[mandmandam]

I'd love to see more focus on solutions, but there are _huge_ numbers of people who don't (or won't) even recognize that there are problems; and that recognition is step one.

The public intellectuals and concepts you mention may be known in your bubble, but they are not popular or talked about.

It's insane that with all of our gains in productivity the last hundred years Americans are working two or three jobs just to survive. That's fucking bananas. Cloaking that in dry academic discussion may work for you, but it clearly isn't having a big cultural impact.

Squid Game touched a nerve. People know that that we're all getting screwed.

And it's not just America, clearly. Neoliberals all over the world are strip mining the common good, at our expense and at the expense of our descendants.

So let's not shit on media that at least gets people talking about systemic inequality, while also actually managing to be popular. That's an accomplishment, and to be praised.

[Rury]

Sadly, I don't think there is a solution to be had (otherwise politics wouldn't a thing). Nature is just simply brutal. I think Hobbe's arguments presented in his "Leviathan" perhaps makes it most apparent, and with a little thought experiment, you can easily see how impossible a meritocracy is, as it totally relies on a unified will for it to work.

[SuoDuanDao]

I don't believe it's true that huge numbers of people don't recognize there are problems. I think rather that the majority of the solutions being put forward look like ways to exacerbate the problems a plurality finds most pressing.

I'll try and illustrate what I mean with a very personal example. A number of years ago, I was in a fragile state mentally and a precarious position economically. I chose to bite the bullet, humble myself, and ask my family for help even though I wanted to be successfully independent before I really had all the necessary skills. I could have chosen to look for opportunities in my immediate vicinity, which would have likely lead to a downward spiral of drug abuse and mental illness. I made what in retrospect was the right choice and am now in a quite good situation.

About half the solutions being put forward would focus on the fact that I had the means of getting help when I needed it, while the other half would focus on the fact that I chose to get help when I needed to. Any sane person can agree that for a positive outcome, both are necessary. But two issues arise: The first is that there genuinely are predatory elements of the investor class that subvert the need for self-directed action and room to manoeuvre by taking all the best opportunities for themselves. And there are also genuinely parasitic elements of the professional-managerial class that subvert the need for mutual aid and communal resources by channelling most of those resources towards administrative salaries that don't add much value.

The second issue is that criticisms of either effort at subversion often comes across as criticising the value being subverted. I see that in your post - Meritocracy is a sham, is it? My making the right decision in a moment of crisis had no bearing on the outcome, did it? We can help people without their active participation, can we? Of course, if you're well intentioned you don't actually believe any of that. But plenty of ill-intentioned people are participating in the public debate and genuinely attacking some foundations of a healthy society, the better to exploit the people who don't have both. It's easy to have difficulty distinguishing well-intentioned criticism of subversion and ill-intentioned criticism of the values themselves. Without knowing what someone would propose to do if their critcism galvanised large-scale action, it seems safest to assume the worst.

TL;DR: If you don't want to come across like a parasite it's necessary to distinguish your criticism of the idea meritocracy alone is enough with criticising the idea of meritocracy itself.