Comment by shoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shoo | Hacker News Reader

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One of the preceding sentences phrases it well:

> But although it was once the engine of American social mobility, meritocracy today blocks equality of opportunity.

This reminds me somewhat of the phrase "kicking away the ladder" that Chomsky mentions, in a different context:

> Well, that’s what the intellectual property rights are for. In fact there’s a name for it in economic history. Friedrich List, famous German political economist in the 19th century, who was actually borrowing from Andrew Hamilton, called it “kicking away the ladder”. First you use state power and violence to develop, then you kick away those procedures so that other people can’t do it. [1]

Here is my poorly paraphrased version of the idea:

  1. use whatever means are available to obtain
     a position of advantage (the ladder).
  2. now, let us change the rules so from this
     moment forth we shall compete upon our equal
     merits, without resorting to such ugly means
     as "ladders" to obtain advantage.
  3. note however, that i still remain in a
     position of absolute advantage, due to my
     previous use of the ladder, which you now
     cannot access.
  4. ho ho ho, "meritocracy" / "free trade" / etc.

[1] http://www.wsm.ie/c/noam-chomsky-intellectual-property-kicki...

It's fine to include meritocracy in #4, but why free trade? I know that free trade is often a fiscally conservative issue, but it simply helps all of us by removing barriers to trade. The wealth of the world increases from it.

///edit: And actually, I want to continue and make a claim.

Barriers to free trade _are_ an act of Kicking Out the Ladder. If we look at import taxes, they're just national protectionism. Which is possibly understandable if we're protecting a vital-to-war industry. But the U.S. has sugar import tariffs and makes our sugar ~40% more expensive than the rest of the world. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/06/us-trade-po... (I know heritage is a conservative thinktank, just using it for the graph.) Our sugar tariffs just protects a small handful of cane sugar farmers/refiners in the US, at the cost to everyone, and with lost business to poor countries in the caribbean, who could probably use some more sugar sales. We're helping people with this tariff, but they're well-off americans we're helping. We could be help caribbean economies!!

And if we actually did want to protect vital resources, then why don't we ban hard-drive imports? You saw how Thailand's flooding knocked over hard drive production. What if a hostile government took over Thailand's hard drive production?

And furthermore, most of the government's foray's into regulating the economy are, or eventually become, acts of Kicking out the Ladder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture By even giving this kind of power to the government, you're asking for it to be abused.

Let's face it. What's most important in life/business is social access and maintaining trust/confidence/respect to stay in those relevant circles in order to keep it. IOW, staying in the members' clubs, secret societies, party circuits, etc.

Example: Could Luci have met Larry anywhere other than a Stanford party? Probably not.

sounds a bit like game theory...

that is also what I have independently observed, though not phrased as eloquently.

.

(slightly off topic)

I have to say I'm very thankful to have found HN. I grew up in a decent, moderately sized city (300k) going to a private religious school with children whose parents were similarly strongly interested in the intellectual development of their children.

I had access to all the sports teams. I played soccer through Varsity, played with the golf team [but note I was not on the golf team...lol], and basketball in middle school. I played piano for 8 years. I attended one of the top 5 schools of my field in the nation, and graduated into a small company with other graduates from my school, MIT, etc. From 'good places'.

Because of this, education was always something I always took for granted. I always valued it, but always took it for granted. Some of my education, however, took humans for granted. Your value to society was sometimes considered limited by what you could produce. Additionally, many of those I highschooled and undergraduated with (mainly other purported Christians who I have since determined were not living congruently with stated beliefs) held little reservation filtering people out of their life based on, I'll call it,

'being dumb'.

This always bothered me. As fruit of my religion [mainly 'made in God's image', combined with looking at the life Jesus lived] I believed in the intrinsic value of the human, so I always sought to correct for it: because I always tried my hardest, it never occurred to me how people could willfully and knowingly not aspire themselves to something greater than what required minimal effort. Everyone I grew up with did [though, in hindsight, for different reasons than I], I did, and my parents did, so naturally I assumed everyone else did, too. As such, I was regularly perplexed at the value judgements certain colleagues would place on other members of humanity...like me...because they miscategorized generational challenges I was facing as 'being dumb'. Damaging prejudice.

So I left that company, and struck out on my own. I have since discovered what a rare breed my background nurtured, and now understand the wisdom in filtering those you spend time with. Instead of a prideful superiority [which I certainly observed], I exercise with a cautious respect for, and in protection of, talent and time. I exercise without placing value judgements on the people I come in contact with, but I do judge the values of the people I spend time with. In this way I safely continue to respect their humanity, and avoid pride. It's only since I moved and became aware of my need to protect that I became aware of how hard it is to find knowledge seekers. And so, when I come across someone from a different field but similar excellence, who carries with them persuasive content helpful for advancement, I am thankful. I also realized I need to stop spending so much time trying to argue with people-- because most people aren't actually listening, aren't actually seeking.

And so I am thankful to have found HackerNews, this article, and shared insights like yours.

It's very important to surround yourself with excellence. You'll become the ones you're around, and believe their idiocy, if you're not careful.

Be careful.

May I ask, would you consider a waitress talented? Based on your value structure, I'm very curious to know how you'd feel about someone like a waitress or a cashier.

Assume that this is their full-time job, and that they have no ability to attend a university due to a series of unfortunate events which left them saddled with debts they cannot hope to overcome unless they focus full-time on overcoming them. So they take what jobs they can. Are they talented or excellent?

It would seem that if one takes your value structure to heart, then you'll end up rejecting anyone from your life who aren't among the lucky few -- as you were -- of having no unfortunate events in their life, and would deem those people not worth allowing into your life, as they certainly aren't excellent.

A friend of mine used to work in a coffee shop. They often told me about people who would come in and act as if the workers existed only to serve them. I found this hard to believe. I knew such people existed, but it seemed improbable that that they were so common. Yet they were.

Is there a chance that if your mentality is to surround yourself with excellence, then you'll end up forgetting how to respect those who aren't, through no fault of their own?

depends, how well are they putting their talents to use? Are they challenging themselves every day? Or do they not have energy to? Or are they lazy and don't give a damn?

Regardless, I still seek to show love and smile and courtesy when interacting with them, because they're human. That doesn't mean I have to spend time with them as serious friends.

Salt and light...

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