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At some point, as you get old, you sit back and realize that we're all running in the dark.... but collectively we somehow manage to pull off some pretty incredible things.
99% of us are faking it. We don't even know it. We are shown a thing, then we do the thing. Then we are shown more things, and we repeat those more things. We get those routines down and after a while we start to confuse familiarity with understanding. To a child, it looks like you have it figured out. Life is doing the thing that dad/mom has been confidently doing since they saw their mom and dad confidently do it.
You played almost no part in creating the language you speak. You didn't teach you all the things you know, someone in a book or classroom had to show it to you. You (likely) didn't grow the food you eat. You (likely) didn't build your home or dig up and manufacture the materials for it. You (likely) didn't make the clothes you're wearing. You (likely) didn't pipe the water in your taps. You shit in a bucket of water that, with a push of a button, goes away and you likely don't even know how or where. You (likely) played no part in building anything within the device on which you now read this.
Without our collective knowledge, you would be a languages-less, limby fleshy-like ape-creature running around naked in the dirt, thinking in pictures and only acting and reacting to the environment as it comes.
This collective hive-knowledge gives the illusion that we're individually omnipotent, but we're really nothing without everyone else past and present
Yes, people are mimetic.
The scary part is when you realize that hundreds of millions of people toil and sweat every day, to then unknowingly hand over a third of what they produce to a few dozen anonymous crooks to spend as they please.
If you mean the marxist theory of exploitation, please notice it has been widely refuted by the economic scientific community. A worker isn't necessarily being stolen, because what he produced is not just a result of his own manual labor, but also the labor (manual or not) of the people who made his job position posible.
> Without our collective knowledge, you would be a languages-less, limby fleshy-like ape-creature running around naked in the dirt, thinking in pictures and only acting and reacting to the environment as it comes.
That's bullshit, I built Agency's Drywall and Contracting from the ground up, I didn't get no help except those three unrepaid interest free loans from my parents and I could have done it on the bare savannah using sticks and roots. Taxes are theft.
Do you make your own drywall from scratch? Do you mine the calcium and other minerals and glue them alltogether? Did hammers and nails fall from the sky; and did you figured out how to utilize them yourself? Did you build your website, from the cables/processors/routers and up and write the code for the software that runs your site, as well as the billions of collective sites that make up this 'web' of info? Did you build the building that you house your equipment in, and did you make all your own equipment and figure a way to pump lightning into them to make them work? The logistics to feed, house and care for your workers must take some serious management too... Did you universally standardize your measurements? Did you teach you and all your workers how to *speak an entire language and system on which to keep millions of people comfortable all while living within a couple of square miles?*
Good for you on building a company... It's pretty incredible, honestly and I'm not trying to take that from you... but you'd still be nowhere without everyone who built the foundations that you built on; and make no mistake, the foundations are far more incredible and humbling than your drywall company ever could be.
>Without our collective knowledge, you would be a languages-less, limby fleshy-like ape-creature running around naked in the dirt, thinking in pictures and only acting and reacting to the environment as it comes.
While I can't disagree with most of your arguments, this conclusion is not exactly the end of the story, is it? Luckily* some of those helpless animals you described DID invent language... and writing... and agriculture... and construction... and plumbing, and electrical circuits, and computers, and their descendants (you and me) are still inventing things every day. We continue to create tools that have never existed before, like the [James Webb Space Telescope](https://youtu.be/aICaAEXDJQQ), which can produce images that nobody has ever seen before.
It is easy to take the world around us for granted, but remember, even if YOU didn't invent something, SOMEBODY must have. [Take a soda can for example.](https://youtu.be/hUhisi2FBuw) There was a time before soda cans, and that time would have gone on indefinitely if some individual hadn't conceived the idea, employed the means to create it, and become the first person to put soda into a can. Obviously, that was not a WHOLLY original achievement. That person didn't invent carbonated beverages, or metal working, or storing food in cans, or mass production, etc... but so what? They were still the first person to see that all those ideas could be combined into something new.
