
The fall of the meritocracy - emgoldstein
http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/09/fall-meritocracy/
======
austerity
Even without the author's counterargument the assertion that one's genetics is
an unfair advantage strikes me as absurd. Your genetics is not something
you've got, but literally a part of what you _are_. Questioning whether one
deserves to be oneself is like asking what's north of the North Pole - just
because you can put these words together in a sentence doesn't mean it it
makes any sense. Furthermore, intelligence is not a "good" in itself. You earn
("deserve") goods by being useful to others. If a "gifted" individual invents
a technology that makes life more comfortable for the unintelligent, does he
not deserve a reward regardless of what enabled him to do so?

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.

~~~
mkingston
"does he not deserve a reward regardless of what enabled him to do so"

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.

~~~
linhchi
if we insist on everybody getting the same share, no matter what, then the
smart one doesnt have incentive to make progress and the lazy one simply stops
trying. that'd be disaster (isnt that communism?)

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

~~~
tankenmate
Actually you'll find there are cultures around the globe where you are
expected to share _more_ than 50% if you receive a windfall... The less than
50% thing is very much a western world phenomenon; and a US one in particular.

~~~
linhchi
yeah, but in tribes or backward society, with agriculture or hunter-gatherer
..

it's kinda hard to compare between these two kinds of society, people deal
with very different things everyday

~~~
tankenmate
You'll find that gift cultures exist today that have long since stopped being
agrarian; the Philippines and Thailand come to mind. In the big cities the
gift culture is still alive and well. It is quite a different culture to the
predominately protestant individualistic society that is America though.[0]

[0]
[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/31914331_J._Henrich_...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/31914331_J._Henrich__R._Boyd__S._Bowles__C._Camerer__E._Fehr__H._Gintis_%28eds.%29_Foundations_of_Human_Sociality_Economic_Experiment)

------
asgard1024
Meritocracy is a very quaint goal. There is so much value in our societies
produced by capital that cannot be attributed to work or decision-making of
some living person - such as machinery, know-how (technological and
organizational), land, natural resources, organic products.

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.

~~~
lmm
So how about we spend a few minutes trying to solve those problems rather than
just throwing up our hands?

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?

~~~
pjc50

      > *sufficiently low-friction market*
    

.. drives the rate of profit to zero at all points along the value chain,
_except_ where there is a monopoly or "rent" that can extract all the value.
Example: San Francisco is a system for moving money from venture capital to
real estate.

~~~
asgard1024
Exactly! 15 years ago, I was interested in economics. Since I originally
studied physics, and I couldn't help noticing that some very simple examples
are missing from the economic textbooks, namely how to build the macroeconomic
model (aggregate functions) from the microeconomic ones.

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..

~~~
lmm
If the distributor's cut becomes too large then some producers will switch to
become distributors, and vice versa.

~~~
asgard1024
That may happen, but it doesn't answer the question what the cut will be. I
don't think there is an answer, since as GP pointed out, in free market, both
margins should approach 0, so the ratio can be anything in that limit.

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!).

------
taliesinb
Among other things, the author presents the argument that a more efficient
meritocracy will exacerbate the fact that we don't all have the same genetic
endowments, and these endowments are subject to hereditary capture to a
similar degree that wealth is. Furthermore, future technologies will allow the
wealthy to simply buy permanent genetic advantages for their descendants.

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.

~~~
lmm
I don't have a specific post in mind, but if you're interested in this kind of
thing then I highly recommend
[http://slatestarcodex.com](http://slatestarcodex.com)

~~~
littletimmy
I've often heard that about website. What is it? Who writes it?

~~~
TeMPOraL
A psychiatrist that goes by pen name Scott Alexander, also known as Yvain on
Less Wrong. He wrote quite a lot of insightful articles over the year; here's
one reference[0].

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...](http://nothingismere.com/2015/09/12/library-of-scott-alexandria/)

[1] - [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

~~~
taliesinb
I read SSC's Moloch essay a while back -- I ended up missing two Strange Loop
talks because I got so into it! He has some really fantastic essays.

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.

~~~
TeMPOraL
(Past my edit window so submitting as another comment.)

Also, listen to this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et-E4WWcbeE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et-E4WWcbeE).

You'll never be reading that post in the same internal voice again. :).

