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.
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?
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.
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.
It's a very good, if long, article. The basic premise of the article is that if the society is meritocratic, it would eventually exhibit ever-increasing amount of inequality. It also discusses why this is a problem and a potential solution.
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...
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.
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.
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.
There seem to be big differences in correlation between identical twins and fraternal twins, which is a pretty strong indicator there's a genetic component.
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."
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.
> 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.)
> 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?
1) IQ "capacity" is genetic, and, as such, inherited. (Though its probably not a simple single trait, but a consequence of interactions of multiple traits.)
2) That actual IQ depends on both genetic capacity and a large number of environmental factors.
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"!
"(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.
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.
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.
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.
I think this is not a "small idea", I read it as the core idea behind everything in that post. I agree that coordination problems seem to be the Achilles heel of mankind.
> 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.
Check out the reference to SSC posts I linked downthread, and since you mentioned coordination problems, definitely check out Meditations on Moloch.
From a pragmatic standpoint, the article seems to assume that the lowest classes will all being getting pregnant via IVF in the future. Seems like a huge leap to make, those with the lowest IQs and most impulsivity are exactly the types who have the most unplanned pregnancies.
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.
> 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
> 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
It seems that even with that, there are many people in the second group who belong to the first group.
To me, humans are not actually that different in their inborn intelligence. The bell curve actually falls of quite quickly besides the mean. The most difference is specialized training.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
You miss the key: a huge amount of my value is generated by tools created by our ancestors -- who deserves credit for those tools? Me? Those dead people's children?
I actually didn't.. They are just there! I got them for free (as a part of my training) and they have immense value.
You argument hints at something called labor theory of value, which quickly leads to contradictions, once you include time and technological progress into your models (such as people should get more for labor even if they are doing less of it).
Honestly, I think if people are honest to themselves, they will see that there is plenty of stuff providing value for free (a simple example - tree that grows apples). Then asking to be paid just for your merit is obviously a losing proposition.
.. 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.
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..
There is no rule because the answer becomes a (semi-)stable equilibrium of a system of feedback loops. Much of the cases where "sufficiently free markets" are used as an (invalid) answer happen when someone assumes a-priori what the equilibirum will be without considering the actual feedback loops in the system.
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!).
> So how about we spend a few minutes trying to solve those problems rather than just throwing up our hands?
If I were to solve it, I would just give people democratic rights (pretty much everyone the same vote) to decide how economic resources are allocated. But lots (if not most) of people are against that idea.
Such solution has some obvious failure modes. For instance:
- People optimize locally, working for what they think is their best interest, even if on aggregate they lose. This is basic coordination problem; the very reason we form societies is because global optimization, often requiring to fogoe individual short-term gain, leads to better outcomes.
- The way people vote strongly depends on education they get; especially in our technological civilization, a lot of important issues (like energy) are beyond the understanding of majority of electorate. Democracy depends on educated populace.
- People are not independent actors wrt. to voting; in the age of free media, your votes will not reflect the "will of the many", but the will of most charismatic people on TV. Note that "the most charismatic" usually does not mean "the smartest".
I don't see the two statements being wrong, and definitely not mutually exclusive. With non-elected elite there's at least a chance that said elite has any actual qualifications instead of just being popular.
To be clear - I'm not that big on authoritarianism. I just don't see the value proposition of democracy being actually realized. Given the points I mentioned previously, we are still ruled by elite, except that it is constrained to choose their options only based on popularity, and unable to make hard decisions in areas that matter[0]. About the only thing democracy delivers as promised is bloodless government transition. Even the actual work in democractic country's administration is done by unelected officials.
At this point I've given up hoping that democratic governments will help solve climate change or energy problems. Private companies may be able to, but that's only because they're capable of behaving in inherently undemocratic ways, like releasing a new technology upon the world (nobody asked us to vote whether we want to have Facebook or not) or projecting the will of single individuals onto the society ("you will drive electric cars, whether you want it or not", said Musk, and proceed to burn as much money as it took to make electric cars compete with ICE ones[1]).
[0] - even if such decision wouldn't immediately piss of half of the electorate by itself, your political opponents will make sure it will render you practically unelectable
[1] - yes, there were electric cars before, but it took Tesla to basically force the market into accepting them as an option, and they did that on purpose
Please clone your Attorney and send the copy to my city. We need more honest, qualified and dedicated people. Alas, the whole system is tuned to actively eliminate such people and replace them with ones that can pander to the public. That's what I'm complaining about.
