Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Down with Meritocracy (2001) (theguardian.com)
8 points by js2 12 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments





I went in to hate-read, but ended up mostly agreeing.

Mainly, I agree that the issue isn't ability being valued, but which abilities we choose to value. In a completely free market, abilities that get you the highest salary are what we will value, and those are in turn determined by competition with other nations. Unsurprisingly (perhaps to us), this turns out to me maths.

Now children who may be otherwise gifted are lumped in with troublemakers. Very much like being sent to prison for weed, and coming out with an BSc in burglary.


Selecting abilities to value is quite complicated to do well. Even in a software engineering role, one person may be great at documentation, while a few can teach others, and someone else might excel at debugging. But it would be impractical and a nightmare to test someone on all of those in addition to coding, even if high scores in all areas aren't expected. Perhaps it would be better to focus on experiences and impressions of a person and their skills across a group, so that we see how someone interacts with a realistic environment of a job. The collective of the old teams's lived experiences around a person should approximate that person's characteristics, and the new team would provide input on how those characteristics vibe with them. Listing out specific abilities is easier to track and measure, but constrained.

I understand, but it's a pressing matter with regards to children. Their whole lives are over before they've started.

Maybe if a child shows great aptitude in some areas, and very poor aptitude in some others (which are currently highly valued), it shouldn't wreck their future.


Seems like we should repurpose internships to be less competitive and more of a way to onboard everyone into the job market broadly.



Consider applying for YC's W25 batch! Applications are open till Nov 12.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: