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Comment by nshepperd | Hacker News Reader

> This kind of "meritocracy" is more like if we held an arm-wrestling tournament, declared the victor to be our new feudal lord, the next 6 runners up to be knights, and everyone else to be peasants. Our position in this new society was based on "merit", but that can't necessarily justify the difference between nobles and serfs.

Isn't that because the aspect of merit which is measured by an arm wrestling contest isn't the same as that which is relevant to running a feudal society?

A tournament for selecting a feudal lord would need to measure economic and strategic literacy, intelligence, moral compass, etc.

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It begs the question to just assume there is a "feudal society" that needs to be "run". For instance, why not have a "first citizen" who is selected to manage internal coordination and external strategy, but must live in the worst house in the village and wear a hair shirt.

You can say, well that wouldn't work! But now the idea is that the structure of this model feudal society is justified by reasons like "people won't follow someone if they don't have a gold hat and a scary sword" and not by any process that led to selecting the particular feudal lord.

This analysis is incomplete. Assume I am the best (objectively) at "managing internal coordination and external strategy" but I don't want to live in the worst house and I am allergic to hair shirts. Then I won't sign up for the job and the society is worse off for it.

Assuming a magical test that actually could pick the best lord... that would justify the lord. It wouldn't do much of anything to justify the subjugation of the serfs.

What if they happen to be really good at being subjugated serfs?

I think that the argument that they are making isn't about the role that the person ends up with but the dramatic difference in wealth, status, and privilege.

However, the inverted version of the lord and peasants scenario is not a scenario where the differences in wealth, status, and privileges are leveled out. It is a scenario where, since power corrupts, those appointed to decide how those things are allocated most equally somehow just happen to wind up favoring themselves.

Or, as Orwell so eloquently wrote "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

One would think.

But the reality of feudal lords is that merit was measured by whose legs you were born between, if a penis was present and in what order you emerged. Things worked out.

Most of life is like that. Theoretically, we all want the best surgeon on the planet, but the reality is we mostly go to a random draw of a surgeon that meets or exceeds the minimum qualification.

I generally agree with your last sentence, but maybe it's a mistake to generalize it to other activities or professions.

If an adequate surgeon has an 85% success rate, and a brilliant one a 90% success rate, then it's arguable that being ten times smarter or more dexterous isn't that important, to be overly rewarded. So in that sense, merit might not matter.

But many activities or professions lend themselves to multiplying others' results. What if someone can teach all the surgeons to have 5% fewer failures? That still has diminishing returns, but what if someone figures out a way to do, say, twice as many surgeries with the same resources, or to eliminate the need for half of them? You might say they still don't need or deserve wealth, but in order to reap the benefits, society has to give those people power in some form to organize the activities of others. And wealth tends to flow to those with power.

I think you’re on good track of thinking.

But I would see your scenario as improving process, not doctors. Doctors are the last real guild profession in modern society, and industrialization always beats skill in the long run. As time goes on, IMO their role will get whittled away, first in primary care (already happening) and thing like radiology, and eventually in other areas.

You optimize for what you actually measure, not what you wish you were measuring.

Now you need a tournament for selecting the measures.

It’s tournaments all the way down.

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