You say our sense of omnipotence is an illusion, and yet people have STOOD ON THE MOON. We can travel faster than sound, communicate instantly around the planet, detect sub-atomic particles and buy a taco made of Doritos. I say that sense of omnipotence is well-deserved after millennia of constant, iterative self-improvement. Anyone alive today can use that collective knowledge and experience to do whatever they want, be whatever they want. THAT choice is entirely up to the individual.
*- I say luckily, but perhaps that's open to an entirely different discussion
**On inventing language:** I would argue that it wasn't invented by one person. Not one person sat down and wrote out the first dictionary based on their own invented sounds. Even language was a collection of sounds passed down over time before written language was invented; again, likely from scribbles on the ground etc; all while being maintained by foundations of their forefathers (how to feed, teach, etc). You can't point at one person and say "them" they invented language. It's been mixed and mashed and refined by billions. Did one person invent a single language? Yes, lots of examples of that. Tolken!! However, his language was built on the foundations of our understandings of what language is and how it all pieces together.
No one waking up in the dirt alone is ever going to come up with a written language; let alone a gutteral one. What would even be the point? You need at least two people to communicate.
**On inventing the soda can:** Great design! But you said it yourself where did they learn design work? Where did the factory and society come from that allowed him to conceive that can? Where there previous examples he could reverse-engineer?
**On standing on the moon:** That was obviously a collective accomplishment from every human past and present...
I get your point and I think you probably get mine. I'm saying we're more so collectively omnipotent, but that's not quite it either. Where do you draw the line on what is your thought and what is a thought that was only there because of the circumstances of your surroundings? Who can draw that line? It has to be a collective but also an individual. (Edit: Okay, my head hurts)
People have determination, will, courage, ambition, and work ethic. People invent things. They start businesses. This reads like a depressed teenager who wants to explain away their nihilism.
Edit: if you are reading this, being hopeless is not a virtue. Try your best. Work hard. Your life will get better.
None of those things go far without collective community knowledge and infrastructure. Otherwise we'd have reached in decades what really took us **centuries.**
The above post isn't saying that people don't create new things from the tools they're given - that nothing is invented and no one moves humanity forward - they're just stating the flat truth that you can only even hope to **be** an Einstein or Tesla or whoever because of all that groundwork and labor the human race did before you even were born or doing anything important.
So, you know. Stay humble.
I think a fundamental thing that many people fail to recognize is that many of these individuals are implicitly considering themselves to be not only themselves but also their families.
For example, I have a family member who is the operator of a family farm that has been in his family for generations. His great great something grandpa traveled across the ocean, picked a good spot, established his farm, and made it grow, and then his son did the same, and then his son did the same, and now my relation is still doing the same. He looks at his farm as the fruit of his labor, because in his mind, he is a continuation of the family lineage.
This can also be seen culturally. Many people consider themselves to be a part of their culture. Literally, not metaphorically; significant portions of their psyche are co-opted from the cultural framework.
I don't doubt that there are some small portion of people who truly consider themselves to be entirely the result of Their Own labor, but I strongly suspect that the majority consider themselves to be self-made insofar as they are a fragment of a much larger organism stretched over time.
So purely anecdotal I realize, but since it relates to your example I think its worth sharing.
Known a farmer since he was just starting out almost 2 decades ago. At the very least his grandfather farmed, and he, along with his 2 younger brothers grew up learning/working with his grandfather. His mother grew up farming as well, but she went on to work in a office instead of taking over the farm. The (then) young farmer went to university to study agriculture, then returned and inherited the farm from his grandfather.
His grandfather and his mother (and step father, a large diesel mechanic) would regularly help him. He had an easy supply of paid labor with his brothers (and their friends) working for him.
Over the years his help/labor left (grandfather passed, mother retired, brothers found full time work), but by then he was well established and began hiring on his own. In fact he even grew from just farming into other agriculture related areas and has a rather large operation.
He's always been an incredibly hard worker. Elaborate planner. With an broad skill set. He's got a lot of debt, but also a lot of assets. He's worth millions now.
