A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you

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Why have you let him get away with it?

I've had bosses like that. The key word is "had". By broadening my skillset into areas like drafting, plumbing, broadcasting, radar, and remote ops, I've made myself more valuable to not just my employers, but to their competitors, as well! It's called "leverage". It's also called "smart".

Yes I know, I am smart in ways. The problem is my social skills and all my phobias, I have a list of them. I'm not good at navigating either, one of the stresses is getting me to the job site. I had a GPS he supplied but that doesn't always work that great for out in the country, so when I don't know where to go I have to be able to call him. I'm very nervous on trying to call home owners or even speaking to them. Though I had to at times, I can talk about my work nut I suck at social interactions, I may get so bad I start shaking then people think I'm on drugs or weird, I can tell when I'm being negatively judged so it tends to make it worse, It puts me in a state of pure panic on the inside. Even when I get lost, If I can't contact someone, I may panic, it's happened a lot of times. I was to scared to try to get work else where and didn't have too many options, I haven't been in big cities much and it freaks me out to drive in them, and the other pool jobs were in big cities like Macon, that place scares me because of violence, one year it had a higher murder rate than Atlanta. I also couldn't afford to get help to try to fix myself. It's very stressful for me to be around people, I can't stop feeling weird or judged, I can't calm myself down even though I know I'm freaking out over nothing, reasoning with myself doesn't tend to work at all.

Guess that kinda adds to my lack of confidence, like anyone else would want me because I'm so much trouble. I'm good at the work, I'm not good with people so I built in-grounds with just two helpers and above-grounds with just one helper. If I can make it to the job site, my work is excellent, I don't think people would want me because of my problems, but also I would be completely freaked out trying to navigate in a big city.

I wanted to go into business for myself but I needed a partner that would handle the sells, the people and navigate me to the job site but I couldn't ever find anyone because of my social issues. I don't really know a lot of people and change also freaks me out, another phobia. So it just sucks for me, I no longer work, physical pain and anxiety around people became too much for me. I want to give it another shot, I miss being able to work. I've got to get on SSI and go to doctors to see if they can help me be comfortable around people, when I had health insurance from my last job, a city worker, I tried to start going to the doctor, all they did was throw anxiety medication at me, it didn't help at all. I need meds and a councilor. I want a life, just sitting here waiting for my time isn't a life, so I'm going to try to get better. I've got to wait for my mom to help me get on SSI though, in time it will happen.

How is your mother going to help you get on SSI?

You seem like a bright guy. Have you been to, or graduated, college?

I went to college to get a degree in Microsoft computer programming specialist but the teacher for my programming class didn't like me so he tricked me, told me I could miss one more day, so I missed it, then he said I missed too many days and kicked me out causing me to loose my hope grant. I had the highest average in the class and students asked me for help rather than him. Anyway, I'm in extreme poverty, I can't afford school and my mom can't afford to pay for me to go to school. I'm living with her now, which doesn't make me feel that great either because I'm 36 years old.

I need my mom to help me because of my fears/phobias and because I'm somewhat stupid in areas and have a hard time filling forms out. I taught myself how to program at age 10 but can't even correctly fill a form out at a doctors office which makes me feel stupid.

Last edited by Crimadella on 19 Mar 2019, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How many credits do you have? Perhaps you could retake that class, and get your degree.

They actually dropped the classes. I don't live in a good area for that. I'm not sure how many credits I have, it's been so long ago. The class sucked anyway(I wanted to learn more, they were not even going to teach up to how much I already knew. I wanted to learn how to use DLL's and they weren't going to teach that). After I get help with doctors my mom said she might be able to afford paying for me to take online classes. She said you can get programming jobs and work at home, It freaks me out to live on my own, I need my mom for help, plus she needs me for help, she has a bad hip and can hardly walk. I'm going to try, It would be nice if I could just program from home. I would have to learn a new language but I don't think that would be to hard, I taught myself Visual Basic, I may try to go for java, I wonder if that is still popular?

Java still seems to be popular.

CBerg would be a person to ask.

Or you could start a thread in the "computer" subforum here.

