right.
We all make a hundred decisions every day. Starting with whether to hit the anooze button and ending with going to bed in time. Do we stop to help the person on the aide of the road while we're on the way to work?
We have a hundred "luck" situations every day - the stranded motorist could be the president of our company, could be our future spouse, who knows. That's luck. When we cut someone off in traffic, or get cut off, the person we flipped the bird to might be in a rush to get to an interview on time - them interviewing us. In the elevator when we smile at someone oe don't, who that person is depends on luck. In any given year we have thousands of "luck" possibilities. Some will be great opportunities, some won't be.
Success and failure happens when our thousands of choices each year meet our thousands of lucky opportunities. Someone who is habitually rude will, by chance, end up being rude to the written person, eventually. Someone who is always helpful will, by chance, eventually be helpful to the right person.
Luck determines whether our fate happens on Wednesday or on Thursday. Our habits determine whether we'll be doing to right thing or the wrong thing when those opportunities come by.
You must be prepared in order to have success, and merit can improve your chances, but they're still chances.
I invite you to read Mark Twain's story "Science vs. Luck".
What appears to you to be chance is not seeing all of the actions taken to deliver what is in essence a sure victory, the only thing in question is exactly what path it will take.
The only way chance enters the picture is by sometimes derailing those who have set up a path of otherwise certainty.
You truly can make your own luck, I have seen it in my life coming from a poor background, and I have seen it in others as well.
This successful person rises at three am, clips his toenails before breakfast, and deletes every second e-mail, therefore these must be keys to success!
It's very true that a lot of those cooks on success are not sure recipes, but that is just because the actual process of finding success involves a lot more than will fit into a book or even than the person quite understands.
But to call a successful persons success "chance" is to ignore that put in any circumstance, they will continue to be successful. There is obviously a skill there, not chance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But those aren't what anyone thinks about when they hear the phrase "meritocracy", especially in a context critical of the concept.
No, that's what you think about when you hear "meritocracy". The rest of us use the dictionary and realize that when you hear that word you think it means cronyism. Which is what you are railing about. But the rest of us think of meritocracy as hiring someone who can do the job and rewarding them when they do well.
I will say that bad corporate management rarely rewarding merit is the real problem. To add insult to injury they then hide behind the word "meritocracy". That's why you are mad at this word.
But you have to understand that the world runs in cycles and that hack they promoted over you then gets the VP in trouble because they did someone dumb or at least didn't do the smart thing the company needed them to do. Bad management decisions often come home to roost but it just takes time. There is a huge pile of failed companies in the past to prove that. The problem is a bit of survivor bias, you don't think or see those companies that failed due to bad management because they don't exist anymore and you may not have even heard of them. Running your company the way you ideas seem to argue for, would likely end in everyone losing because whether you like it or not, customers will reward merit if they can. And usually they can somehow...
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
But those aren't what anyone thinks about when they hear the phrase "meritocracy", especially in a context critical of the concept.
The context of TFA is pretty clear on what "meritocracy" is:
"Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of lifeâ"money, power, jobs, university admissionâ"should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the âoeeven playing fieldâ upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. "
"In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either âoeessentialâ or âoevery importantâ when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. "
Also pretty clear in context of TFA being against meritocracy is the equivalent of being FOR straight up socialism.
What we're all thinking about are two things:
Who is we? The term Meritocracy is obviously totally meaningless in the absence of specific context. The context TFA provided is clearly not the same as the one you are working under.
a. People who coast to wealth on the backs of actual hard working folk. The Paris Hilton's the world. The Prosperity Gospel and the Divine Right of Kings.
Nearly every rich person on earth has done exactly this. They have all extracted value from those hired to labor for their benefit. What specifically is the problem?
b. People given a leg up in the world who act like they earned it all themselves. There's a phrase for this behavior: Pulling the ladder up behind you.
LOL... I wrote this program all by myself.
No no no! You didn't write the compiler or operating system stacks it has to call to operate. Nor have you designed or produced the hardware necessary for it to execute. You didn't develop the lithography devices making it possible to fabricate integrated circuits nor the enabling mathematics allowing for its development. You didn't mine raw materials nor develop processes for refining and processing them. You didn't develop the underlying models of governance that provided services necessary for any of these things to be developed.
Who fucking cares? What difference does it make how much credit or deference someone feels like belching out so long as you are not making fraudulent claims? Credits for every conceivable thing go back to the beginning of civilization.
You've set up your strawman (the hardworking PhD/repairman) and knocked him down, while completely ignoring people's real concerns over how the concept of meritocracy is abused to excuse wealth inequality, uphold a ruling class and punch down on the lower castes.
Seriously TFA is a subjective house of mirrors. It asserts "grit" is a function of genetics and upbringing explicitly dismissing all personal endeavor as "luck".
TFA also isn't so much about Meritocracy itself as it is a citation of a study of how internal perceptions of (nebulous) it as an ideal causes people to become full of themselves:
"Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this âoeparadox of meritocracyâ occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice."
"However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of oneâ(TM)s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles
So your theory that Gates' trillion dollar company is the result of having a successful parent doesn't quite work out, because 99.9999% of people who have successful parents do not build huge companies.
Can you back up your number with facts?
There are only 1.1 million lawyers in the US. So unless there's only one "huge company" in the US founded by a child of a lawyer, your number cannot be right.
Moreover, founding one of the largest companies in the world is an unreasonable standard for success. There are many children of lawyers who have multi-million dollar businesses, most of whom you've never heard of. That's still a huge privilege compared to most other people.
Reminds me of what's going on at Reed college. They're training their RA's to recognize 'covert white supremacy'... aside from the political inclusion of using the phrase MAGA, one of the other items is actually 'color blindness'. SJWs honestly believe that judging someone based on their merit and not their skin color makes you a white supremecist. Yet they're baffled to find that the majority of people for some reason don't agree, and thus are obviously racist.
https://reason.com/blog/2019/03/12/reed-college-white-supremacy-covert
I've been getting incredibly lucky too, lately.
For years, I did what I wanted to do, living for the now, and kept having incredibly bad luck. As I mentioned, I ended up homeless, living under a tarp on a vacant lot.
Then I switched to making it a habit to focus on five years down the road. Giving up what I wanted at the moment in exchange for what would most likely bring good things five years later. I keep having incredibly good luck since then.