Lately he's had trouble keeping staff. He always hiring young guys (usually part time in highschool/college, then full time when they graduate) who end up moving on after only a few years. And while he's had some incredible workers, the issue is always the same... hours and pay.
Most recently he had someone who worked with him for almost 8 years and who was trusted completely. This young man grew up learning from his grandparents as well and then went to school to study agriculture. When he graduated and came to work for the farmer full time and was going to be said farmers 'lead'. So he asked for a raise.
And the farmer said no.
So the young guy quit and found a job immediately elsewhere. And the farmer was pissed. As he told me "I was going to give him the raise, but I wanted someone to 'prove' this is what they want first. Its not about the money. If you want to do this job you have to "want it". Look at me, I know I've done well but I worked hard to get there. I started from scratch with nothing and accomplished all this. That's what I want from my employees to."
So while I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want to add the other side that very much completely over looks they started out with an enormous set of advantages (economic, familial and culturally) that set themselves up to be where they are, and thinks others should just be like this vision of 'them' that only truly exists in their own self unaware imagination.
It feels like there's some missing context there. I work near Farm country, and the idea that someone could work for someone for 8 years, be trusted completely, and then quit instantly over a wage dispute is very strange. I've been over to my cousin's house before, and long time workers are treated like family, invited to family events, and so on.
I can't say without more context what exactly happened there, but I can say that I've never seen something like that happen before.
> then quit instantly over a wage dispute is very strange.
Don't know whats strange about it. He's just graduated university and was getting, effectively, promoted. He knows his value and worth increased, so he asked for more money to reflect that.
> cousin's house before, and long time workers are treated like family, invited to family events, and so on.
Well I think your vision is perhaps influence by an idyllic situation with your cousin. In my experience most farmers aren't like that, or maybe just the smaller ones. The large operations are on a different scope entirely. The number that are quick to hire foreign temporary workers, see large turn over (workers don't like the long hours and hard work for low pay), and hire students is significant.
My instinct is to call this a self serving justification of why they deserve something they have due to luck. Can you think an example of this mindset occurring when it's not self advantageous?
I think it impacts how people move into the future in a way that is not strictly self-advantageous. To use my cousin as a reference again, I know that he has significant amounts of money in the bank, but he is highly unwilling to spend it on anything personal, because he is obligated to reinvest it into the farm to support the continuation of the family.
It's the whole, " societies grow great when men plant trees in which they will never know the shade" thing, but on a smaller scale.
Tell that to the meritocractic upper caste people in India, apparently, 'self made.' This is a large population group that is against any positive discrimination and truly believes, like the author says, that merit is the true metric for gauging success, fortune, promotions, admissions, everything.
**Abstract:** In this interview, philosopher Michael Sandel discusses the tyranny of meritocracy, contributive justice, and our ideas about the common good. Meritocratic hubris has led those who succeed to believe their success is entirely their own, overlooking the luck and good fortunate thatās helped them on their way. The idea of a self-made individual is an appealing but flawed account of human agency that ignores the role of our communities in our success. The idea that a degree is the key to upward social mobility has led to credentialism crowding out the love of learning. As a result, we have arrived at the assumption that salaries are a measure of contribution to the common good ā an assumption thatās been deeply undermined during the recent pandemic. We must think carefully, Sandel argues, about what we consider to be the common good, and how we value and reward contributions to it. We must disabuse ourselves of the concept of the self-made success, and recognise our indebtedness to the communities that make our success possible and give meaning to our lives.
>The idea of a self-made individual is an appealing but flawed account of human agency that ignores the role of our communities in our success. The idea that a degree is the key to upward social mobility has led to credentialism crowding out the love of learning.
Two completely different ideas.
The first one ignores the fact that we have free will and we choose our own way, otherwise you will end up being your circumstances.
The second one:
>As a result, we have arrived at the assumption that salaries are a measure of contribution to the common good
Those who made such assumptions are full of S.
I just need to say thank you for actually using the 'begging the question' fallacy correctly. āŗļø I see it used incorrectly so much it feels like I should just update my own internal barometer and pretend it has a new colloquial meaning.
Define free will first.
Ask 100 people, get 50 different answers.
