[adamwong246]

A lot of people are realizing it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you are great or terrible at your job, because you might get fired or laid-off either way. You can spend you whole life squirreling away your retirement, only to watch those savings evaporate at the next "financial crisis". We're told the system is meritocracy but it never seems to pan out that way.

[musicale]

Meritocracy was originally a dystopian term, coined in the book "Rise of the Meritocracy" which:

"describes a dystopian society in a future United Kingdom in which intelligence and merit have become the central tenet of society, replacing previous divisions of social class and creating a society stratified between a merited power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less merited."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

[gdulli]

I really this attitude is too dire. Effort is not always rewarded quickly or transactionally. But over the long run, it does make a difference. Even if there's more bullshit and frustration than there should be along the way.

[SL61]

The consequential factor isn't whether it's true, but the fact that a lot of people believe it. It's an attitude I hear from most of my peers, in and out of tech. What happens when a lot of the people who keep society running half-ass their jobs because they believe effort won't be rewarded?

[adamwong246]

It's far far worse than workers lazing off. It paints a picture of a great "hollowing out" of our society as each member pulls away, "The tragedy of the commons" taken to its far conclusion. Trust is a necessary condition for a decent society and we've not given the little people many reasons to trust the system.

[AnimalMuppet]

Over the long run, effort is quite often rewarded more than lack of effort. Not perfectly. But often enough that it's the way to bet.

[CodeSgt]

Agreed. It may not be a perfect meritocracy, but over the course of a life a little effort and competence go a long way.

[pydry]

Not as far as it used to though.

Economic rents are taking a larger % of western economies every year.