Following Glen's lead to move the discussion of meritocracy here: Nick... I think your understanding of a meritocracy is limited. To rephrase your assertions:
Meritocracies favor the children of the meritorious, if those parents do something to instil their meritorious nature into their children. My guess is that the variance explained by this at mid-adulthood is under .3. Regression towards the mean is a strong effect, and having gone to a better elementary school can only help you so much at age 40. Meritocracies favor those who disregard their families, unless individuals also have to compete with meritorious couples and larger social units that work collaboratively together to achieve even greater ends. Sure, we often socially assign the "merit" to an individual member of such groups, but that is a different problem all together. Meritocracies favor those who disregard their communities, unless regard for community is taken into account as one of the metrics of merit. For example, in a healthy company (mythic entities, it would sometimes seem) "managers" are people skilled at nurturing communities of a particular size and scale. They also tend to be "good community members" by other metrics, supporting Rotary, charity functions, etc., because, at the least, being a good community member creates good business connections. Finally: Does meritocracy favor those in the group that gets to decide merit? Yeah, probably most of the time, unless some metric of otherness is given merit - for example, if we think decisions are made better in teams consisting of people who are not all from the group that holds power. Also, valuing diversity is not contrary to being libertarian: http://fixingpsychology.blogspot.com/2014/03/libertarianism-and-american-philosophy.html Eric P.S. I know this is a bit delayed. It is my first post in a year or two, and it took a while to figure out how to get around the changes in email address. Thanks Stephen for getting me back on the list with an address from which I can send! ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Lab Manager Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning American University, Hurst Hall Room 203A 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20016 phone: (202) 885-3867 fax: (202) 885-1190 email: echar...@american.edu On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 4:23 PM, Eric Charles < eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> wrote: > Following Glen's lead to move the discussion of meritocracy here: > > Nick... I think your understanding of a meritocracy is limited. To > rephrase your assertions: > > Meritocracies favor the children of the meritorious, if those parents do > something to instil their meritorious nature into their children. My guess > is that the variance explained by this at mid-adulthood is under .3. > Regression towards the mean is a strong effect, and having gone to a better > elementary school can only help you so much at age 40. > > Meritocracies favor those who disregard their families, unless individuals > also have to compete with meritorious couples and larger social units that > work collaboratively together to achieve even greater ends. Sure, we often > socially assign the "merit" to an individual member of such groups, but > that is a different problem all together. > > Meritocracies favor those who disregard their communities, unless regard > for community is taken into account as one of the metrics of merit. For > example, in a healthy company (mythic entities, it would sometimes seem) > "managers" are people skilled at nurturing communities of a particular size > and scale. They also tend to be "good community members" by other metrics, > supporting Rotary, charity functions, etc., because, at the least, being a > good community member creates good business connections. > > Finally: Does meritocracy favor those in the group that gets to decide > merit? Yeah, probably most of the time, unless some metric of otherness is > given merit - for example, if we think decisions are made better in teams > consisting of people who are not all from the group that holds power. > > Also, valuing diversity is not contrary to being libertarian: > http://fixingpsychology.blogspot.com/2014/03/libertarianism-and-american-philosophy.html > > Eric > > P.S. I think this is my first post in a year or two. Hi everyone! And > thanks Stephen for getting the change in my email address fixed. > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Lab Manager > Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning > American University, Hurst Hall Room 203A > 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. > Washington, DC 20016 > phone: (202) 885-3867 fax: (202) 885-1190 > email: echar...@american.edu > > > On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 5:52 PM, glen <g...@ropella.name> wrote: > >> >> Just to be a little more clear and to avoid the presumption that we're >> not making some progress already, I have something like this in mind: >> >> Human Resources Management Ontology >> http://mayor2.dia.fi.upm.es/oeg-upm/index.php/en/ >> ontologies/99-hrmontology >> >> But my suspicion is that such an ontology will still be lacking in a >> large number of the variables we consider when thinking about an >> individual's health, well-being, happiness, usefulness, and value/merit ... >> most notably it's missing all the ecological, biological, and medical >> ontologies. (Don't _you_ think about ticks and the epidemiology of lyme >> disease when you consider a new job offer?) >> >> And, of course, even though the ontolog[y|ies] might be huge, it's still >> just a start. We'd need to use such a scheme to build and falsify models >> of how any given individual or company (vector) might wander in the spanned >> space. Are there unreachable pockets? Unconnnected pockets? Etc. >> >> -- >> ⇒⇐ glen >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > >
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