Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I had a long and fun argument with someone the last time the kernel came up on this exact subject. A very interesting observation is that in the extreme "meritocracy" 100% implies that people with merit should be excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions.

Any political system comes with trade-offs. Meritocracies fundamentally excuse bad behavior, democracies fundamentally allow mob rule/bad decisions in haste, monarchies fundamentally ignore commoner's problems, bureaucracies are too risk averse and slow, etc, etc. If we rejected political systems that allow failings and excuses, we'd only have anarchy.

To the topic at hand, the kernel folk don't seem to be particularly political, and obviously they don't want anyone behaving badly in their community, but one does suspect that there is a game of political football afoot that is not going to benefit the kernel. The kernel is a technical project - people who reject the idea of technical merit have a home in society, but that home isn't in the Linux Kernel community; it is a space where merit is meaningful. The kernel maintainers should first and foremost concerned about the technical quality of the kernel.

> A very interesting observation is that in the extreme "meritocracy" 100% implies that people with merit should be excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions.

That’s a non sequitur. There’s no reason that a meritocracy must allow bad behaviour from high performing contributors. Linus’s behaviour has been accepted, even lauded by certain members of the community, but I’ve always seen it as brash, arrogant and off putting. The simple fact is that people who have power tend to abuse that power, but that has nothing to do with meritocracy as a concept.

>The simple fact is that people who have power tend to abuse that power, but that has nothing to do with meritocracy as a concept.

Except that by definition, meritocracy creates a power dynamic which can be abused in this way. Those with "merit" are trusted and respected more than those without. This means that complaints about their behaviour are more often ignored or dismissed. And even when bad behaviour is too blatant to ignore, the punishment is often lesser, for fear of chasing away their "merit".

In theory, one could define "merit" in a way that recognises behaviour alongside technical contributions, but in practice that is rarely how the term is interpreted by tech communities.

In theory, one could define "merit" in a way that recognises behaviour alongside technical contributions, but in practice that is rarely how the term is interpreted by tech communities.

Linus is an incredibly influential figure in tech, having written both Git and Linux. He has decided to work on his own behavior.

This could be a watershed event in that regard.

Life creates a power dynamic which can be abused in this way. This is getting ridiculous. Have some minimal set of rules so that people, including important people, can’t be outright nasty to each other and leave it at that. There is absolutely no need for all this ideological baggage.

>Life creates a power dynamic which can be abused in this way.

And such dynamics should be acknowledged and opposed wherever they exist.

>Have some minimal set of rules

Except as I said, these rules are frequently ignored or applied less fairly in one way or another for those with "merit".

I think the very first rule of life is to live. If someone helps you live when otherwise you're going to die, you should tolerate more of his weirdness. If someone helps you live better when otherwise you're going to be quite miserable, you should also be more tolerant. I think this is the logic of meritocracy, and the logic behind capitalism.

You either believe in capitalism and thus meritocracy as its twin, or neither. Why do capitalists get to take away so much profit, and why should we award patents to inventors, if we don't reward those with "merit"?

>If someone helps you live when otherwise you're going to die, you should tolerate more of his weirdness.

Yes, if someone has control over your life or death, you should probably do what they say.

That is what most people call "violent coercion".

>You either believe in capitalism and thus meritocracy as its twin, or neither.

Well, quite...

>If someone helps you live when otherwise you're going to die

>That is what most people call “violent coercion”.

Really? Is it?

There’s no point in continuing here, I’m afraid we’re too far apart to gain anything from this discussion. Have a good day.

If they can choose not to help they're not "helping you to live", they're choosing not to kill you.

And if they choose whether to kill you based on whether you do what they want, that's violent coercion.

And such dynamics should be acknowledged and opposed wherever they exist.

Power itself can't be opposed. By definition, opposition doesn't exist without power.

Abuse can be opposed and to some extent mitigated but it's not at all a static game. When you build walls humans go around them, climb over them, dig under them, or break through them. There is no wall that one person can build that another cannot overcome.

