[kostarelo]

But meritocracy has more to do with capabilities rather than needs. We could argue that you've actually deserved what you got because you've worked for it (by fighting your depression and coming out to say yes to more things). You def proved that you are capable of overcoming it.

Btw I'm not arguing against the people that are in need and under-privileged, I totally get your point on that.

[kqr]

Meritocracy is based on the appearance of capabilities. This sounds like a nitpick but it's a huge difference.

Lucky people often appear very capable (crazy bets that just happen to pay off look like skill to less statistically trained people), as do the politically skilled (if you can convince someone that you're capable, you don't actually have to be).

[giantg2]

All the career advice you see about networking is basically undermining the idea of meritocracy by taking advantage of biases, such as observation bias, to give some members a boost over others.

[acjohnson55]

That's what meritocracy tells us. But I think we're actually quite bad at objectively measuring aptitude, which I would say is what we really want. Capability is a today thing, aptitude is capability plus potential.

We use apparent "merit" as a proxy for aptitude, and that leads to a rich get richer effect, because merit, at the time of evaluation, is often inflated by overinvestment. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, I think there are a huge number of false negatives in our meritocracy games.

As a hiring manager, I've taken advantage of this for years. I look for proxies for potential, rather than present capability. That allows me to acquire underpriced, overlooked talent.

[broast]

Seems possible that every individual could have similar enough capabilities if they had enough luck to overcome any disadvantage.