I understand completely. But many public officials are there because they believe strongly in something. At the local level at least, in Iowa at least, there is a lot of good-will and honest intent.
My sympathy to the system is probably inversely proportional to the scale at which it operates. I've also noticed that at local levels you tend to have greater amount of honest people who believe in something and are willing to push for the ideas based on merit. I think a big part of it is that they have a much bigger personal connection with the issues and the citizens. Such people have my utmost respect.
The first two objections, while they are real, are true for any agent and any decision system. Currently we live in era where people on Earth are most connected and most educated in human history. We could sure do better, but there are countries with democratic tradition that worked extremely well for much less educated and connected population.
The last objection I don't understand. The best way to know person preferences is just to ask them. If someone charismatic changes their preferences, so what? People change their preference based on other people all the time. As long as it is clearly their preference, we have to assume that it's in their interest.
The point of democracy is that people express their interest. There may be smarter people doing smarter decisions, but why should they make the decisions in the interest of someone else?
In any case, I think it's a good idea, often neglected, to structure society so that impact of any wrong decision at any level is minimized. Things like democratic decision-making, subsidiarity principle, reversibility of laws, non-discrimination, limited liability, social security, no capital punishment, time limited government contracts and free access to information all help.
RE first two points, true, though one could make an argument similar to the popular saying - "in any given situation there best thing is to make the right decision, the second best is to make a wrong one, and the worst thing is not to make any decision at all". In current democracies, the very important issues are so important, that they become turned into political games. No significant changes are being made because there's always a side that will fight tooth and nail to oppose it for purely political reasons. We can't get anywhere, because no single person (or group) has enough power (or incentive) to just make a call and go through with it.
As for the last objection - the typical voter's preference will be reflecting the political battles described above.
> People change their preference based on other people all the time. As long as it is clearly their preference, we have to assume that it's in their interest.
The problem is, it's not people changing their mind because they've heard someone reasonable saying something that makes sense. Politicians lie. Lie blatantly and lie on purpose. They hire the entire advertising machine, built out of professional liers and bullshiters, to convince people that their side of the debate is right by whatever means necessary. The average voter has to oppose people who are trained specialists in lying. I don't see how you could argue it's actually their preference.
But back to the primary reason. I could accept that start of affairs as fair, as long as we're dealing with things that don't matter much. But at this moment in time, we have several important problems - like supergerms, climate change and depletion of fossil fuels - that are going to destroy humanity in few decades, or at least pull us back into the medieval age. This shit matters. We need to make some hard choices and do some decisive actions soon if we want to have any kind of civilization surviving to the end of this century. And the democratic process is by design incapable of making those hard choices.
TL;DR: I don't want to "give power to the smarter" or a king or anything. I just want someone to actually do something about global warming and power issues before this stupid textbook-level coordination problem kills us all.
You're assuming representative democracy; there are other kinds of democratic systems. For example, the indecision could be easily resolved by referendum. Although I admit that general population tends to vote pretty conservatively in referendums.
> The average voter has to oppose people who are trained specialists in lying. I don't see how you could argue it's actually their preference.
People have to oppose these people in all areas of life. By having democracy, you actually distribute power more equally and using money to gain influence becomes more costly (its much cheaper to buy a senator than to influence people to vote certain way, and the latter poses much higher risk).
I don't think people are that stupid. I agree they can be temporarily confused by lack of information or fear, and that in representative democracy, there is a risk of the person lying. But that's a problem with that system, and there are many options how to prevent that. For example, in Switzerland, on some referendums, people can get a summary information with arguments for and against. And often the debate itself is very healthy.
It seems to me this argument is blaming the victim. In all other areas of life, we call out the liar. Whether or not you can tell it's a preference depends on the information you have. Say a girl decides to sleep with a ladies' man, and he breaks up with her afterwards. If she knew, maybe she wouldn't do it. But at the time, she expressed her preference.
> But at this moment in time, we have several important problems - like supergerms, climate change and depletion of fossil fuels
As far as I know (at least in U.S. and my country), based on various opinion polls and so on, general public is pretty positive towards solving these problems. It's the actual politicians who are reluctant to act.
