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Comment by manfredo | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that you say that. "Meritocracy" has become a bit of a bad word in Bay Area tech companies. [1]

And in case I didn't make this clear, that was just a quick dump of views that I think are generally considered conservative. Real life is much more nuanced than a list of bullet points. I fully agree that there are, for example, people who want tougher immigration laws but otherwise don't consider themselves conservative.

[1] https://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug/ I realize this is just one example, but people on my own company's forums have caught flak for using the word "meritocracy".

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When you say conservatives support Meritocracy do you mean like how Ivanka and Jared got jobs with the White House? When people criticize the word "Meritocracy" they are not criticizing the concept but the usage.

>When people criticize the word "Meritocracy" they are not criticizing the concept but the usage.

I don't agree - there is a subset of people that criticize meritocracy as a concept because they believe the idea of 'merit' is inherently racist and classist - if you start at a different level, it becomes more difficult for you to accrue 'merit' and so that needs to be balanced and taken into account. Some people believe this is much more important than hiring or promoting on 'merit'

Do you have any examples where people are criticizing the concept inherently?

The people who write about these things always say they don't like when the word meritocracy is being used to hide bias.

Most of mine are from conversations with people, but this is what I immediately thought of (though I know the definition has changed a little since) https://books.google.com/books?id=QelNAQAAQBAJ

Here's another: https://practicaltheorist.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/the-myth-...

Here's a critique stating that the terms aren't defined enough to be said to be 'just'

http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6818.pdf

The last one is the most fascinating, I really recommend you read it if you're interested in these things. Amartya Sen is brilliant.

The wordpress article says academic meritocracy doesn't exist because teachers are biased. The author is calling it a myth to say it exists in our society. Doesn't seem like they are against an actual meritocracy.

Though I suppose it's easier to dismiss complaints about bias when we pretend those complainers just hate our meritocracy.

The author is saying that a meritocracy is a dystopian nightmare. Literally, he coined the term meritocracy to describe his dystopian nightmare civilization.

I'm not sure how to parse your last sentence. Could you clarify what you mean?

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