The fall of the meritocracy
quadrant.org.au
quadrant.org.au
On a different note, I don't understand how anyone can consider equality of outcome desirable, regardless of whether it's achievable or not. If your outcome is guaranteed to be equal to that of others then it by definition doesn't depend on your own choices. If it's not the ultimate unhuman antiutopian existence I don't know what is.
Are you saying you don't see the advantage inherent to having a much higher IQ?
Personally, it would seem a bit unfair to me if I was born with a 95 IQ, in the cosmic sense at least.
The debate over fairness/unfairness seems to me like another example of the typical trap humans fall into - instead of bickering over who gets more of the pie, we should be focusing on increasing the size of that pie. If all the effort put in the discussions about meritocracy would be put towards intelligence augmentation, we'd have a world better for everyone, regardless of what gene he or she got.
No. Why would that be the case? In your moral framework that equates moral desert with technological progression, sure. But not in mine, where technological progression is antithetical to social progression.
Ok, that was pretty facetious (especially the last sentence); there's utility in rewarding progress, but as another commenter mentioned, fairness is entirely subjective.
If you argue that fairness is subjective and utility is king you've already rejected the entire argument about genetic advantage. I would point out though that to define utility you'd still need a definition of what's "good" and with it, very likely, what's "fair" and we are back to square one.
the good gene is like a natural lottery. do you insist your neighbor to share his lottery money with you because he does nothing to get that money? because he's lucky, he may share with you 10%, but never share 50-50
it's kinda hard to compare between these two kinds of society, people deal with very different things everyday
[0] http://www.researchgate.net/publication/31914331_J._Henrich_...
Most people, if they would be paid based on merit, couldn't survive in our society, because they produce so little of value on its own.
Fighting for "meritocracy" therefore becomes fight for attribution, how big piece of resulting pie you deserve. But this deserve has not much to do with merit of your work, it has to do with your ability to fight for it, imperfect information, and kindness of other people.
A sufficiently low-friction market already resolves a lot of the attribution issues, and we're already seeing that happen - as transaction costs shrink it becomes more and more practical to outsource more of a business. What if it reached the point where every company was <50 people - small enough that everyone knew everyone? Or even the point where everyone was a freelancer?
Externalities are of course a thing. But technology is improving to the point where we can track them and build them into the market. What if e.g. for every gram of pollution, you were charged in real time?
You argument hints at something called labor theory of value, which quickly leads to contradictions, once you include time and technological progress into your models (such as people should get more for labor even if they are doing less of it).
Honestly, I think if people are honest to themselves, they will see that there is plenty of stuff providing value for free (a simple example - tree that grows apples). Then asking to be paid just for your merit is obviously a losing proposition.
> *sufficiently low-friction market*
One very simple example is to have two markets, one between producer and distributor and another between distributor and consumer. It turns out, there is no "rule" as to what the distributor's cut should be. Any margin is possible! It depends on relative negotiation positions of all parties.
So, to say (sufficiently) free markets are the answer is pretty much as no answer at all..
This also raises a question, if no one can make a profit, why should people want free market? Basically, free market promises subsistence wages to workers.
And what about consumers switching to distributors? That's the problem, you (wrongly) see economy as having two parts - one part producers, another part consumers (and so presumably you put distributors together with producers), but it really isn't like that, it's cyclic. You can't always hammer it into some supply-demand model (that's actually what makes the example interesting!).
If I were to solve it, I would just give people democratic rights (pretty much everyone the same vote) to decide how economic resources are allocated. But lots (if not most) of people are against that idea.
- People optimize locally, working for what they think is their best interest, even if on aggregate they lose. This is basic coordination problem; the very reason we form societies is because global optimization, often requiring to fogoe individual short-term gain, leads to better outcomes.
- The way people vote strongly depends on education they get; especially in our technological civilization, a lot of important issues (like energy) are beyond the understanding of majority of electorate. Democracy depends on educated populace.
- People are not independent actors wrt. to voting; in the age of free media, your votes will not reflect the "will of the many", but the will of most charismatic people on TV. Note that "the most charismatic" usually does not mean "the smartest".
And the `elite' optimizes locally as well, directly at the expense of the weakest.
To be clear - I'm not that big on authoritarianism. I just don't see the value proposition of democracy being actually realized. Given the points I mentioned previously, we are still ruled by elite, except that it is constrained to choose their options only based on popularity, and unable to make hard decisions in areas that matter[0]. About the only thing democracy delivers as promised is bloodless government transition. Even the actual work in democractic country's administration is done by unelected officials.