> You're assuming representative democracy; there are other kinds of democratic systems.
True. I'm basing on I need to learn more about those other systems, I might revise some of my opinions, which are currently based on my experiences with the democracies I know - Poland where I live from direct experience, and few big Western countries from news and reading stuff.
> By having democracy, (...) using money to gain influence becomes more costly
That's a win only if the cost is too high to pay; as it seems to me now, the cost is higher but not limiting, so the result is that more of society's resources are redirected towards that. See: presidential campaigns, and how much money, energy, time and manpower is wasted on what amounts to a zero-sum game.
> I don't think people are that stupid. I agree they can be temporarily confused by lack of information or fear
Yeah, I don't want to imply people are idiots - but it seems to me that the state of lack of information (and sometimes fear) is a constant in our societies. From what I read about the history of democracy, its basic assumption is that of a population well-educated in the issues to be decided.
> and that in representative democracy, there is a risk of the person lying. But that's a problem with that system, and there are many options how to prevent that. For example, in Switzerland, on some referendums, people can get a summary information with arguments for and against. And often the debate itself is very healthy.
I wish to know more. I'd love if someone with direct experience of Swiss process could tell how good is it.
> In all other areas of life, we call out the liar.
That's actually my core problem with continued existence of advertising/marketing industry (I include political campaigning under the term 'marketing' here). In other areas of life we don't tolerate such nonsense. If your friend tried to pull on you the stuff that is standard practice in marketing, you'd punch him in the face. And yet we accept this from companies and politicians, and we even turned it into a respectable occupation choice.
> As far as I know (at least in U.S. and my country), based on various opinion polls and so on, general public is pretty positive towards solving these problems. It's the actual politicians who are reluctant to act.
The issue I see here, and why I blame the democratic process for that, is that people may be "pretty positive towards solving these problems" as long as it doesn't require any sacrifices from them. Start talking about CO₂ emissions tax and suddenly you'll be violently opposed by people. Point out we need a new nuclear power plant, and the NIMBYsts wake up. This feeds back into the democratic process and so (that's why I think) politicians stay away from solutions. At this point we really need someone to force some solutions on people, whether they like it or not, and I don't see how (representative) democracy can help with that.
> I need to learn more about those other systems, I might revise some of my opinions
I really recommend looking at Switzerland; U.S. on state level also has lot of direct democracy and similar tradition.
> the cost is higher but not limiting, so the result is that more of society's resources are redirected towards that
It's not a failure of democracy, it's absence of it. Some people have more power due to economic inequality.
> basic assumption is that of a population well-educated in the issues to be decided
This is not really an issue. Switzerland and places in U.S. (not to mention Iceland) have more than 100 year tradition in direct democracy, do you think back then the population was better educated? And the sky didn't fall, in fact these places are some of the most advanced in the world.
> And yet we accept this from companies and politicians, and we even turned it into a respectable occupation choice
I agree.
> people may be "pretty positive towards solving these problems" as long as it doesn't require any sacrifices from them
In practice, not always true. There have been some examples in direct democracies where people voted for e.g. higher taxes. As long as it is fair, people can actually accept it quite well. But it requires lot of trust in the society, which Eastern Europe countries, for instance, may not have. Good democracy actually produces this trust.
> At this point we really need someone to force some solutions on people
The problem is once you start forcing solutions onto people, you have opened a really bad can of worms. Lot of dictators had good intentions in the beginning, but somehow their "forcing of solutions" got a little out of hands.
"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:
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).
"Bevin left school at 11 to take a job as a farm boy, and was subsequently a kitchen boy, a grocer's errand boy, a van boy, a tram conductor and a drayman before, at the age of 29, he became active locally in Bristol in the Dock Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' union."
And was Foreign Minister in the Atlee government, ardent ant-Soviet, arguably one of the founders of the Atlantic alliance and many other achievements. That route is pretty much closed these days.
My own personal favourite is William Robertson - who was Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1916-1918. He went from a private soldier to that lofty position. Richard Holmes points out that an equivalent rise would be impossible today - even with much smaller forces to command.
These people were successful because they were good - not on "merit" as is usually defined.
Has the intent shifted? The 2001 article specifically called out the Blair government for , well, Blair tbought it was good intent, but that is the problem: Young argued that it was being used to negatively impact society.