I will when the time comes. I'm just trying to stay occupied, I've got to get on my mom to hurry up and help me get on SSI so I can get help. I feel bad about trying to rush her, but I'm just wasting time just sitting here idle, and I'm not getting any younger. She is so tired on the weekends, that's what the delay is. It will happen sooner or later, I just gotta stay on top of her so I can get it done and get help.

The man is taking advantage of your skill, but you are letting yourself be taken advantage of. You have made the determination that the security of having a job is more valuable than seeking your fair compensation. As someone that struggles with anxiety I won't judge you for making this determination, but be aware it is a value judgment you have made.

Milton Friedman asks how inheriting property is any different than inheriting intelligence, athletic ability or musical ability? He points out that people usually aren't opposed to the latter.

If no one owns a factory who built it? Who pays for its maintenance? Who gets the factory goods from the factory to the people who need them?

You wouldn't know that all that talk about the "invisible hand" is just bullsh*t if you listen to unrestrained capitalism's champions on the right. What they really believe is that the market is their god, choosing the elect with its invisible hand, which it then showers wealth upon. This same twisted secular ideology had transferred into the prosperity gospel in religion.

Right, but you can't really use your situation to argue against the idea that we don't live in a meritocracy. If I google "meritocracy", what comes up is "government or the holding of power selected according to merit" and "a society governed by people selected according to merit". Also "a ruling or influential class of educated or able people".

So going by those definitions the real question is who is at the top? I think it's fair to say that we're talking about government and the people who own large scale businesses. Is it a requirement that you are the most qualified person to hold such positions? To what degree is merit required to be one of those two things? I think it's fair to say that it plays a role, but I don't think we can say that it's the major factor in a lot of situations.

I'm thinking of cooperatives, which means no one privately owns the business, but that's not to say that no one owns it at all. There are a number of successful examples of them all over the world, and I've heard of a proposal for a law where any time someone wants to do something with a business that might threaten the jobs of everyone working there, such as moving it overseas, the workers will have the right to buy the company together and turn it into a cooperative.

As to your first point, there should be a very obvious distinction between inheritance of property versus qualities of personality. When someone inherits their parents' skills and abilities, it means that these abilities can be put to use for the good of society. However, when someone inherits their parents' wealth it means that they can passively earn income for the rest of their lives without ever having to lift a finger, often to the detriment of society.

Over centuries of a dynasty not having to do anything other than buy more stuff in order to keep themselves afloat, this creates a situation where some people own a whole lot more than they could ever possibly need. In turn this creates a situation where supply and demand is skewed. Like if someone owns a hundred houses, the supply of houses decreases in relation to the demand, which increases the price of housing. This means that people who haven't inherited a lot don't get to buy a house because the price is too high, and so they have to rent. So people who own property passively get money while not having to do anything. Given enough property and therefore enough income, you can pay real estate agents to deal with all the details. With the amount of money you can generate like this, it doesn't hurt to have some of your property empty while people go homeless. Try looking it up: how many empty homes are there in your closest city?

He said why:


Also, consider:

Premise: Assuming a healthy attitude/mindset:
Those that can can...
Those that can't can't...
Not everyone is as exceptional as you...
I'm not...(humility, not flattery)
Simples...

Humility is one thing, but when it distorts reality, it works against the individual's cohesiveness, surely...
Don't be too humble...
Be Goldilocks humble...

Or was your question a question of awakening?...

I'd actually slightly disagree on this but in a way that's not much more of a credit to the idea.

One of the things Bret Weinstein talks about is the sort of aggregate unconscious behavior of people and what it's drives shape up to, you could consider this very similar to Daniel Kahneman's system one, and it's the system that takes over when people don't think but just sort of 'do' in the flow. I think Bret makes an excellent point that this is essentially the genome asserting itself. To some extent it works to make a reasonable playing field (ie. it wants workable conditions for the victors) and you see certain kinds of societal improvement on the path from sub-standard to half-way there, but taken to its final conclusions it really wants genetic death-sport and it's goals are often times perpendicular or even directly counter to our happiness or well being. It's the same sort of aggregate or recursive intelligence that powers wolf packs, swarms of starling, etc.

I have some doubt about the title: does "A belief in meritocracy" mean you believe

a) meritocracy is good
b) meritocracy is what we have here and now

The latter would fit the sentence "Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic" and what follows better. Those are two separate beliefs that - to my understanding of English - could both fit the title.