[savanaly]

It's hard for me to imagine someone not being meritocratic. You would really, in your deepest heart of hearts, be sincerely ambivalent about whether your, say, dangerous surgery was done by the best surgeon in the country vs the lousiest? And if we say yes we would prefer the more meritorious one for that job, why not extend it to virtually every job?

[alex_smart]

Have you not heard of the caste system? We in India created an entire social order and religion based on keeping high quality jobs for a certain group of people based on identity and lineage. And karma was the justification given to lower caste people for why they got such a bad deal in the current life.

And this might be getting a little personal, but just read that person's username. Acharya is a common Brahmin title, so I'm not very surprised that he thinks this way.

[akhilcacharya]

Honestly, anybody that passes a certain bar is probably fine for me. We already have that with medical licensing, board exams, residency matching, etc. If anything we could probably loosen the bar, since residency spots are artificially scarce because of the residency cap.

To be perfectly clear, I don't dispute ability exists - I just don't think that should be the ideal organizing philosophy for society.