At this point I've given up hoping that democratic governments will help solve climate change or energy problems. Private companies may be able to, but that's only because they're capable of behaving in inherently undemocratic ways, like releasing a new technology upon the world (nobody asked us to vote whether we want to have Facebook or not) or projecting the will of single individuals onto the society ("you will drive electric cars, whether you want it or not", said Musk, and proceed to burn as much money as it took to make electric cars compete with ICE ones[1]).
[0] - even if such decision wouldn't immediately piss of half of the electorate by itself, your political opponents will make sure it will render you practically unelectable
[1] - yes, there were electric cars before, but it took Tesla to basically force the market into accepting them as an option, and they did that on purpose
The last objection I don't understand. The best way to know person preferences is just to ask them. If someone charismatic changes their preferences, so what? People change their preference based on other people all the time. As long as it is clearly their preference, we have to assume that it's in their interest.
The point of democracy is that people express their interest. There may be smarter people doing smarter decisions, but why should they make the decisions in the interest of someone else?
In any case, I think it's a good idea, often neglected, to structure society so that impact of any wrong decision at any level is minimized. Things like democratic decision-making, subsidiarity principle, reversibility of laws, non-discrimination, limited liability, social security, no capital punishment, time limited government contracts and free access to information all help.
As for the last objection - the typical voter's preference will be reflecting the political battles described above.
> People change their preference based on other people all the time. As long as it is clearly their preference, we have to assume that it's in their interest.
The problem is, it's not people changing their mind because they've heard someone reasonable saying something that makes sense. Politicians lie. Lie blatantly and lie on purpose. They hire the entire advertising machine, built out of professional liers and bullshiters, to convince people that their side of the debate is right by whatever means necessary. The average voter has to oppose people who are trained specialists in lying. I don't see how you could argue it's actually their preference.
But back to the primary reason. I could accept that start of affairs as fair, as long as we're dealing with things that don't matter much. But at this moment in time, we have several important problems - like supergerms, climate change and depletion of fossil fuels - that are going to destroy humanity in few decades, or at least pull us back into the medieval age. This shit matters. We need to make some hard choices and do some decisive actions soon if we want to have any kind of civilization surviving to the end of this century. And the democratic process is by design incapable of making those hard choices.
TL;DR: I don't want to "give power to the smarter" or a king or anything. I just want someone to actually do something about global warming and power issues before this stupid textbook-level coordination problem kills us all.
> The average voter has to oppose people who are trained specialists in lying. I don't see how you could argue it's actually their preference.
People have to oppose these people in all areas of life. By having democracy, you actually distribute power more equally and using money to gain influence becomes more costly (its much cheaper to buy a senator than to influence people to vote certain way, and the latter poses much higher risk).
I don't think people are that stupid. I agree they can be temporarily confused by lack of information or fear, and that in representative democracy, there is a risk of the person lying. But that's a problem with that system, and there are many options how to prevent that. For example, in Switzerland, on some referendums, people can get a summary information with arguments for and against. And often the debate itself is very healthy.
It seems to me this argument is blaming the victim. In all other areas of life, we call out the liar. Whether or not you can tell it's a preference depends on the information you have. Say a girl decides to sleep with a ladies' man, and he breaks up with her afterwards. If she knew, maybe she wouldn't do it. But at the time, she expressed her preference.
> But at this moment in time, we have several important problems - like supergerms, climate change and depletion of fossil fuels
As far as I know (at least in U.S. and my country), based on various opinion polls and so on, general public is pretty positive towards solving these problems. It's the actual politicians who are reluctant to act.
True. I'm basing on I need to learn more about those other systems, I might revise some of my opinions, which are currently based on my experiences with the democracies I know - Poland where I live from direct experience, and few big Western countries from news and reading stuff.
> By having democracy, (...) using money to gain influence becomes more costly
That's a win only if the cost is too high to pay; as it seems to me now, the cost is higher but not limiting, so the result is that more of society's resources are redirected towards that. See: presidential campaigns, and how much money, energy, time and manpower is wasted on what amounts to a zero-sum game.
> I don't think people are that stupid. I agree they can be temporarily confused by lack of information or fear
Yeah, I don't want to imply people are idiots - but it seems to me that the state of lack of information (and sometimes fear) is a constant in our societies. From what I read about the history of democracy, its basic assumption is that of a population well-educated in the issues to be decided.