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.
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?
At least climatologists actually observe the climate. If the sociologists observed the massive failure of communism in the 20th century they wouldn't be leaning left, that's for sure.
Let's see, so you're equating left-leaning social views with 20th-century communism, and assuming people dedicating their lives to the rigorous study of society don't do their job. Indeed, that is the kind of reasoning that directs both the author of the article as well as others who want to convince themselves they can find solutions to society's problems (or deny their existence) while being completely unwilling to actually study society first. Denialism at its finest. If the "reason folks" were as averse to math as they are to human beings we would have been reading similar unending tirades about why quantum mechanics is just illogical. It is the particular genre written by people who honestly believe their narrow view of the world combined with their self-ascribed intelligence is enough to reason about something they are not only completely ignorant about but actually lack any curiosity of. They will fight for their right to "reason" yet not learn (usually by ridiculing those who do bother to learn the subject first)!
Also, I find it a bit ironic that you call for taking lessons from 20th-century mass-movements considering that the article echoes others similar to it -- written by scientists -- around the same time of the Bolshevik revolution, and served to justify other movements with no better record than that of communism.
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".
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.
That's a very good point. I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but if you had any self-awareness you'd stop and ponder it. Who do you think ends up doing 'climate science'? Why?
Oh, I ponder it a lot, which is why after getting a 'math' degree I went to study 'history'. There are many reasons why certain people choose to study certain things, and surely 'climate science' draws people whose proclivities are, on average, different from those who choose to study 'physics', 'math', 'medicine', 'history' etc[1]. Nevertheless, taking that into too much considerations would leave us in a conundrum. If evaluating any research would require us to examine the psychology of the researchers, first, we would need lots of psychologists, and what about the psychology of those who study 'psychology'? We're getting close to a Russel's paradox here. In any event, I would sooner listen to those who first bother to study something and only then analyze it.
[1] I'm not a native English speaker -- I don't know if you are -- but you're the first I've seen to write the names of academic disciplines in single-quotes. Is that a thing?
I'd hardly say the meaning has changed - It's the tone. Meritocracy was coined with a scathing tone, but found life among true believers. Politically Correct has swung both ways - It was first used scathingly, entered the american lexicon in the 90s and gained believers, and now is typically used to denigrate those believers.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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...
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.
> It also dismisses the existence of mismatched IQ couples
Yep, IQ has a higher statistical variance in men than in women, basically guaranteeing that there will be couples with IQ mismatches, going both directions.
The Left hates TBC. The Right loves it.
The Left (who invented the word) believe "meritocracy" is sheep's clothing covering the wolf of privilege. The Right believes they have better genes.
There is no common ground, both sides think the others are unsound.
Well it was written as a specific well-funded piece of political propaganda for the right, so it's not surprising that they like it.
People could be misled into thinking that the left and right are having a disagreement about some neutral science findings the way you phrased it, like e.g. "The right-wing hates climate science" (and where they also heavily fund "scientists" that are prepared to write books full of nonsense that suits their goals that "the left" "hate").
edit: and as, luck would have it, as someone else just pointed out, the most recent article on this site is about climate denial:
"This raises the matter of what we now routinely refer to as “climate change” – catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW), to use one of the climateers’ favoured and emotionally laden descriptors.
Tony Abbott, speaking frankly, once conceded that “climate change is crap”
It struck me recently that the crank-like approach to climate change may have helped some big businesses in the short term, but may well cause blowback for their goals as reality sets in.
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.
Anything above or below IQ = 100 is unfair by the very definition of IQ. But I understand the sentiment, I'd also feel cheated by the universe if I were born with below-average IQ.
The debate over fairness/unfairness seems to me like another example of the typical trap humans fall into - instead of bickering over who gets more of the pie, we should be focusing on increasing the size of that pie. If all the effort put in the discussions about meritocracy would be put towards intelligence augmentation, we'd have a world better for everyone, regardless of what gene he or she got.
"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.
I was merely using an example that seemed relevant to this community. The point is someone has decided to use his time to the benefit of others. It seems to me that the fair reward in this case should be proportional to the benefit produced as perceived by the person/people benefiting and not depend in any way on what it took the "provider" to produce.
