
Brendan Eich, We’ve Failed You. I’m Sorry. - anotherhacker
https://medium.com/p/3c613ea188d7
======
kolektiv
We haven't failed him. While the old "may not agree with what you say but I'll
defend to the death your right to say it" trope gets used here, it doesn't
mean you need to protect people from the consequences of their speech.

Brendan Eich can donate to whatever causes he wishes, and rightfully so, but
there is rightly no protection from the public opinion based consequences
arising from those donations. Equally, justifications such as "meritocracy"
imply that being a CEO is a very narrow thing - it isn't, it's a position of
authority and leadership, and if you can't (near universally) inspire
confidence in the people you're intended to lead, that is a problem with your
ability to function as CEO.

~~~
rjzzleep
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)

i'm sure if he was anti-gay, all those gays working for him for 6 years as a
cto would have noticed a little earlier, everyone was surprised when they
heard about this in 2012. and it didn't stop people from using mozilla
products then. if you don't think that the cto of a large tech research
company has at least a little say in who gets hired, you need a reality check.

let's not kid ourselves. someone wanted him out of the way, and we all played
our role. congratulations for being the toys at hand of the powers that be.

i'm really curious who the next cto/ceo of mozilla is going to be. IN FACT I'm
worried on who it might be.

here's a crosspost from recode:

> I am in full support of gay marriage, I'm against prop 8. But I'm also
> utterly opposed to railroading people out of work because of personal
> opinions they hold.

> Today the bullies won. Today tyranny gained a toehold. The next time some
> religious group throws out an employee or leader because he donated money to
> planned parenthood or gay rights group, remember this day for you laid the
> foundation.

~~~
vidarh
> McCarthyism

Bring that up if it turns out that he is blacklisted across the valley, and
unable to land a new job. Given the number of millionaire VC's alone that have
come out supporting him on Twitter, I kind of doubt he'll face anything
resembling McCarthy level persecution.

If you don't see the difference between people being upset about having a
known supporter of discrimination in a role where he is shaping public opinion
about an organisation like Mozilla, _and_ the person ultimately responsible
for a workplace vs. someone being blacklisted across an entire industry, or
worse, and paraded in front of congressional committees to confess their
"sins", then that shows a scary lack of understanding of just how nasty
McCarthyism was.

~~~
coldtea
> _Bring that up if it turns out that he is blacklisted across the valley, and
> unable to land a new job._

Well, McCarthy era victims were also able to find the odd job here and there.
McCarthyism is about the practice, not about if the effects are in full force
or not.

I wouldn't be surprised if no major company would want to hire him for a
public position now, lest they suffer the same public backslash.

> _If you don 't see the difference between people being upset about having a
> known supporter of discrimination in a role where he is shaping public
> opinion about an organisation like Mozilla, and the person ultimately
> responsible for a workplace vs. someone being blacklisted across an entire
> industry, or worse, and paraded in front of congressional committees to
> confess their "sins", then that shows a scary lack of understanding of just
> how nasty McCarthyism was._

Actually, it's the above that shows lack of understanding of what was wrong
about McCarthyism. It wasn't that the blacklisting was total ("throughout the
industry"), it was that the blacklisting existed at all. Even if people would
only got fired from one job and left alone after that, McCarthyism would have
been as bad.

It also shows a lack of understanding of the ramifications against Eich. Take
the top players that could hire a well known Javascript/TCO guy like Eich.
Would Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Opera, Abobe, etc hire him
now? Their PR persons will tell them not to touch him with a ten-foot pole.

As for being "paraded to confess their "sins"" that has already been done --
Eich was forced to confess his sins in public posts and promise he'll be good
(as if he gave any indication that he was bad in the workplace all these years
in this regard). Well, in his case the commitee wasn't "congressional", it was
a tech media one. I'll give you that.

------
saalweachter
Meh.

There is a selectively low bar on persecution these days. He wasn't being
denied the right to marry, they right to make medical decisions for or visit a
loved one in the hospital, the right to adopt. He wasn't even being denied the
right to a decent living.

He was denied access to a particular leadership position. While there is a
slippery slope to be found in denying leadership positions based on belief,
there are also two sets of rights to consider. The rights of the (potential)
leader, and the rights of the workers he leads. Given that the belief he
expressed through his donation concerned the civil rights of other people and
not himself, why should I expect that he will respect the rights of any LTBG
workers in his employee?