> and that in representative democracy, there is a risk of the person lying. But that's a problem with that system, and there are many options how to prevent that. For example, in Switzerland, on some referendums, people can get a summary information with arguments for and against. And often the debate itself is very healthy.
I wish to know more. I'd love if someone with direct experience of Swiss process could tell how good is it.
> In all other areas of life, we call out the liar.
That's actually my core problem with continued existence of advertising/marketing industry (I include political campaigning under the term 'marketing' here). In other areas of life we don't tolerate such nonsense. If your friend tried to pull on you the stuff that is standard practice in marketing, you'd punch him in the face. And yet we accept this from companies and politicians, and we even turned it into a respectable occupation choice.
> As far as I know (at least in U.S. and my country), based on various opinion polls and so on, general public is pretty positive towards solving these problems. It's the actual politicians who are reluctant to act.
The issue I see here, and why I blame the democratic process for that, is that people may be "pretty positive towards solving these problems" as long as it doesn't require any sacrifices from them. Start talking about CO₂ emissions tax and suddenly you'll be violently opposed by people. Point out we need a new nuclear power plant, and the NIMBYsts wake up. This feeds back into the democratic process and so (that's why I think) politicians stay away from solutions. At this point we really need someone to force some solutions on people, whether they like it or not, and I don't see how (representative) democracy can help with that.
I really recommend looking at Switzerland; U.S. on state level also has lot of direct democracy and similar tradition.
> the cost is higher but not limiting, so the result is that more of society's resources are redirected towards that
It's not a failure of democracy, it's absence of it. Some people have more power due to economic inequality.
> basic assumption is that of a population well-educated in the issues to be decided
This is not really an issue. Switzerland and places in U.S. (not to mention Iceland) have more than 100 year tradition in direct democracy, do you think back then the population was better educated? And the sky didn't fall, in fact these places are some of the most advanced in the world.
> And yet we accept this from companies and politicians, and we even turned it into a respectable occupation choice
I agree.
> people may be "pretty positive towards solving these problems" as long as it doesn't require any sacrifices from them
In practice, not always true. There have been some examples in direct democracies where people voted for e.g. higher taxes. As long as it is fair, people can actually accept it quite well. But it requires lot of trust in the society, which Eastern Europe countries, for instance, may not have. Good democracy actually produces this trust.
> At this point we really need someone to force some solutions on people
The problem is once you start forcing solutions onto people, you have opened a really bad can of worms. Lot of dictators had good intentions in the beginning, but somehow their "forcing of solutions" got a little out of hands.
Just as a universal basic income is presented as one antidote to wealth inequality, the idea of universal genetic enhancement is presented, specifically of intelligence (whatever that is). If we assume it's a fait accompli that members of our elites will pursue genetic enhancement of intelligence for their children or themselves, what are the strongest consequentialist objections to the idea of free, universally-provided genetic enhancement, assuming such therapies are actually effective, practical, and safe?
One obvious objection is of a "Brave New World" variety: we have yet no idea how systematic selection to increase "g" (or any trait, for that matter), could stunt or enhance other traits, deplete valuable kinds of cognitive diversity we can't yet measure, or twist our values in some immeasurable and negative way.
Worse still, it's easy to imagine government scientists in more authoritarian societies stumbling on allele combinations that enhanced political docility, consumption-oriented behavior, thriftiness, and so on, and selecting for those in the next generation to solve demographic, economic, or political problems.
On the flip side of that fear is the hope that we could select for propensities that help us solve the daunting list of global co-ordination problems that now face us, climate change and dangerous AI being the two most generic ones. The consequences of failure there are so dire that we may even have reason to see such enhancement as necessary -- the equivalent of a species-level adrenaline shot to get us through an existential crisis.
And what if we could make ourselves less dishonest, manipulative, cynical, and tribalistic? What if we could design our values to be different from what they are, to be what we wished they were? That's much scarier for me, for reasons that are harder to explain. And it mirrors a bit the problems of building an self-enhancing AI that doesn't "diverge to evil".
I'm sure there's a rich seam of blogosphere material out there on these topics, maybe even some academic papers, would be very interested if someone is willing to share some links to specific arguments or discussions.
My favourite work of his is Meditations on Moloch[1] - quite long but very good post about how various coordination problems make the world look the way it was, and how it may evolve in the future.