If you argue that fairness is subjective and utility is king you've already rejected the entire argument about genetic advantage. I would point out though that to define utility you'd still need a definition of what's "good" and with it, very likely, what's "fair" and we are back to square one.
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
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.
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]
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] threadEdit: 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.
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.
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/meritocracy_is_a_massive_lie...
Arguments from etymology aren't productive.
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.
There seem to be big differences in correlation between identical twins and fraternal twins, which is a pretty strong indicator there's a genetic component.
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."
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.
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.)
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?
1) IQ "capacity" is genetic, and, as such, inherited. (Though its probably not a simple single trait, but a consequence of interactions of multiple traits.)
2) That actual IQ depends on both genetic capacity and a large number of environmental factors.
"(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.
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.
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...
[1] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
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.
Also, listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et-E4WWcbeE.
You'll never be reading that post in the same internal voice again. :).
Check out the reference to SSC posts I linked downthread, and since you mentioned coordination problems, definitely check out Meditations on Moloch.
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.
> 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
It seems that even with that, there are many people in the second group who belong to the first group.
To me, humans are not actually that different in their inborn intelligence. The bell curve actually falls of quite quickly besides the mean. The most difference is specialized training.
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.
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.
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?
You argument hints at something called labor theory of value, which quickly leads to contradictions, once you include time and technological progress into your models (such as people should get more for labor even if they are doing less of it).
Honestly, I think if people are honest to themselves, they will see that there is plenty of stuff providing value for free (a simple example - tree that grows apples). Then asking to be paid just for your merit is obviously a losing proposition.
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..
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!).
If I were to solve it, I would just give people democratic rights (pretty much everyone the same vote) to decide how economic resources are allocated. But lots (if not most) of people are against that idea.
- People optimize locally, working for what they think is their best interest, even if on aggregate they lose. This is basic coordination problem; the very reason we form societies is because global optimization, often requiring to fogoe individual short-term gain, leads to better outcomes.
- The way people vote strongly depends on education they get; especially in our technological civilization, a lot of important issues (like energy) are beyond the understanding of majority of electorate. Democracy depends on educated populace.
- People are not independent actors wrt. to voting; in the age of free media, your votes will not reflect the "will of the many", but the will of most charismatic people on TV. Note that "the most charismatic" usually does not mean "the smartest".
And the `elite' optimizes locally as well, directly at the expense of the weakest.
To be clear - I'm not that big on authoritarianism. I just don't see the value proposition of democracy being actually realized. Given the points I mentioned previously, we are still ruled by elite, except that it is constrained to choose their options only based on popularity, and unable to make hard decisions in areas that matter[0]. About the only thing democracy delivers as promised is bloodless government transition. Even the actual work in democractic country's administration is done by unelected officials.
At this point I've given up hoping that democratic governments will help solve climate change or energy problems. Private companies may be able to, but that's only because they're capable of behaving in inherently undemocratic ways, like releasing a new technology upon the world (nobody asked us to vote whether we want to have Facebook or not) or projecting the will of single individuals onto the society ("you will drive electric cars, whether you want it or not", said Musk, and proceed to burn as much money as it took to make electric cars compete with ICE ones[1]).
[0] - even if such decision wouldn't immediately piss of half of the electorate by itself, your political opponents will make sure it will render you practically unelectable
[1] - yes, there were electric cars before, but it took Tesla to basically force the market into accepting them as an option, and they did that on purpose
The last objection I don't understand. The best way to know person preferences is just to ask them. If someone charismatic changes their preferences, so what? People change their preference based on other people all the time. As long as it is clearly their preference, we have to assume that it's in their interest.
The point of democracy is that people express their interest. There may be smarter people doing smarter decisions, but why should they make the decisions in the interest of someone else?
In any case, I think it's a good idea, often neglected, to structure society so that impact of any wrong decision at any level is minimized. Things like democratic decision-making, subsidiarity principle, reversibility of laws, non-discrimination, limited liability, social security, no capital punishment, time limited government contracts and free access to information all help.
As for the last objection - the typical voter's preference will be reflecting the political battles described above.
> People change their preference based on other people all the time. As long as it is clearly their preference, we have to assume that it's in their interest.
