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Re:The trouble with FreeBSD by minikites on Friday February 03, 2017 @10:16AM (#13560286)
It sure would be nice to live in a meritocracy but we're not even close: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

> The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries. Federal contractors and employers who list Equal Opportunity Employer' in their ad discriminate as much as other employers. We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring something other than race, such as social class, from the names. These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a prominent feature of the labor market.

Re:The trouble with FreeBSD by problems on Friday February 03, 2017 @10:20AM (#13560323)
Sorry, I'm not saying everywhere in society _is_ a meritocracy, simply that it should try to function like one. Meritocracy should be a respectable goal, not one to be shunned. The labor market would be a better place if it were a meritocracy - can we agree on that?

And isn't the only way to live in that goal of meritocracy to actually try to?

Re:The trouble with FreeBSD by empthought on Friday February 03, 2017 @10:27AM (#13560395)
Setting aside the pressing question of measurement and bias, it's not at all clear to me that it is just to apportion power according to ability and talent.

Consider Rawl's original position argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position -- sure, if you perceive yourself to be (or actually are) of high merit, a meritocracy sounds great. But defining a just society requires one to consider the possibility that one could be in the position of being incapable of meeting the demands that a meritocracy requires of its participants in order to flourish.