[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.