The problem is, it's not people changing their mind because they've heard someone reasonable saying something that makes sense. Politicians lie. Lie blatantly and lie on purpose. They hire the entire advertising machine, built out of professional liers and bullshiters, to convince people that their side of the debate is right by whatever means necessary. The average voter has to oppose people who are trained specialists in lying. I don't see how you could argue it's actually their preference.
But back to the primary reason. I could accept that start of affairs as fair, as long as we're dealing with things that don't matter much. But at this moment in time, we have several important problems - like supergerms, climate change and depletion of fossil fuels - that are going to destroy humanity in few decades, or at least pull us back into the medieval age. This shit matters. We need to make some hard choices and do some decisive actions soon if we want to have any kind of civilization surviving to the end of this century. And the democratic process is by design incapable of making those hard choices.
TL;DR: I don't want to "give power to the smarter" or a king or anything. I just want someone to actually do something about global warming and power issues before this stupid textbook-level coordination problem kills us all.
> The average voter has to oppose people who are trained specialists in lying. I don't see how you could argue it's actually their preference.
People have to oppose these people in all areas of life. By having democracy, you actually distribute power more equally and using money to gain influence becomes more costly (its much cheaper to buy a senator than to influence people to vote certain way, and the latter poses much higher risk).
I don't think people are that stupid. I agree they can be temporarily confused by lack of information or fear, and that in representative democracy, there is a risk of the person lying. But that's a problem with that system, and there are many options how to prevent that. For example, in Switzerland, on some referendums, people can get a summary information with arguments for and against. And often the debate itself is very healthy.
It seems to me this argument is blaming the victim. In all other areas of life, we call out the liar. Whether or not you can tell it's a preference depends on the information you have. Say a girl decides to sleep with a ladies' man, and he breaks up with her afterwards. If she knew, maybe she wouldn't do it. But at the time, she expressed her preference.
> But at this moment in time, we have several important problems - like supergerms, climate change and depletion of fossil fuels
As far as I know (at least in U.S. and my country), based on various opinion polls and so on, general public is pretty positive towards solving these problems. It's the actual politicians who are reluctant to act.
True. I'm basing on I need to learn more about those other systems, I might revise some of my opinions, which are currently based on my experiences with the democracies I know - Poland where I live from direct experience, and few big Western countries from news and reading stuff.
> By having democracy, (...) using money to gain influence becomes more costly
That's a win only if the cost is too high to pay; as it seems to me now, the cost is higher but not limiting, so the result is that more of society's resources are redirected towards that. See: presidential campaigns, and how much money, energy, time and manpower is wasted on what amounts to a zero-sum game.
> I don't think people are that stupid. I agree they can be temporarily confused by lack of information or fear
Yeah, I don't want to imply people are idiots - but it seems to me that the state of lack of information (and sometimes fear) is a constant in our societies. From what I read about the history of democracy, its basic assumption is that of a population well-educated in the issues to be decided.
> and that in representative democracy, there is a risk of the person lying. But that's a problem with that system, and there are many options how to prevent that. For example, in Switzerland, on some referendums, people can get a summary information with arguments for and against. And often the debate itself is very healthy.
I wish to know more. I'd love if someone with direct experience of Swiss process could tell how good is it.
> In all other areas of life, we call out the liar.
That's actually my core problem with continued existence of advertising/marketing industry (I include political campaigning under the term 'marketing' here). In other areas of life we don't tolerate such nonsense. If your friend tried to pull on you the stuff that is standard practice in marketing, you'd punch him in the face. And yet we accept this from companies and politicians, and we even turned it into a respectable occupation choice.
> As far as I know (at least in U.S. and my country), based on various opinion polls and so on, general public is pretty positive towards solving these problems. It's the actual politicians who are reluctant to act.
The issue I see here, and why I blame the democratic process for that, is that people may be "pretty positive towards solving these problems" as long as it doesn't require any sacrifices from them. Start talking about CO₂ emissions tax and suddenly you'll be violently opposed by people. Point out we need a new nuclear power plant, and the NIMBYsts wake up. This feeds back into the democratic process and so (that's why I think) politicians stay away from solutions. At this point we really need someone to force some solutions on people, whether they like it or not, and I don't see how (representative) democracy can help with that.
I really recommend looking at Switzerland; U.S. on state level also has lot of direct democracy and similar tradition.