~~~
taliesinb
Hehe awesome thanks

------
SideburnsOfDoom
> "In The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
> (1994), Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray argue—pretty convincingly"

Anyone care to comment on that? I thought that taking "The Bell Curve"
seriously was a big red flag?

~~~
puredemo
>I thought that taking "The Bell Curve" seriously was a big red flag?

To whom? Certainly not to most scientists..

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
We're referring to a particular book of that title. Some consider it to be
racist bunk, e.g.
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve)

Follow links from there and the idea that "most scientists" agree with that
book looks like a big stretch.

------
tanderson92
If the failures of meritocracy and elitism interest you, I highly recommend
reading "Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy" by Chris Hayes,
who currently works for MSNBC. Aaron Swartz wrote a wonderful review on
CrookedTimber: [http://crookedtimber.org/2012/06/18/guest-review-by-aaron-
sw...](http://crookedtimber.org/2012/06/18/guest-review-by-aaron-swartz-chris-
hayes-the-twilight-of-the-elites/)

------
beatpanda
The author uses a raft of terms he doesn't bother to define -- "top
university", "prestigious occupation", "social status", and so on, so much
that it makes the article meaningless.

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.

~~~
tomp
I think the basic premise of the article is completely sound: in a
meeitocratic society, the inequality increases approximately to the degree
that IQ is inherited.

~~~
varjag
Is there reliable evidence that the IQ is inherited in quantities that
actually matter? I know it's a popular premise, but this article takes it to
sure-shot levels.

~~~
Malician
[http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-67-2-130.pdf](http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-67-2-130.pdf)

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."

~~~
varjag
No, what I mean is that there are genetic factors that aren't necessarily
hereditary, or even hereditary but not within the immediate offspring. E.g. my
son has the same birthmark as my mother but I don't. Same for a number of
Mendelian trait diseases.

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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> No, what I mean is that there are genetic factors that aren't necessarily
> hereditary, or even hereditary but not within the immediate offspring. E.g.
> my son has the same birthmark as my mother but I don't. Same for a number of
> Mendelian trait diseases.

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.)

~~~
varjag
> This is not genetic but not "necessarily hereditary", this is hereditary,
> but requiring a combination of inherited "things" to manifest.

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?

------
ZeroGravitas
Reverse this:

 _" (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.

------
arethuza
"Meritocracy" is one of those odd words that was defined to have one meaning
and now appears to be generally used to mean almost the exact opposite -
perhaps worth reading this article from the chap who coined the term in the
1950s:

[http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment)

~~~
WillPostForFood
Not coincidentally, The author of your article is the father of the author of
the OP. I don't think the definition has shifted so much as the intent behind
the word (negative to positive).

~~~
pron
Meritocracy still has purely negative connotations among those who study
society, and positive connotations among politicians or corporations who wish
to justify their current practices. You won't hear the word "meritocracy"
mentioned by sociologists or historians as anything but a joke, or, if they're
patient, as a starting point of a dystopia.

~~~
proveanegative
Of course, it has to be noted that academics lean left, and sociologists
overwhelmingly so.

See, e.g.,
[http://www.criticalreview.com/2004/pdfs/cardiff_klein.pdf](http://www.criticalreview.com/2004/pdfs/cardiff_klein.pdf).

~~~
pron
Right, and did you know that most climatologists are overwhelmingly climate-
change believers?! That's just so unfair. Where are all the climate-change-
denier climatologists, creationist biologists and libertarian sociologists, I
wonder?

~~~
proveanegative
Comparing sociology to biology in particular ends up unflattering for the
former. Biology is a lot more obviously successful than sociology. Sociology
has so far failed to produce its equivalent to evidence-based medicine and
whenever treatments it has tried to design for social illnesses have not
delivered.

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".

~~~
pron
Sociology is not an applied discipline and most certainly doesn't prescribe
"institutional change". I would sooner expect "solutions" from people who
bother to study the system they seek to change rather than those who don't and
cast aspersions on those who do.

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.

------
pron
I find it ironic that people who believe they possess an inordinate amount of
intelligence so often fail to notice how limited is its capacity for solving
actual human problems. Or perhaps it is not ironic at all, because every man
with delusion of grandeur -- intelligent or not -- would think that it is the
qualities that he possess would one day make him a member of the ruling class,
or falling short of that -- a superhero.

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.

~~~
puredemo
>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 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.