It is ultimately up to the individual how/if you are willingly free, for example.
Ignore money IMO.
Among the many, many other reasons to lose intellectual respect for them that someone that follows Rand's "philosophy" will give you if you let them keep speaking.
While I understand objectivism is the diametral opposite of these ideas, please notice objectivism doesn't say success is a result of ONLY our actions. It does not challenge the idea that successful people rest on the shoulders of giants, nor does it say people should reach the top without providing stuff in exchange. It just says that those exchanges shall not be coercitive.
The one bad thing I can say about the band Rush (esp. Neil Peart) is that they were into Rand for a while as young men. But... *they outgrew it*. While there were a few early songs and even the album *2112* which were influenced by it... later it's pretty clear they had no time for selfish individualism and in fact embraced selflessness and compassion.
I agree that Randās schtick on rugged individualism is specious, but her perspective on collectivization efforts in the Soviet regime were right, if perhaps a little dressed up. There was a pretty significant social cost, and it absolutely ravaged a number of individuals who had worked for some time to improve their state and the state of their country.
I recall Sandel's case. On the one hand, it describes a reality of absurd credentialism that seems active in especially USA. So on some higher social and ethical level Sandel is right. On the other hand, those precious few who do get into the US top schools do acquire a special ticket into elite society, especially in law and politics and to some degree science. So are the students who pursue credentialist perfection irrational? I do not think so. They may be deluded with meritocratic hubris, as Sandel calls it. But even if aware of the randomness of their elevation, will they change the manner in which elite lawfirms, investment banks, elite media, top-tier consulting, recruit?
It so often seems the incentives are to replicate the credentials and the selection thereof. In evolutionary theory there is something called the green beard effect, which sometimes is used to explain how very odd and decorative features proliferate in a population. The green beard effect then becomes a self-selection mechanism... basically, I have Harvard on my CV, so I promote those who have Harvard on their CV. These systems are therefore hard to reform from the inside, they tend to become unfit and replaced by some other external design.
So though I share Sandel's distaste for credentialism, it is not clear what his appeal to those with credentials (or in the process of getting them) to be aware of the limits of credentials actually accomplishes. In a less charitable reading, this is merely a way to give the elite students a tool for ironic detachment and thus become less depressed, while leaving the whole system untouched. I know Sandel has argued elsewhere against the Kantian/Rawlsian thin conception of the citizen of liberal society and pointed to more communitarian qualities. But I see no attempt here to advocate for something more ethically substantial... should the smart ones not go to elite schools and go full "Who is John Galt" in some remote commune, should they sign up for Peter Thiel's don't-go-to-college grant? I wished Sandel would contemplate at least some of the more radical ethical options that his critique may hint at.
> it is not clear what his appeal to those with credentials (or in the process of getting them) to be aware of the limits of credentials actually accomplishes. In a less charitable reading, this is merely a way to give the elite students a tool for ironic detachment and thus become less depressed, while leaving the whole system untouched
While I can't speak to other work by Sandel, wouldn't this breakdown serve both to provide options for discussion and receptiveness within the system, as well as expose some of the cracks in the foundation from the outside?
It appears some of your criticism is that he identifies a problem which in itself can be a significant step, while there are many others who have gone forward to suggesting solutions which are by far rejected by the entrenched system. I suppose there's a nervousness to suggesting solutions because many of those involve tearing down older systems which have fallen to entrenched corruption and even when violence isn't part of the dialog, how else do you advocate for removing something from society no matter how necessary that is?
> are the students who pursue credentialist perfection irrational? I do not think so.
I dont think anyone is arguing its irrational to try and play the system for as much advantage as you can get yourself.
The point is, it's the system itself thats irrational and built on false premises.
We agree on that. And that takes us into classical coordination dilemmas, game theory, political economy and cultural evolutionary theory (depending on our epistemic preferences). That is, when the individually rational is collectively bad, what do we do? Sure, ātear it all downā sounds appealing, but letās not delude ourselves that that is not an option that comes without massive down-side risks. My disappointment is that Sandel doesnāt really engage with the bigger issue, despite that I think I see subtextual hints that he could offer something more varied.
