[ZephyrBlu]

I'm interested in hear about why you believe you're a failure in the meritocratic system.

I also have some doubts about meritocracy for a couple of reasons:

1) Although we can try very hard to be objective, at the end of the day everything is subjective

2) So called "merit" seems to be largely based on genetic traits (Intelligence, personality, physical, etc)

[caddemon]

Regarding 2, why is it better to select on non-genetic traits? Those traits would be determined by the environment, which doesn't feel any more fair to me to judge on, and in general seems like something we try to avoid (i.e. we do not want rich kids to do well purely because they grew up with better resources).

I'm genuinely asking because I have no clue what people want "merit" to mean. I always assumed the entire point was to remove environmental factors (to varying degrees).

[ZephyrBlu]

I don't think merit should focus on traits, I think merit should focus on effort. Though the problem with that is that traits can be a multiplier for effort.

I don't know what merit should really mean though. It seems like there will always be some sort of hierarchy in society, so I guess defining what constitutes merit is a pick-your-poison kind of situation.

[caddemon]

That's fair enough, I think effort should be an important piece. I just suspect that's got a large genetic component too.

[akhilcacharya]

That's around my line of thinking, pure meritocracy is both too subjective and far too harsh to the people who aren't in the lucky egg club, especially in increasingly global winner take all games (an inevitable consequence of globalization).

I'm a failure by meritocracy by nature of losing at all of the tests we use to judge success and merit - test scores, elite school admission, elite institutions etc.

[abc_lisper]

What do you do now?

[sfashset]

he's a SDE at Amazon

[abc_lisper]

Why the feeling of failure then ? There is nothing there that is not in your company now. You are not a graded apple to be sold at a store. If you are intelligent you will recognize these are human constructs, and nature/problems don’t recognize your degree - they are available for everyone