~~~
mhurron
> He was being denied access to a particular leadership position.

He wasn't denied access to the position, he had it. Others made it clear they
were not interested in being lead by him. A decision had to be made to either
let those people leave or he had to choose to leave.

~~~
bzbarsky
I did not see a single post from someone who would be led by Brendan saying
they did not want to be lead by him. In fact, the opposite.

Please do look up the difference between the Mozilla Corporation and the
Mozilla Foundation. He was picked as CEO of the _Corporation_ but the Mozilla
employees who called for his resignation were employees of the _Foundation_,
and hence wouldn't be led by him at all. The Corporation employees who spoke
out in public were saying things like
[https://twitter.com/Jason_Duell/status/449265719474008064](https://twitter.com/Jason_Duell/status/449265719474008064)
and
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZFsNqrZ...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZFsNqrZZqhcJ:www.twobraids.com/2014/03/the-
mozilla-ceo.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-nightly) (since
deleted, apparently) and [http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-
as-ceo-of...](http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of-
mozilla/)

It's hard to tell from the outside, of course, since everyone involved just
claimed to be working from "Mozilla", so it's easy to make the mistake you
made.

------
steven2012
This is sickening.

Denying gays the right to marriage is not a free speech issue, it's a human
rights issue. Replace gay marriage with interracial marriage and see if the
idea of "we failed you because we didn't support your right to believe that
interracial marriage is wrong" still stands up.

Trying to equate this to a free speech issue is just another way of
discriminating against gays. Eich actively supported the discrimination
against gays and there's no way that he has the moral right to lead a company
like Mozilla. I for one am glad that he was put through the wringer and hope
anyone else that believes in any form of discrimination and wants to lead a
company gets the same treatment or worse.

EDIT: someone rightfully pointed out I overstepped my description. I changed
"Eich discriminated against gays" to "Eich actively supported the
discrimination of gays"

~~~
Pacabel
I have to ask, do you realize how hypocritical some of your statements sound?

I'm talking about ones like, "I for one am glad that he was put through the
wringer and hope anyone else that believes in any form of discrimination and
wants to lead a company gets the same treatment or worse."

On one hand you decry discrimination, but then on the other you encourage
discrimination against people who you've deemed to have engaged in
discrimination. It's very contradictory, and suggests that you in turn should
then be subjected to some very negative treatment, "or worse".

~~~
steven2012
There is no hypocrisy. Being punished and being discriminated against are two
absolutely separate things.

~~~
Pacabel
Sure, I can see them being different things. But that doesn't meant that they
both can't be involved at the same time.

Maybe what Eich is facing is seen as "punishment" by some, but it is
indisputably discrimination, too. Losing one's job solely because of one's
beliefs is a form of discrimination, regardless of what those beliefs may be.

I don't see how you can seriously say that you're against discrimination and
those who discriminate, yet you'll resort to that exact same discriminatory
behavior while supposedly trying to stop discrimination!

------
rsynnott
If he'd been funding a campaign for a constitutional ban on interracial
marriage, he'd never even have been considered for the role in the first place
(and rightly so).

Certainly, he has the right to say, think and fund what he likes, but if
you're funding an effort to remove peoples' rights, you shouldn't be too
surprised if people are disinclined to let you have a job which places you in
authority over a company full of people.

------
edent
He just didn't have the right culture fit for Mozilla.

(Shamelessly stolen from elsewhere.)

Essentially, it's really hard to lead people who don't respect you.

We can all have a civil disagreement about whether vi or emacs is superior, or
if Political Party X is better than Y. But when you specifically attack the
fundamental rights of your employees and their friends / family, then refuse
to apologise for it, you're simply not going to be a credible leader.

Here's the other thing - in capitalism, you have to listen to your customers.
If the "Moral Majority" wants to boycott your shop/browser/TV show because
your CEO isn't sufficiently deferential to their god - they can go for it.

If the business wants to succeed, it has decide whether it will be more
profitable to capitulate or not.

In Mozilla's case, they have (belatedly) seen the way the world is turning.
Good for them.

~~~
DougBTX
> He just didn't have the right culture fit for Mozilla.

I find that hard to believe, his Wikipedia page says he started working for
Netscape in 1995, founded mozilla.org in 1998, and helped found the Mozilla
Foundation in 2003. If it was a culture fit problem, it took a long time for
them to find that out. Seems more like a lynching after he became too publicly
known.

