It's not my reasoning, it's my attempt to repeat the reasoning I've heard from highly intelligent people who really don't think individual differences in competence matter much -- even when their own clearly does. I think they do matter, a lot.

One of the most competent people I've ever known is one of them. He told me that Elon Musk is somewhat intelligent, but his success is due to luck and underhandedness, and he could be easily replaced by another somewhat intelligent and similarly underhanded person. He seemed sincere in believing that merit wasn't much of a thing and meritocracy is a racist trope. I got roundly mocked on twitter for arguing that merit is real. I'd like to understand that point of view better, because I'm at a loss too.