Poll: Do you think the world is generally a meritocracy?

3 points·carabiner··7 comments

Seeing people say "Yes" is as bewildering as it would be if the question were, "Do you believe in Santa Claus?"

The implication of the world being a meritocracy is that all the devastatingly poor people in the world are somehow lazy and untalented, and if they just worked harder, they could rise to at least a middle-class European level of comfort.

Yes and no. It's more of a meritocracy than the people who say "no" recognize, but it's less of a meritocracy than the people who say "yes" think it is.

not sure that's helpful

"The answer is somewhere in between" is a very boring answer but frequently the only correct one, "somewhere in between" doesn't need imply centrism after all. If the world is 1% meritocratic, that is greater than "Not meritocratic", if the world is 99% meritocratic, that is less than "Meritocratic". The only way to go about it is define what you think is Meritocratic, what isn't, and if column A is big enough compared to column B that you believe it qualifies as "Generally".

Then again this isn't really a deep thinking exercise, it's just an opinion poll.

I said "yes", but the function for weighting merit is not the fair, just one that you might hope for; the most meritorious person is the one that knows how to exploit and use the system to their advantage.

This uses such an uncommon definition of "merit" that it changes the original question entirely, and your response becomes tautological.

You're essentially saying that you believe the world rewards people who know how to get rewarded.

The Gemini is strong in this one

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