[Enginerrrd]

We also don't live in the antithesis of a meritocracy either.

Competency is usually rewarded, and rewards are pretty well correlated with competency.

There's plenty of room in the tails one can cite to justifyany opinion on the matter, but on average I think we're far more meritocratic than not.

[anonporridge]

On the scale of nepotism<->meritocracy, the US is probably much closer to meritocracy than most human societies have been.

Are there examples of societies who have done meritocracy better, from which we can take ideas to improve our own system?

[asabjorn]

Do you think this remains true with DIE and affirmative action being implemented in all major employers, universities and institutions? It is not fashionable to point to the unmeritocratic treatment of Asians and white males, so I guess I will point out the emperors nakedness.

Hiring people of all backgrounds that agree with a forced marxist outcome (diversity), firing people dissenting to Marxist forced outcome or shutting them up (inclusion), and a forced marxist outcome (equity) never lead to meritocracy in other places. Why would it here?

Likewise, affirmative action in hiring and research grants favor a less productive woman or a less competent person with the right identity category. Affirmative action categories are from the 60s when the US had a very different demographic, and whom held high status office jobs looked very different.

[inglor_cz]

Your comment is unpopular, judging from the downvotes, but it is still thoughtful and should be debated, not simply downvoted. But you are touching topics that come close to religious faith for some folks, and in an irreverent way.

[asabjorn]

Marxism actually is a theology and by proxy wokeness as well, so it is not surprising you get religious zealots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqj-MKG9SnU&t=1s

[systemvoltage]

I wish more people in the tech spoke up against DIE. Corporations are acting as a proxy of Government policies that do not pass the muster of legislative process. It is seems like either 1) Everyone is brainwashed by the woke religion or 2) People know it is malicious but don't have the courage to speak up.

Of all the people, I would expect technologists to have a very straight forward, rational and objectivist perspective, but I am realizing that it might not be the case.

[asabjorn]

It's the ESG framework that force companies to adopt DIE, kill it and you kill DIE. The marxists are using the large pension funds they manage (blackrock, vanguard, state and federal pension funds etc) to force companies to either seek a high ESG score or see these funds money used as leverage to tank their stock. This is actually illegal, as it's both racketeering and corporations&funds are required to seek profit.

Every wondered how oil, coal and weapons companies could have a high ESG score? It's because it's a scam to benefit the cartels controlling the scores.

In practice ESG stands for sustainability of the political regime (Environmental), compliance with marxist values and social justice programs (Social) and compliance with the desired principles of the ruling government (Government). DIE is part of the S and G.

[dataflow]

> Do you think this remains true with DIE and affirmative action being implemented in all major employers, universities and institutions?

Meritocracy is about how government employees (or those who aren't legally "employees" per se, but who still have the political power) are chosen, not about how students or private employees are chosen. (c.f. how the existence of religious schools doesn't imply the country is a theocracy, the existence of CEOs doesn't imply the country is an autocracy, etc.)

[anon291]

Meritocracy actually is about how students or private employees are chosen, since the word is typically used to apply to the entire society of the USA, not just its government.

So yeah, if all schools were suddenly uber-Catholic and dissuaded non-Catholics for example, then that would mean the society has become less meritocratic. Or if companies had racial preferences in hiring instead of hiring based on merit and achievement, and this was widespread, then the US could not be said to be a meritocracy.

This is not a legal or governmental discussion, this is about sociology, anthropology, and culture.

[asabjorn]

Good points. Also, constitutional constraints apply to public schools and universities so they are not supposed to push a state religion such as marxist theology. It is also illegal to fire someone or discriminate against them for not adopting a faith.

Right now the job is to make more aware that marxism and by proxy wokism doesn't just look like a religion, it is a religion and has a clear theology, so constitutional protections against state religions apply and this should stop the woke abuse of political power for religious aims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqj-MKG9SnU&t=1s

Likewise constitutional protections apply against enforcement of the marxist faith using DIE.

[anon291]

Right. Constitutional protections are the bare minimum for government to follow. There exist configurations of current society with all constitutional protections in place that still leave a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, modern political discourse is obsessed with government and less obsessed with polities, which is really sad, because government is actually a small part of society.

[asabjorn]

DIE is also implemented all over the government, and public schools and universities also apply it. Are you saying you are concerned about this affecting meritocracy, but not in private schools and companies?

Your definition of meritocracy to be related only to those that have political power is not a universal definition. Merriam Webster defines it as "a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated".

But let's go with just political power. Are you saying that getting a high-status private education, eg. harvard or yale, or a high power private company role has no influence on you wielding political power?

[dataflow]

> Are you saying you are concerned about

No, I haven't said anything about my concerns nor did I intend to.

> DIE is also implemented all over the government

That would make for a better argument with some examples, instead of pointing to universities and private institutions etc.

> Are you saying that getting a high-status private education, eg. harvard or yale, or a high power private company role has no influence on you wielding political power?

No. But "influence > 0" is not the correct criterion.

[asabjorn]

I think I am a bit confused then. We were discussing meritocracy. Are you claiming affirmative action or DEI has no effect on meritocracy? Or that meritocracy in your opinion shouldn't be a consideration?

> That would make for a better argument with some examples, instead of pointing to universities and private institutions etc.

Why do you think public universities and schools are not government? They are under political founding, oversight, funding, and control so that doesn't make sense to me.

>No. But "influence > 0" is not the correct criterion.

What is the correct criterion in your opinion?

[Enginerrrd]

I'm not a huge fan of the form DIE practices take almost every time I've run into them, and I'm often even appalled it's gotten to this point, but I also don't think it is an all-or-nothing proposition.

A metric of diversity being applied to selection really doesn't mean it's the sole criterion. The effect isn't negligible, but neither is it fully-like wannabe egalitarian marxist systems where your parent's job or political affiliations forever determined your future status without negotiation.

There's definitely a scale between a meritocratic and egalitarian society.

[asabjorn]

How do you think about DEI and affirmative action systematically discriminating against poor people from poor families with unfavored identities?

The problem is that although there is for instance merit to helping the poor, that is in direct conflict with DIE that will choose Colin Powell’s son over a multi-generation poor white son of a black father any day.

Likewise, affirmative action will choose to give Hillary Clinton’s daughter research funding over an Asian male from a poor railroad worker family.

If one really cared about class or generational injustice, then the poor white male and Asian male in the examples above would have not been systematically discriminated against using DIE&affirmative action

[kahrl]

Capital is usually rewarded, and rewards are pretty well correlated with capital.

[inglor_cz]

Depends on the sort of rewards.

Saudi Arabia does not seem to be rewarding scientists or inventors and doesn't consequently get any significant scientific results at home, even though the country is obscenely rich.

[xyzzyz]

Ah yes, the US universities are well known to hire the wealthiest elites as researchers. Poor foreign grad students are virtually absent from US universities.

[kahrl]

What are you on about? If you read the parent comments, we are talking about country-wide generalisms.

[xyzzyz]

Which are clearly false when applied to the actual topic of discussion, so why bring them up?