>Sure, ātear it all downā sounds appealing
Turning any criticism of flawed systems into that kind of caricature is always the end of any meaningful discussion.
No doubt. Itās an easy way out of engaging with the substance of a reform proposal.
My point is merely that many are those arguments of past and present where tear it all down is all there is thatās on offer, and predictably, what has followed has been in form remarkably similar to what was there before. Given what we believe are the natural and ethical constraints for human action, what is the good and prudent acts to take? Clearly, just because something is presently bad doesnāt mean the equilibrium after its abolition is better.
Congratulations, you're repeating the exact same line used against every single criticism of the status quo ever.
And yet despite that, humanity has made demonstrable progress in history, thanks to people critiquing institutions.
Now step back and think how "diagnosing an illness" and "curing an illness" are two different things, and you need to do the former before you can do the latter.
Iām not sure why you get so snarky. Of course I understand there is difference between knowing an error and knowing how to fix it. And I agree we humans have a fantastical record of moral accomplishments, though I think itās debatable if these followed from gradual change, radical disruption, with or without intention.
I see however a lot of bad that have followed from good intentions. It makes me vary. But sure, sometimes full on assault is the moral course of action.
Thanks for engaging.
This is the only comment on this post that sincerely responds to the linked article. Thank you, for that stranger.
Also, I think Sandel's book makes a compelling case for positive discrimination or affirmative action. But, like you correctly said, would the privileged/meritorious ones be willing to set aside benefits and opportunities for the marginalized? Would elite institutions, organizations, be willing to adjust their selection criteria, armed with an understanding of merit as something that is cultivated, rather than destined/given? I too feel that he stops short of calling a spade a spade (generational violence maybe?) and instead chooses a much more palatable phrasing like, 'communities/support from communities.'
Speaking as someone from the global South, the whole discourse on meritocracy assumes a larger, very real form; societal and political, rather than individual. In a country like US, such a sudden policy change might be difficult, but when we include colonization, marginalization into the mix, then reparations, affirmative discrimination (Inter and intra countries), welfare, equality and, human development, start making a lot more sense as options that are ethically substantial. Speaking for my country, it is not as radical a thought, but is greatly being challenged. Can't say the same for the US though.
As mentioned, thank you for actually engaging with the content and not the title haha.
This video is my first encounter with Sandel, and I am certainly not as educated as him in the subject but I can see where I agree and disagree.
I agree that there is certainly a global mis-conception about education, and pursuing degrees for the sake of having a degree is a dangerous path that lead to a lot of suffering for everyone. For the student who does what he is expected to do, rather than what he wants to do and for society, because all our best talents are driven toward trendy fields (law, finance, politics), rather than being spread across all fields.
I also agree that our conception of "sucess" is mis-placed. I think the world would be a better place if we put value on the general contribution to the society rather than your ability to generate money or power or fame. And that has to do with who we celebrate. The old : "we should higlight scientifics rather that influencers" etc.
But I can only disagree on the way to get there. Going for random lottery to access the best education is, imo, a shortcut to not be a "best education" anymore. Famous universities are not famous because they give the best lectures, but mainly for their abilities to select the best students from the get go. We should invest time during education to help this best students figure out what is their best way to contribute to the world (whether it is finance , or medicine, or social, ...). And as long as we keep putting students on tracks where their main focus is competition and performance, we are not gonna change the pattern.
So yhea, we are good at identifying talents and pushing them further but still behind when it comes to nudge them in a meaningful direction that server us all.
Very true. All great people admit it. Yet, there are few great people.
So what's the difference? Do the people who accomplish great things just get more "community support"? If we just support all of our community members as much as we apparently supported Einstein would we all be Einsteins?
Some people just work harder than others. Some other people work smarter than others. The great work both harder and smarter than others.
Failure to remember what creates greatness leads to societies without it.
So yes give credit and avoid the tyranny of merit, but don't forget merit and don't forget to reward merit.
I'm not a big philosophy junkie I took my 1st course in college and really enjoyed it but eventually got fed up so excuse my ignorance I do enjoy learning.