> the cost is higher but not limiting, so the result is that more of society's resources are redirected towards that
It's not a failure of democracy, it's absence of it. Some people have more power due to economic inequality.
> basic assumption is that of a population well-educated in the issues to be decided
This is not really an issue. Switzerland and places in U.S. (not to mention Iceland) have more than 100 year tradition in direct democracy, do you think back then the population was better educated? And the sky didn't fall, in fact these places are some of the most advanced in the world.
> And yet we accept this from companies and politicians, and we even turned it into a respectable occupation choice
I agree.
> people may be "pretty positive towards solving these problems" as long as it doesn't require any sacrifices from them
In practice, not always true. There have been some examples in direct democracies where people voted for e.g. higher taxes. As long as it is fair, people can actually accept it quite well. But it requires lot of trust in the society, which Eastern Europe countries, for instance, may not have. Good democracy actually produces this trust.
> At this point we really need someone to force some solutions on people
The problem is once you start forcing solutions onto people, you have opened a really bad can of worms. Lot of dictators had good intentions in the beginning, but somehow their "forcing of solutions" got a little out of hands.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
"Bevin left school at 11 to take a job as a farm boy, and was subsequently a kitchen boy, a grocer's errand boy, a van boy, a tram conductor and a drayman before, at the age of 29, he became active locally in Bristol in the Dock Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' union."
And was Foreign Minister in the Atlee government, ardent ant-Soviet, arguably one of the founders of the Atlantic alliance and many other achievements. That route is pretty much closed these days.
My own personal favourite is William Robertson - who was Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1916-1918. He went from a private soldier to that lofty position. Richard Holmes points out that an equivalent rise would be impossible today - even with much smaller forces to command.
These people were successful because they were good - not on "merit" as is usually defined.
See, e.g., http://www.criticalreview.com/2004/pdfs/cardiff_klein.pdf.
Also, I find it a bit ironic that you call for taking lessons from 20th-century mass-movements considering that the article echoes others similar to it -- written by scientists -- around the same time of the Bolshevik revolution, and served to justify other movements with no better record than that of communism.
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".
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.
[1] I'm not a native English speaker -- I don't know if you are -- but you're the first I've seen to write the names of academic disciplines in single-quotes. Is that a thing?
So, yeah, I'm thinking troll. That or "articulate nutcase." But probably troll.
That does seem to suggest that the basic premise is flawed.
It really makes me wonder about the author IQ.
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...
Yep, IQ has a higher statistical variance in men than in women, basically guaranteeing that there will be couples with IQ mismatches, going both directions.
Anyone care to comment on that? I thought that taking "The Bell Curve" seriously was a big red flag?
People could be misled into thinking that the left and right are having a disagreement about some neutral science findings the way you phrased it, like e.g. "The right-wing hates climate science" (and where they also heavily fund "scientists" that are prepared to write books full of nonsense that suits their goals that "the left" "hate").
edit: and as, luck would have it, as someone else just pointed out, the most recent article on this site is about climate denial:
"This raises the matter of what we now routinely refer to as “climate change” – catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW), to use one of the climateers’ favoured and emotionally laden descriptors.
Tony Abbott, speaking frankly, once conceded that “climate change is crap”
It struck me recently that the crank-like approach to climate change may have helped some big businesses in the short term, but may well cause blowback for their goals as reality sets in.
To whom? Certainly not to most scientists..
Follow links from there and the idea that "most scientists" agree with that book looks like a big stretch.
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.
Are you saying you don't see the advantage inherent to having a much higher IQ?
Personally, it would seem a bit unfair to me if I was born with a 95 IQ, in the cosmic sense at least.
The debate over fairness/unfairness seems to me like another example of the typical trap humans fall into - instead of bickering over who gets more of the pie, we should be focusing on increasing the size of that pie. If all the effort put in the discussions about meritocracy would be put towards intelligence augmentation, we'd have a world better for everyone, regardless of what gene he or she got.
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.
If you argue that fairness is subjective and utility is king you've already rejected the entire argument about genetic advantage. I would point out though that to define utility you'd still need a definition of what's "good" and with it, very likely, what's "fair" and we are back to square one.
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
it's kinda hard to compare between these two kinds of society, people deal with very different things everyday
[0] http://www.researchgate.net/publication/31914331_J._Henrich_...
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 ... !