
Five Lies Our Culture Tells – The cultural roots of our political problems - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/opinion/cultural-revolution-meritocracy.html
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arvinsim
I used to believe in meritocracy. I used to think it was an objective and fair
way to structure society.

As the article expounded, it just ends with people who has less to contribute
being marginalized.

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closeparen
What should the selection process be for the doctor who treats your life-
threatening illness? For the pilot who holds your life in his hands?

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thisrod
"At the time of the accident, van Zanten was KLM's chief flight instructor,
with 11,700 flight hours, of which 1,545 hours were on the 747." \- Wikipedia.
Meritocratic thinking was a major cause of the worst air accident ever.

With doctors, I think it's well established that the academic hurdle is
pointlessly high. I.e, instead of picking the top 10 applicants to med school,
you could shortlist 50, pick 10 at random, and the doctors who graduated would
be indistinguishable. I couldn't cite any of the evidence for that.

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closeparen
>Meritocratic thinking was a major cause of the worst air accident ever.

What's the theory here? A random person off the street would be less likely
than an experienced pilot to make such a mistake?

>I.e, instead of picking the top 10 applicants to med school, you could
shortlist 50, pick 10 at random, and the doctors who graduated would be
indistinguishable.

Sure, test scores are an imperfect proxy for competence, especially at the
extreme ends. You're still allocating the slots to people you deem competent.

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devoply
Much of society is built on lies and delusions. Stories. Human beings are
incapable of unraveling truth or reality from the stories they tell each other
and themselves.

That is in fact metaphysics. And claiming that you don't believe in
metaphysics and instead in science or whatever other ideology is itself
metaphysics. Fundamental nature of reality for people are stories. And power
tends to twist these stories to meet their own needs. The needs of capital and
power in world is such that it needs us to believe these things. That only
merit is to be rewarded, because that's how you make more money by merit
seeking individuals looking to prove themselves. That wealth is to be admired,
if you don't admire them then what are they playing this game for? That your
isolation caused by their games and their metaphysics is your fault and you
can fix it yourself without any of your own shared stories with other people.

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kantos2
>Career success is fulfilling. This is the lie we foist on the young >I
remember when the editor of my first book called to tell me it had made the
best-seller list. It felt like … nothing.

Man is projecting.

This article is crap

>Life is an individual journey. This is the lie books like Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the
Places You’ll Go” tell. In adulthood, each person goes on a personal trip and
racks up a bunch of experiences, and whoever has the most experiences wins.

He made up some idiotic statemet, that no one brings up, and act like it was
problem in society.

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eli_gottlieb
Oh, another David Brooks article desperately trying to insist the root of our
political problems is cultural preferences among upper-middle class people.