I said power dynamics (i.e. power imbalances) should be opposed, not the abstract concept of power itself.

Power itself is an imbalance. It implies the non-universal capability to do something. When we say "the president of the club has x, y, and z powers" we're not talking about the things everyone else in the club is able to do.

So to be opposed to "power dynamics" is to be opposed to non-universal capability, an extremely radical position which I am not sure you hold.

Could you expand on your definition to clarify your position?

>In theory, one could define "merit" in a way that recognises behaviour alongside technical contributions, but in practice that is rarely how the term is interpreted by tech communities.

Linus' contribution is not just the code he commits, but his ability to organize and marshall developers. That ability is tied to his communication skills.

To the extent that his discourse drives skilled developers away, it is a detriment which is presumably why he is working on it. If it were to get extreme and he became unable to lead due to his toxicity, "meritocracy" would imply that he would step down or be removed.

Which system do not create a power dynamic that can be abused? It seems like an shared problem, where the only reachable goal is to create safeguards so that when power dynamic create abuse there is some form of process to address it.

A democratic system based on popularity share all those problems attributed to meritocracy. Those deemed popular are trusted and respected more than those without. complaints about their behaviour are more often ignored or dismissed. When bad behaviour is too blatant to ignore, the punishment is often lesser, for fear of loosing influence and power.

What I would like to know is if meritocracy has a higher risk of causing abuse compared to other systems.

> Meritocracies fundamentally excuse bad behavior

This may often (?) be true in practice if you remove "fundamentally", but not always and it doesn't have to be. In an environment where people work together to produce an outcome, the ability to interact positively and productively with others is a valuable behavioral merit. It keeps one talented asshole from chasing away all the other talent. You can have a meritocratic organization where "works well with the team" is a requirement. Where this breaks down is when talented people sit back and allow abuse (or worse, start to emulate it) because they're all starry-eyed about an offender's other talents and achievements.

I'd go further than just remove "fundamentally" from that statement. I'd say the entire statement is false.

Getting rid of meritocracy is "Everyone gets an A+". Teams will quickly get in trouble if everyone got A+ for "works well with the team" but some should've gotten a D- or an F.

Meritocracies don't have to excuse bad behaviour if they simply penalise it. Perhaps those stuck in bad situations and complaining about meritocracies are really just suffering from the ill-effects of cronyism, favouritism or some other "ism".

Meritocracy means that a political system is organised so that the "meritorious" get power, where merit is based on performance.

You are talking about getting rid of ranking, possibly the concept of merit. It isn't possible to have a meritocracy with no concept of merit, but that is much stronger than not being a meritocracy.

For example, I could rank a team of 5 from A+ to F, then put cousin Ahmed in charge because he is a relation of mine. That would be a system that is not a meritocracy, because to be in charge a person would have to be related to me, but there is still a concept of merit. I would expect my cousin to then consider merit carefully as he divides up tasks.

Perhaps I was not clear. A merit system that tolerates cronyism and "other isms" is not actually a system based on useful merit. And I believe that most people who are hating on meritocratic systems are really hating on corruption or dysfunctional systems. What is the point of getting a "A+" based on some merit based score if Ahmed can get in by being your cousin? Corruption would tolerate this happily. So penalise corruption!

To use your example, your cousin was put in place due to nepotism. This is very much covered by my "some other ism" as corruption or at least bad behaviour. Cronyism and nepotism both bypass natural "best person for position based on merit" selection criteria.

Integrity is well within performance measures under a meritocratic system, eg police who are corrupt can't be seen as acting as the ideal for police officers or authority by any useful measure (merit). If you hired your cousin that nepotism impacts both yours and your cousins integrity and therefore merit. This bypasses the meritocracy and is actually simple corruption.

Plenty of other "isms" are also really just corruption in various forms: sexism, racism, tokenism, ageism. I'm sure there are plenty more.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com