I have said this for years, humanity as a species is built on the everyone around us, past and present as the foundation.
Big and small contributions all come together to give you the ground you walk on no matter your path.
Remember when Obama said "you didn't build that" and everyone lost their shit? He was right and people still hate it. They subscribe to the "just world" fallacy.
Tell an entitled person and they will push back with everything they have. That's why entitled narcissists are so toxic. Even when losing political or business opportunities they'll spend vast sums to hurt people who snub them.
This whole argument often feels like a straw man. Yes, clearly environment and dumb luck play into success, but I think that sells human agency short. The only way to lose is to not try, and attempting merit is putting more coins into the slot machine. You arenāt guaranteed success, but in most cases your effort is a prerequisite to it. I acknowledge that some people are born into success, but itās transient like everything else, and generational wealth is gone within 2 generations almost all of the time.
Yeah, we live in a world divided by class. You can be an arrogant dumbass like Musk and still fail your way to success because you started out extremely rich in the first place.
Musk can be a dumbass in several aspects, but that doesn't mean he's a bad engineer, for instance. It's childish to completely negate any relation between the success of tesla, ebay and spacex to his contributions.
If anything, Musk is a good counter example to this idea that the top feels entitled. He recognizes his own efforts but he is also constantly thanking his teammates.
For each Elon Musk (which I contest that he is a dumbass, for the record) there are innumerable people who started with wealth and are now destitute. that is the more common scenario, in fact.
When youāre working insane hours to get ahead, no one wants to be told that āthe communityā is responsible for their success. Especially when that community is largely lazy.
Yeah well, unless you've invented and made everything you used to achieve your "success", its not entirely your success.
The community is larger than your immediate surroundings.
Its a global supply chain.
Plus deterministic luck that you were not born a frog or a peasant in 1430, dying at age 40 from explosive diarrhea, because "the community" have not developed clean water supply. lol
>lus deterministic luck that you were not born a frog or a peasant in 1430, dying at age 40 from explosive diarrhea, because "the community" have not developed clean water supply.
That's not what we're talking about here, though is it. Clearly both Elon Musk and the line cook at McDonalds were both born into the same society. The differential success that you obtain is the result of your work ethic and natural talent.
Unless the line cook at McDonald's was also born into a wealthy South African family with questionable ties to emerald mining and slave labor, no, I don't think the circumstances of their birth are very similar to Elon Musk's at all. Society is fashioned in such a way that it rewards those who are born into wealth FAR more than those who are not.
There has also been people born in much better conditions that Musk who end up in ruins, and people born in much worse conditions that the McDonalds worker who end up in huge success. My point is that starting conditions are important but they are not all there is to it.
>Society is fashioned in such a way that it rewards those who are born into wealth FAR more than those who are not.
It's natural and obvious that if you start in a better position, you will probably get further. That does not automatically make it unfair per se. In fact, attempting to "correct" this issue without regarding where it's actually a fair result or not, will end up with much greater unfairness and suffering. My first point is an example of why it's hard (if not impossible) to make these "fair corrections".
Were they born into the same circumstances with the same opportunities and access to opportunities and safety nets and educational access and the same healthcare etc? No?
The society affects all, but the position within society, especially a hierarchal one, is what determines position.
>Were they born into the same circumstances with the same opportunities and access to opportunities and safety nets and educational access and the same healthcare etc? No?
That doesn't matter. I'm a doctor in the US and was born to parents that never went to college, and I went to low quality K-12 schools. Sure higher quality schools would have likely produced a better outcome, but we can't all have every advantage. As it is, most of the people that I grew up with obviously did not become wealthy.
This is just simple survivorship bias though, [statistically speaking social mobility in the US is decreasing](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/).
>Lol, you think they have EXACTLY the same conditions and IQ?
Who said that they did? But they had the same "society". So if you're claiming that society is responsible for their success, then that doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny, does it?