[0] - http://nothingismere.com/2015/09/12/library-of-scott-alexand...
[1] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
It's a small part of Moloch but one idea that really stuck with me was that many of our defining societal threats and challenges are ultimately coordination problems, game theoretic tragedies. The Achilles heel of humanity it seems.
Also, listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et-E4WWcbeE.
You'll never be reading that post in the same internal voice again. :).
Check out the reference to SSC posts I linked downthread, and since you mentioned coordination problems, definitely check out Meditations on Moloch.
Anyone care to comment on that? I thought that taking "The Bell Curve" seriously was a big red flag?
People could be misled into thinking that the left and right are having a disagreement about some neutral science findings the way you phrased it, like e.g. "The right-wing hates climate science" (and where they also heavily fund "scientists" that are prepared to write books full of nonsense that suits their goals that "the left" "hate").
edit: and as, luck would have it, as someone else just pointed out, the most recent article on this site is about climate denial:
"This raises the matter of what we now routinely refer to as “climate change” – catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW), to use one of the climateers’ favoured and emotionally laden descriptors.
Tony Abbott, speaking frankly, once conceded that “climate change is crap”
It struck me recently that the crank-like approach to climate change may have helped some big businesses in the short term, but may well cause blowback for their goals as reality sets in.
To whom? Certainly not to most scientists..
Follow links from there and the idea that "most scientists" agree with that book looks like a big stretch.
IQ, and all the other "objective" measures he leaves as an exercise to the reader to define, mostly measure how well-adapted a person is to society such as it currently works right now.
If you believe we've arrived at the society we have now due to "human nature" or some other kind of natural settling, and not, to just pick one alternate hypothesis, an unimaginable amount of violence and plunder carried out across the globe over the last few centuries, then the conclusions in this article make sense.
Otherwise, it probably has some holes.
There seem to be big differences in correlation between identical twins and fraternal twins, which is a pretty strong indicator there's a genetic component.
It seems very thoroughly accepted - among researchers who have studied the subject. The popular press produces a lot of articles downplaying the subject. For example, if a study shows that IQ is likely the result of thousands of genes combined rather than just one or two, there will be ten articles the next day saying "scientists unable to find genetic basis for IQ" and "IQ not genetic."
I am not questioning that IQ might well be a genetic factor, just wondering if there are any conclusive studies that it's directly inherited. Because the study you linked is very open-ended on this, and this has been core premise for the article discussed.
This is not genetic but not "necessarily hereditary", this is hereditary, but requiring a combination of inherited "things" to manifest. (The typical simple case of "Mendelian trait diseases" to which this applies are recessive traits, which require inheriting a copy of the gene from each parent to manifest.)
IQ, not being a binary trait, doesn't work the same way, and probably (even to the extent it is genetic) the product of isn't a single, simple genetic trait of any kind, but influenced by a number of different genes. And, also, influenced by lots of environmental factors (and it may turn out that the way in which some of those environmental factors contribute depends on which combination of genetic factors are present.)
Down syndrome is a result of genetic expression but is not a hereditary trait. General, normal human features (like having 5 fingers on each arm and feet) are also genetic but so universal it makes no point describing them as "hereditary".
> IQ, not being a binary trait, doesn't work the same way, and probably (even to the extent it is genetic) the product of isn't a single, simple genetic trait of any kind, but influenced by a number of different genes.
If it's a function of thousand features as been suggested, this makes the odds for direct trait inheritance not particularly good, no?
1) IQ "capacity" is genetic, and, as such, inherited. (Though its probably not a simple single trait, but a consequence of interactions of multiple traits.)
2) That actual IQ depends on both genetic capacity and a large number of environmental factors.
"(b) creating opportunities for those born on the wrong side of the tracks, so if you start with very little that doesn’t mean you’ll end up with very little, or that your children will"
And you see immediately why meritocracy is a sham. No one wants their stupid and lazy kids to end up "with little", and the rich have the means to ensure this happens.
Of course, like many things to do with rich vs poor, this applies on the national scale too. And generally not even those on the wrong side of the tracks think that people on the wrong side of the border, regardless of merit, should be allowed to cross it to get a better life.
"Bevin left school at 11 to take a job as a farm boy, and was subsequently a kitchen boy, a grocer's errand boy, a van boy, a tram conductor and a drayman before, at the age of 29, he became active locally in Bristol in the Dock Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' union."