~~~
edent
You appear to have your irony filters set too high...

The point I'm trying to make is that we see countless example of "Culture Fit"
being used as a poor excuse to get rid of an employee for having the temerity
to be female, gay, disabled, an ethnic minority - or anything other than the
narrowly defined "bro" culture which sadly seems to infect some high-tech
companies.

------
anon1385
For goodness sake, when are people going to understand that freedom of
expression doesn't (and shouldn't) mean freedom from criticism. This is not a
difficult concept people.

~~~
mschuster91
What happened with Eich was not criticism any more, rather a full blown witch
hunt, complete with forks and fire.

The internet has become too much of 4chan the last few years.

~~~
kolektiv
I haven't been paying overly close attention, but all of the reaction I have
seen has generally been blog/twitter based expressions of
sadness/disappointment/betrayal. Has it really escalated far beyond that?
(Genuine question).

~~~
mschuster91
OKCupid blocked all Firefox users with a warning message saying that their
users should not use a browser whose development CEO dislikes gay marriage.

Borders to extortion or unfair competition, in my eyes.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
They didn't block them; they showed them a message, invited them to use an
alternative browser, and allowed them to continue if they so wished.

~~~
maneesh
They also continued to use JavaScript on their site, regardless of browser.
Since Eich invented JavaScript, shouldn't they stop using it?

~~~
toyg
That's more of an accident of history, really. In his own words, Netscape told
him to come up with something, anything, quick, and lo JavaScript was born.
Had Netscape known that he was a closet homophobe, would they have hired him
in the first place?

It's also much easier being an homophobe engineer rather than a homophobe CEO,
because of the nature of the role. His technical achievements can be as
impressive as you want and have no relation to his homophobia; being CEO is a
role built on public relationships inside and outside the company,
relationships that would be severely influenced by his (perceived) homophobia.

------
intslack
I agree with Sullivan's take[1] posted yesterday. If this is the gay-rights
movement today, a bunch of extremist Social Justice Warriors, I want no part
of it.

Not only that, but Catlin's reaction to it[2] is also shameful: 'oops, we
thought he would evolve like President Obama did, our bad. but hey, we're
putting our apps back on the marketplace!'

[1] [http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-
br...](http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-brendan-
eich/)

[2] [http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/04/03/a-sad-
victory/](http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/04/03/a-sad-victory/)

~~~
intull
> _If this is the gay-rights movement today, a bunch of extremist Social
> Justice Warriors, I want no part of it._

Partially true. This episode has been disturbing, yes, but at the same time,
it has held strong by the community and the public. And it'll only get
stronger till there is equality. It is the frustration of people, friends and
family which makes episodes like these escalate. Only a strong movement can
bring an impact.

So are they a bunch of "extremists"? No. Are they moderators then? No, again.
Its somewhere in the middle.

------
SchizoDuckie
Very very intolerant and hypocritical of everybody that basically bullied him
away. There's finally a self made rock star in a position of power and somehow
people have played in such a way that he's the boogie man. Over a fricking
PERSONAL point of view.

I can make many many analogies to other businesses and some religious
institutions, but this would have happened _nowhere_ but Mozilla.

Stop using #mozilla for your anti-gay/pro-gay/liberal/conservative/libertarian
platforms. Read the manifesto:
[http://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/](http://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/)

------
PaulRobinson
When you find somebody holds an opinion you disagree with you have a choice of
either ignoring them, pushing them away or engaging them in discussion (which
requires a reciprocal action on their part).

It seems the latter option wasn't even considered, everybody just wanted rid.

That's:

a) Not very mature b) Worse, a missed opportunity to convince somebody of an
alternative view

Well done everybody, you've turned somebody you disagree with into an
entrenched and victimised somebody you disagree with who hates you. _clap clap
clap_

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
So The Guardian offered him an opportunity for dialogue [1], to have that
debate. He had a chance to explain why he held the views that he did. He
refused.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/mozilla-
ce...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/mozilla-ceo-brendan-
eich-refuses-to-quit)

~~~
rmc
Sshh! It's easier to ignore things like that and cast him as a victim of those
mean gays!

------
beaker52
CEOs, like any other employee, are representatives of the company they're
employed by.

Just as if I were to post racist comments on my [Generic Social Media], my
employer is going to need to do something to protect the company, because as
the article points out: people (clients, customers) are judgemental, critics
of gay marriage and critics of Brendan Eich included.