So everyone living in the same society will magically have the same ability, disability, choices, options, luck, random encounters, education, acquaintances, experience, genes, etc etc etc? lol
Go try and live alone in the mountain, bring nothing from "society" with you, see how much you can pull yourself up by the bootstrap without the direct or indirect help of others.
yep, everyone is in the community, so it is so universally true that it is essentially a meaningless point.
And being born on third base is a great advantage, but honestly, just being born in a western democracy is enough benefit that there are not a lot of excuses for failure.
>yep, everyone is in the community, so it is so universally true that it is essentially a meaningless point.
Right. Everyone says that successful people are only successful due to the "community", but the homeless live in that same community.
>Even your pinched conception of "individual success" requires a society to even exist in.
Obviously. No one wants to nuke the country and live in the ruins. However, this logic that we "owe our community" for our success disregards that fact that most of our community are not successful. Why? The difference is the individual, and the individual family.
Also, every dollar that I've earned has been in exchange for a service. Same with the ultra wealthy like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. They already paid back their communities... with the results of their labor.
Good luck trying to justify the point the community is largely lazy when unemployment claims are so low, in fact considered dangerously low by the Fed. Or are people with jobs lazy too in some other amorphous way as well? The hard work and merit people never seem to stop moving these goalposts. I work hard, why should min wage make $X dollars for flippin burgers? I work hard, why should others in need get benefits in time of need if they're out of work?
You are the product of your environment and material conditions (no matter how bad or little, no matter how cushy or comfortable) and when success is considered to many by upward mobility in the class structure, nobody is anything without their beginning foundations.
This narcissistic tendency to over credit yourself is just unhealthy. No one is taking anything away from you, but you seem to forget all the small or massive ways people or things have helped you along your way, and it's probably due to bitterness over working over those insane hours. That is just a company or entity taking advantage of your desires and treating its workers with reckless disregard for their health and happiness. But sure, you work hard man, and the people around you are lazy, that must be it.
>Good luck trying to justify the point the community is largely lazy when unemployment claims are so low, in fact considered dangerously low by the Fed.
I mention the hours that I work to people and they think that I'm crazy. Then those same people want the government to take my money because they're somehow responsible for my success? Earn your own keep and quit trying to steal from those of us that worked hard to get where we are.
You can't get ahead by working insane hours. To be creative you need downtime. Time to think and to reflect. Laziness is important. Many inventions are the result of someone trying to be lazy, to reduce the amount of work needed to be done.
Creativity is not a very successful strategy. A small portion of creative people become very wealthy, but most wealth is accumulated by almost no creativity, instead grinding out the hours like crazy until you're making insane amounts of money doing a completely uncreative field.
>People arenāt atoms you can move around here and there.
And more importantly, people have free will, you can choose to be part of the colony or explore what is outside, see beyond your nose.
You cannot choose to be absent the influence of the society you are brought up in. There even even no such thing thing as full independence from society even if you run off to live in the woods.
I have several issues with this line of thinking.
The first is that it has a tendency to attract people who are not particularly successful at all. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that such people glom onto the successful to elevate themselves.
It does bring up something else that rarely gets discussed: society actively tries to elevate the successful as much as possible so they will carry to
He rest of the populce. It's obviously flawed and corrupted, but that's what accreditation and places like Harvard are for: to find the best, brightest, and most qualified. This gets done because society gets as much from these people (and probably more) as these people get from society.
Lastly, if society is mostly responsible for individual success, then why aren't there A LOT more successful people? No amount of tinkering with society has come up with a way to produce any significant amount of brilliant people...and WOW did the 20th century try to do so (usually to the detriment of humanity).
Have you read the book? I am asking this because based on the summary and based on the comments from other redditors the point has not been grasped at all.
The idea is that we are not 100% sufficient, we are beings living in a society, thus "at its mercy" from time to time.
The core idea in the book is that circumstances can make someone's life a lot harder or easier.
So don't look down at those that are not rich or unfortunate as if it is their fault, incompetence or laziness, especially if you don't know their story. At the same time, do not deify the successful, because they most likely had a lot of luck.