And was Foreign Minister in the Atlee government, ardent ant-Soviet, arguably one of the founders of the Atlantic alliance and many other achievements. That route is pretty much closed these days.
My own personal favourite is William Robertson - who was Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1916-1918. He went from a private soldier to that lofty position. Richard Holmes points out that an equivalent rise would be impossible today - even with much smaller forces to command.
These people were successful because they were good - not on "merit" as is usually defined.
See, e.g., http://www.criticalreview.com/2004/pdfs/cardiff_klein.pdf.
Also, I find it a bit ironic that you call for taking lessons from 20th-century mass-movements considering that the article echoes others similar to it -- written by scientists -- around the same time of the Bolshevik revolution, and served to justify other movements with no better record than that of communism.
I don't think sociology is completely hopeless but given its track record so far I would sooner expect intelligence (and empathy, willpower, etc.) augmentation to cure whatever problems plague society than any attempt at "institutional change".
But speaking of track records, I think that the record of those who have called for "institutional change" and got us civil rights, education and healthcare is far better than that of so-called scientists who have favored "applied artificial Darwinism" and advocated for eugenics programs.
[1] I'm not a native English speaker -- I don't know if you are -- but you're the first I've seen to write the names of academic disciplines in single-quotes. Is that a thing?
Luckily, we who have studied computer science and know a thing or two about completeness and complexity and therefore the limits of reason, can easily call the bluff. After all, when human beings are concerned a solution to a problem may involve nothing more than swaying the minds of people, something people with high intelligence often seem comically unable to do.
So while I could easily think of a few qualities humanity is in urgent need of more than intelligence — charisma, empathy, good looks and a sense of humor — I believe that this particular piece would have been much better if the author’s eugenics plan had been in effect prior to his birth.
> we who have studied computer science and know a thing or two about completeness and complexity and therefore the limits of reason, can easily call the bluff
It seems that even with that, there are many people in the second group who belong to the first group.
To me, humans are not actually that different in their inborn intelligence. The bell curve actually falls of quite quickly besides the mean. The most difference is specialized training.
So you're advocating that we select for charismatic, persuasive people of average intelligence? Seems like a rather short-sighted plan, considering this would describe most used car salesmen.
It really makes me wonder about the author IQ.
It also dismisses the existence of mismatched IQ couples, and highly intelligent men with a hot air head isn't unheard off, and nowadays women have their toy boys too...
Yep, IQ has a higher statistical variance in men than in women, basically guaranteeing that there will be couples with IQ mismatches, going both directions.
Arguments from etymology aren't productive.
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/meritocracy_is_a_massive_lie...
Sorry. Nope. Too much other stuff to read to be giving time to an article that employs such a fallacious and/or naive opening to be bothered.
Sorry if I'm wrong, but this has immediately marked itself out as a propaganda piece, and I note it has been deservedly flagged.
Next ... !
Edit: Oh no! I am getting downvoted by HN users who didn't get the reference and/or have completely no idea what I believe with regard to the issues at hand in the article.
1. The kind of writing you can find in some blogs popular among certain people who publish writings in favor of "reason" but whose reason or curiosity does not extend to the workings of actual people. They are either blind to the strong irrational forces motivating them, or aware and afraid of them and wish to be rid of them, as "reason" (at least their interpretation of it) is something that they feel they can cope with. They then propose solutions to solve society's problems provided that society was made of point-mass people and somehow displayed tractable dynamics. I call this kind of writing "spherical-cow sociology". What these people really want is a recognition of their own abilities and their own rise to power, something they feel they've been unjustly denied and rightfully deserve. This is a modern manifestation of the comic-book heroes of the 1930s-'60s, all created by people who felt powerless. Unlike those comic-book writers, the contributions of the contemporary group are questionable, as the models of society they come up with serve their own particular psychological needs and lack the mass-appeal of Superman.
2. The kind of writing popular in the 1920s and '30s by social Darwinists who actually were curious about real people and knowledgeable about the workings of society, but were seeking moral justification for their continued subjugation of others. These were people who were already in power (i.e. they felt sufficiently empowered), but felt pangs of guilt regarding their treatment of others, which they wanted to sweep away.
The giveaway is the laser-focused emphasis on intelligence and material benefits, simplified-ad-absurdum models that appeal to the limited thought of those in the first group, and the suggestion of eugenics, a popular choice among those in the second.
So, yeah, I'm thinking troll. That or "articulate nutcase." But probably troll.
That does seem to suggest that the basic premise is flawed.