tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522311.post7419623575994746596..comments2024-03-12T03:23:42.976-04:00Comments on NeuroDojo: The downsides of meritocracyZen Faulkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811309183398223358noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522311.post-72554418901758543742012-03-19T06:35:19.416-04:002012-03-19T06:35:19.416-04:00You hit the nail on the head when you write: "...You hit the nail on the head when you write: "Academia is <b>supposed</b> to be a meritocracy." since what this hints at quite clearly that it is indeed not.<br /><br />And this simply comes down to lack of financing - private entities will only finance research with a guaranteed roi and public financing has been mercilessly cut for the last 30 years.<br /><br />As soon as funding is scarce, competition for that funding turns dirty and then it's about having the right connections, not pissing people off, overselling, risk-free research and yes, a bit of luck.<br /><br />This holds of course not only in academia - technically, most industrialized countries are supposed to be at least partial meritocracies but if the economic setup for the majority is such that they cannot even attempt to be judged on their merit, it breaks down.<br /><br />And this is finally, why a libertarian approach won't work. As stated in the beginning, private entities will not finance research without guaranteed roi, so the "competitive free-market system" will heavily bias the meaning of "merit" towards "will help to make money", thus devaluing (in the research setting) such developments as the smallpox vaccine, or the internet. Increase public funding to such a degree that research is NOT about desperate scrambling for money and the meritocratic aspects can come to the forefront.Albrechtnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522311.post-86482182988865229672012-03-15T16:10:45.797-04:002012-03-15T16:10:45.797-04:00Academia is fundamentally a hugely conservative en...Academia is fundamentally a hugely conservative enterprise (in a sense, this is by design. Who will teach the successes of prior generations knowledge acquisition more than the academy?). They aren't about to change how they select merit overnight.<br /><br />I think that, at least in fairly flush times, the meritocracy thing might motivate some people. If after a certain point, there's no point in working harder in the lab instead of smoozing at a conference, why would anyone do the extra experiments rather than create a buzz around what they've got?<br />If it's dumb luck, why not go home and play computer games rather than doing either?<br /><br /><br />At the same time, whether or not it is a useful illusion to believe hard work and intelligence pay off, believing that meritocracy is both RIGHT and ATTAINABLE is sometimes logically unsupportable. <br /><br />I think most people who advocate for meritocracy (including most libertarians I've met) always assume they themselves are meritorious, and also have not thought deeply about the implications of things like Moneyball. <br />Even when the stakes are HUGE, entire enterprises can be completely wrong about how to judge merit. <br />Saying "people have agendas" isn't a sensible summary of that problem- the primary agenda of a baseball team manager is to win games (and make money)- there's nothing shady there.<br /><br />The free market assumes people have access to good information to weigh their choices, and that people are rational. Leaving aside the enormous elephant in the room of the rationality issue (e.g. people not getting better at judging merit because they are afraid abandoning their old approach would make them look foolish, and thus not refining their skills), we often just don't have good information. I'm not sure anyone has identified the appropriate qualities for success in science, for instance.<br /><br />Judging merit isn't totally impossible, but it is infernally difficult.Beccahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15356974556397009124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522311.post-64340636305182981662010-06-17T09:42:24.703-04:002010-06-17T09:42:24.703-04:00The big problem with "meritocracy", IMO,...The big problem with "meritocracy", IMO, is that the people judging "merit" have their own agendas, often with real merit being fairly far down on the list. Nor does this process have to occur at the conscious level, I suspect everybody's had experience with people whose "honest" judgments were dominated by social or ideological factors obvious to everybody but them.<br /><br />Consider also the history of Lysenkoism in the old Soviet Union. (Personally I would add the Marxist influence in anthropology demonstrated by <i>e.g.</i> Margaret Mead.)<br /><br />As a libertarian, I'm more comfortable with a competitive free-market system where merit is at least partly determined by the "invisible hand", although I've seen "meritocracies" in large corporations fall prey to the same type of problem (and at least sometimes seen these companies run into major trouble in the marketplace as a result, IMO).<br /><br />Descriptions of Academia from both the inside and outside have always struck me as showing a dominance of social and political interference with the supposed "meritocracy". (Of course, as a libertarian that's what I expect to see, which may contribute to the impression.)<br /><br />Consider, for instance, from your own link, "<i>the negative consequences that come with wasting money, <b>annoying someone in power</b> or making a fool of yourself.</i>" (Bolding mine.) "[A]<i>nnoying someone in power</i>" is a matter of social or ideological politics, not merit or even luck.AKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10905636789614137068noreply@blogger.com