~~~
awwducks
I think the concern centers more around the perceived double standard on
seemingly arbitrary issues. For instance, if Eich was a strong supporter of
gay marriage, I have a hard time seeing him forced to step down.

I get that gay marriage is not an "arbitrary issue" for many people, but I
think the definition of what is arbitrary and what are violations of
fundamental civil rights can get tricky.

~~~
rsynnott
Look at it this way. If he'd been funding a campaign to make a constitutional
amendment to ban interracial marriage, do you think he'd have been able to
keep the job?

Like it or not, in the West, gay people are increasingly in the category of
people who most people assume should have equal rights.

~~~
awwducks
Of course not, but that's exactly the point. We should be able to have
unpopular opinions and still be accepted in a community that emphasizes being
a meritocracy, etc.

Whether being forced to resign as Mozilla's CEO counts as the community
rejecting him is an interesting argument.

~~~
zimpenfish
He was accepted - at the CTO level - with his unpopular opinions - even after
they became public in 2012 - for _years_.

But there's a big difference (to me, at least) between being the CTO and the
CEO. It's that step people are unhappy with.

------
danso
Jesus, this is the epitome of naive techie blabbering. Does OP really think
that the CEO position is based on "merit" alone? That football teams are all
coached by former Heisman Winners? That all generals have Medals of Honor?
It's not even worth debating Eich specifically with the OP; his view of the
world is astonishingly naive.

------
nnq
Will we ever stop conflating _opinions_ with _competency_ , in general? A
person can just as well be a full-blown racist or xenophobe and at the same
time a very competent leader. The only thing you show when pushing someone
down from a leadership position because of some of his opinions is that "that
was not a real leadership position, we just needed a puppet good for PR".

Human beings are not things you can take "as whole". A person can be total
asshole in one aspect and a great guy in another aspect. You need to see
people as "bags of ideas that happen to coexist in a mind and body" and the
concept of "individual" as mostly an illusion, and look for the bags with the
most good pieces, even if they can have some poisoned beans in them. And it's
the same thing for leaders. If you look for an "overall great human being with
no great flaws in any aspects" you can only get: (a) a mediocre person that is
not "too bad" in any way but also not exceptionally good in any way or (b) a
highly skilled liar and manipulator, most likely a very advanced psychopath,
that can perfectly hide all his flaws and appear "overall an awesome guy". Oh
wait, I've just described 99% of the world's leaders...

Another thing you get by going this way is that you end up with the people
really "calling the shots" staying in the shadows, leading through puppets
they manipulate and being completely unaccountable.

------
alohahacker
We're tolerant as long as we share the same views. The irony in tolerance in
this case is unreal.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
But what's the point of tolerance if you just blindly accept any view, no
matter how controversial or offensive, without challenging it? I see nothing
wrong with the position of "everyone is entitled to air any opinion
whatsoever, so long as anyone else is entitled to challenge them". No-one, as
far as I know, has attacked Eich, threatened him, etc. they've just expressed
concern about his views, which everyone is perfectly entitled to do.

~~~
agapos
"But what's the point of tolerance if you just blindly accept any view"

 _khm_ acceptance is acceptance, and tolerance is tolerance. You do not accept
it, you tolerate it. Not the same thing.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I agree entirely - concur and accept or disagree, tolerate, and challenge.

------
kijin
Some CEOs have donated to a political campaign of questionable merit on one
occasion in the past.

Some CEOs kill elephants for fun.

And there are many shades of gray in between.

I'm not sure exactly where the threshold for "This guy needs to get lost" is,
but I'm pretty sure the cutoff is somewhere _between_ the two cases I just
alluded to, rather than to one side of both.

Sure, Mr. Eich could try to fire gay employees (if that's legal, which I
doubt), but he could just as well help make Mozilla an even brighter beacon of
free speech than it already is, indirectly helping the LGBT community and
thereby atoning for whatever sins he might have once committed against it.
What matters is that the "community" (or some subset of it) didn't even give
him a chance to demonstrate, through actual decisions, which path he will
choose and how he will try to strike a balance between his personal beliefs
and the needs of the community. I guess we were too impatient -- or more
likely, too lazy -- to wait for some actually relevant evidence upon which to
base a solid opinion.