~~~
pron
I advocate nothing of the sort, just note that it is just as likely to work as
the author's "plan", which (like most texts, really) is more of a testament to
his personal psychological issues than to his reasoning abilities. Do we have
a good reason to believe a society made of used-car salesmen would be worse
than that made of Aspy scientists? :) If I advocate anything, it is that we
base our social policies on careful study of actual society rather than a
simplification made for people who are unable or unwilling to grasp the
complexities of the human condition.

~~~
puredemo
Nice response. A society of used car salesmen would probably be better in most
ways actually. The current global IQ is 95, I think. This makes me personally
believe that having a very large demographic of 'average' people is fairly
stabilizing, for various reasons. If some technology came out that did raise
the global IQ to 110 or 120, I suspect things would become chaotic and self-
destructive in short order. That's not to say it won't happen though, progress
marches on.

------
brohee
_In Coming Apart, Charles Murray estimates that there will always be 14 per
cent of children in the top 5 per cent of the IQ distribution curve who are
the offspring of parents with below-average IQs. Admittedly, that’s not much
when you consider that the remaining 86 per cent will have parents with above-
average IQs,_

It really makes me wonder about the author IQ.

~~~
plonh
Why?

~~~
brohee
Because it's stupidly wrong. He misses the possibility for average people to
have high IQ children. The sentence parses as : 14% high IQ children are from
lower IQ couples, 0% are from average IQ couple, 86% are from high IQ
couple...

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...

~~~
plonh
In probability , the fraction of the population at exactly 50%ile is
approximately 0.

~~~
brohee
It's prose. When you say someone is of average height, you usually mean within
a standard deviation of average, not that the person is exactly the locale
appropriate average height... At best that sentence is very poorly worded, at
worst the author is a shining example of regression to the mean.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Reassuring to learn that the word 'meritocracy' originally came from satire
and not from serious proponents

~~~
yen223
The phrase "big bang" also started as satire, but I don't think any serious
scientist would argue the concept is bad.

Arguments from etymology aren't productive.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Oh I know that (I study linguistics!). It's just amusing.

------
rdtsc
Similar discussion about this in reference to:

[http://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/meritocracy_is_a_massive_lie...](http://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/meritocracy_is_a_massive_lie_race_inheritance_and_the_the_truth_about_the_rigged_american_dream/)

------
panic
There are more factors at work here than genetics. Imagine how much pressure
would be put on the child who has been selected (at great expense) from 100
embryos as "most likely to succeed"!

------
ricksplat
> The left loathes the concept of IQ

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 ... !

------
yarrel
Starts trollish. Does it get less so?

~~~
jkldotio
He finishes up with A Modest Proposal.

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.

~~~
pron
I think the whole piece is satirical, but the satire is either too vague and
lacks all humor, and so ends up being more disturbing than thought provoking
or funny (which I can only assume was the author's intent). I'm afraid some
people might take this joke seriously. In fact, I'm afraid the joke must be
lost on anyone not familiar with the "scientific" social Darwinist writings of
the 1920s and '30s which this piece clearly tries to emulate. A promo piece
for "The Man in the High Castle", perhaps?

~~~
tomp
Why would it be satire?

~~~
pron
Well, like I said, it's not very good satire, but I figured it must be
satirizing one of two things:

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.

~~~
capitalsigma
Compare it to the tone of the rest of the articles on the site. The top link
right now, for example, mentions that climate change predicted by "warmists"
is a lie.

------
PhasmaFelis
He's really keen to paint "liberals" as genetics denialists. I have never met
or heard of...well, anyone who claims that mental ability is 100% based on
environment; I'm sure there's someone, but they don't have a lot of company.
Of course it's not 100% based on genetics, either; it's been clear for quite a
while that nature and nurture both play a role.

So, yeah, I'm thinking troll. That or "articulate nutcase." But probably
troll.

~~~
pluma
I have certainly heard "liberals" dispute sexual dimorphism in humans based
purely on ideological concerns. Some people tend to overcompensate when it
comes to common biases. This also goes hand-in-hand with the thinking that the
disenfranchised can't be racist/sexist/bigots by definition.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
So, even while looking out for those flaws, you still can't testify to _any_
liberals holding the specific position that the article ascribes to _all_ of
them?

That does seem to suggest that the basic premise is flawed.