What's next? Boycott FOSS products whose authors are found to be religious?
DDoS attacks on companies that donated to Romney's campaign? By the way, is
anyone still using ReiserFS?

~~~
kefka
> Sure, he could try to fire gay employees (if that's legal, which I doubt)

It is legal in 29 states to fire someone for their sexual preference.*

*Source [http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2012/10/18/...](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2012/10/18/41907/infographic-gay-and-transgender-workers-lack-comprehensive-workplace-protections/)

~~~
kijin
AFAIK Mozilla is based in Mountain View, California, where (according to your
infographic) it is indeed illegal to fire someone for their sexual orientation
or gender identity.

Not sure if that also applies to remote workers who live in other states,
though.

~~~
kefka
Too true, that.

However, I live in the midwest (Indiana) where we do not have similar
protections over things as basic as sexual identity. It really is that
backwards here.

------
enekomh
This is bullshit. I am not discriminating him. I am punishing him with the
power I have (my freedom to not use the products of his company) to punish his
discriminating point of view. The same way he has the right to use his money
to help a discriminating law go ahead, I have the right not to use his
products and criticize his opinions.

------
breakall
The blog posts, comments, and tweets aren't really what provided the direct
pressure for him to resign.

Far more likely that corporate partners, donors, etc. called the remaining
board members or anyone else of any influence and told them that the money
would dry up if this problem didn't go away.

I find it interesting that the fact of his donation came up in 2012 when he
was CTO of Mozilla (the organization he co-founded). This didn't become an
issue in 2014 organically -- again I think it's far more likely that someone
had it out for Eich, and saw their best opportunity to revive a two year old
issue and get rid of him when he became CEO.

~~~
zimpenfish
Or it's just that people are ok with CTOs having unpopular dodgy opinions
(because the power and influence of that position is limited) but that becomes
a -much- bigger problem when they move to being the CEO (figurehead of the
company, etc.)

------
smallsharptools
I'm not sorry. He can disagree with other people and make decisions about his
own life, but once he gives money to a cause that is working to restrict the
basic rights and freedoms of others he's crossed the line.

I'm not sorry one bit.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
All CEOs that [don't|] support abortion should be fired then?

------
Methusalah
We do not need to be tolerant of intolerance.

~~~
Solarsail
To not be tolerant of intolerance is to be more intolerant than any religious
fundamentalist or extremist.

~~~
Methusalah
Oh right, I forgot how religious fundamentalists and extremists are
universally praised for their ability to accept contradictory views and
lifestyles! What a powerful argument!

~~~
Solarsail
I wasn't implying that they were tolerant. Only that intolerance of
intolerance, as it were, is one of the most extreme form on intolerance
around. Taken to its extreme, it is intolerant of a very large swath of human
thought. Religious fundies are mostly just intolerant of things contradicting
their own religion, not stuff that's irrelevant to it.

------
otikik
Please don't include me in that "we".

~~~
eik3_de
o/

------
wonderzombie
We failed him? How overwrought can you get?

He wasn't incarcerated, executed, sued, or tried for a crime. He lost his job.
As we're all fond of implying here, there's no right to employment, let alone
the right to be a CEO.

Don't hide behind "meritocracy" and "tolerance" to defend morally repugnant
ideals. You demean those words and yourself. You reveal your lack of
understanding of what an open and free society means when it comes to the more
vulnerable, less privileged members of same.

~~~
dragonwriter
> He lost his job.

He quit his job. It may be that he was forced to quit to avoid being fired,
but that's not at all clear.

------
meshko
Sigh. You are talking about the guy who created JavaSCript. Show no mercy.

------
fredgrott
In a way we did..

If we carry it to its logical conclusion that the Marriage License is free
from religion than by that concept a Muslim living in the US should be able to
Marry multiple wives and so should Mormons..

~~~
naterator
There are people fighting for those rights as well. And I don't think they're
insane (as you seem to imply). As long as it's clearly agreed upon between
consenting adults, it's not so ridiculous. Perhaps the logistics of that are
more complicated, but should they be denied that if they really want it?

------
danpalmer
We should not be tolerant of intolerance.

~~~
hajile
Building a moral framework atop a paradox seems like poor logic to build upon.

Here's a related point: All governments rely on the persecution of groups
(almost always minorities) for their continued power. Government would cease
to exist were it not persecuting people.

You're simply quibbling with Eich over who gets persecuted (and more basically
about who's morals are superior).

Keep in mind that his "intolerant action" was only intolerant if the state
dictating personal morality is good (I would note that things like murder are
uni-directional intra-personal actions and thus quite different).

I think a better answer is to abolish government-dictated marriage and allow
people free reign in their private lives as this satisfies both the gay
community and the anti-gay community while also solving the issues of less-
vocal groups (eg. polygamists). In fact the general principle of government
staying out of citizen's private lives solves a whole host of issues.

~~~
danpalmer
Maybe I didn't say this in the right way. What I'm really saying is that I
will 'tolerate' or accept any view point as being fine, and entirely a persons
right to hold, unless they are holding one that is actively intolerant to
others. I don't think part of being tolerant is to sit back while others are
abused by those who don't share our views.

It's his personal right to hold his belief, but once he put that into action
by making the donation, or if he had voiced his views publicly, that now means
we have a duty to hold him accountable, rather than sit back and let him do
what he wants. In this case, I think demanding Eich not lead Mozilla because
of his views is an appropriate way to hold him accountable.

------
unreal37
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Prop 8 pass? I mean, didn't the majority
of California voters vote in favor of Prop 8? It was only struck down after by
the courts.

Seems like there's a lot of people who should be forced to resign from their
jobs over this. Not just one.

------
lomegor
It's a sad day when homophobia is not a valid reason for so much people to
fire a representative of your company.

~~~
voicereasonish
A majority voted the same way as him. The president held the same views. But
you're singling him out as homophobic??

~~~
natch
This line of thinking is juvenile. He was being singled out as the CEO of
Mozilla.

------
kjjw
This article hits my two pet peeves.

Anyone who believes a person's rights should extend beyond the point at which
they infringe on the rights of others is not worth listening to.

Also, please don't use the term 'meritocracy'. Ever. Are you referring to the
idea of rubber stamping people for positions of power based on their parents
ability to pay for for the most expensive university courses and degrees? No,
I didn't think so.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _Anyone who believes a person 's rights should extend beyond the point at
> which they infringe on the rights of others is not worth listening to._ //

Lets suppose I believe the exact opposite. Doesn't your claim then extend
beyond you and infringe on my rights.

Or better yet let us suppose that a society has a right _en masse_ , for
example for taxes to be used to aid child-rearing. That could infringe on your
conception of personal rights too.

As to meritocracy - you appear to confuse the term with plutocracy. Now it's
true that those from privileged families may be better able to perform certain
tasks, but to refuse to allow them to perform those tasks simply because their
families are rich, isn't that rather ridiculous? Meritocracy is quite the
opposite, if you can perform the task to a sufficient degree is the only
measure; whether you have been to an expensive university or not is irrelevant
to the meritocrat.

~~~
kjjw
No I am not confusing the word at all. A meritocracy is a society built on the
idea that one must (quite literally) gain a 'merit' before being considered
for some role. This is open to obvious abuse - the ones that get into power
can decide how one can gain the merit. In the US, it has been decided that one
must pay for it.

I repeat: you have _completely_ misunderstood the definition of the word
'meritocracy'. The condition is not 'can you perform the task' but 'do you
have the requisite (and very literal) merit (passed an exam, for example.)

Don't worry though - a lot of people make this mistake.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Couple of dictionary definitions for you [the first 2 on dictionary.com]:

"mer·i·toc·ra·cy [mer-i-tok-ruh-see] Show IPA noun, plural mer·i·toc·ra·cies.
1\. an elite group of people whose progress is based on ability and talent
rather than on class privilege or wealth."

"meritocracy (ˌmɛrɪˈtɒkrəsɪ) — n , pl -cies 1\. rule by persons chosen not
because of birth or wealth, but for their superior talents or intellect"

You appear to be trolling me.

~~~
kjjw
I am not trolling you. The word has been misused so much that it has now been
incorrectly incorporated into dictionaries.

See this article written by the man who coined the common usage of the term,
bemoaning its now misuse:

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

"With an amazing battery of certificates and degrees at its disposal,
education has put its seal of approval on a minority, and its seal of
disapproval on the many who fail to shine from the time they are relegated to
the bottom streams at the age of seven or before."

So on.

------
dgivney
Basic humanity, that's what we do.

------
Jean-Philipe
I accidentally upvoted this post. Can I undo my vote?