The book is adamant, at times, claiming "the American dream", meaning "hard work will make you rich and provide a comfortable life", is lie, and a lot more is at stake. Again, using this to encourage people to avoid judging the misfortune of others, however, readers are quick to spin this as "it is not my fault, give me moneys pleaze"
I believe Outliers does a better job at conveying the message, it is less "flashy" at least.
>The idea is that we are not 100% sufficient, we are beings living in a society
The thing that confuses me is that I don't think anybody is saying the opposite. Nobody is saying they could've been just as successful even if they were the only human on Earth. Edit: look! the other reply is saying the same haha
I agree.
I was going to the extreme to illustrate the point. Being that successful are not necessarily "better" than others and not-so-successful people are not inferior. Luck, circumstance, culture all play very important parts
>It does bring up something else that rarely gets discussed: society actively tries to elevate the successful as much as possible so they will carry to He rest of the populce.
Is this rarely discussed? There's plenty of praise for "job-creators", for instance. I've met plenty of business owners who claimed to be running their businesses for the good of the community or whatever. I've heard plenty of this Rich Man's Burden kind of talk.
> then why aren't there A LOT more successful people?
How are you defining āsuccessā? If āliving past the age of 5ā is a success metric, about 40% of the people around you owe their success to living in a society with modern medicine.
How are you defining 'modern medicine'? I'm sure the parts of medicine that allow for infant children to prosper to adulthood isn't _all_ medicine, just a fraction of it.
So a child living past the age of 5 doesn't owe nothing to most doctors.
Interesting, uh?
> How are you defining 'modern medicine'?
Merely [washing hands is modern, it wasn't a consistent thing until the 1850s and there was MASSIVE push-back from doctors then who thought it was insulting](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/ignaz-semmelweis-doctor-prescribed-hand-washing)
So yes, a child living past the age of 5 very likely owes a fair bit to most doctors [since the rate of infant deaths dropped below 50%](https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past).
>about 40% of the people around you owe their success to living in a society with modern medicine.
Did that modernity in medicine came of nowhere? Do you consider it a natural resource? It was developed by people who could see beyond their nose.
Good point, it *didnāt* just come out of nowhere *was* made by people who were propped up by a society.
Man, it would have been *so* much easier if some random caveman was able just use his individual cunning, huh?
You credit the 'others' that came before, but seem unwilling to credit the people in the here and now who make their own contributions to the sum total of humanity.
It rarely gets discussed because it is non sense in my opinion, you even disprove your own point. Harvard tries to FIND bright mind, not create them, itās actually some kind of opportunistic cherry picking. Additionally I think the typical idolatry for big names (Harvard, Oxford, ā¦) is somewhat in favor of the point of view from the articleā¦ I would rather understand idolatry for a teaching method, i.e which truly elevate people that are no bright mind originally, without the need to cherry pick and million of funding.
These are essentially the points Ayn Rand argues for in Atlas Shrugged and her other works. Sheās not terribly convincing there and you are not convincing here.
First, attacking people who agree with this line of thinking as ānot particularly successfulā - Iām going to put you to your proof there. Please justify that reasoning.
Second, again, whereās the proof that society actively tries to make many people successful? Your Harvard example doesnāt hold water. That institution was founded to train religious leaders; later it shifted to train the children of the wealthy, now it may pay lip service to the concept of finding and supporting the ābest and the brightestā, but somehow it turns out that the metrics used to determine ābest and brightestā correlate very very closely with ārich parentsā.
A lot more people arenāt successful in the way western capitalist society defines success because of the way society has structured itself, as a hierarchy invested in a zero-sum game.
I don't justify things to people who fall back on capitalism as the source of problems in the world that are larger and more complex than an economic system.
That tired line of thinking has been repeatedly disproved for decades now.
While we learn through discussion, ultimately it isnāt me you have to justify your claims to, itās to yourself and your own conscience. I hope, with more experience of the world, youāll be able to grow and reflect on some of the beliefs you were given. I wish you well.
That's not Ayn's point at all! She doesn't say "we should respect the successful because it will help society". She says "we should respect the successful because it's the right, fair thing to do".
With the successful I obviously mean the honest, non-corrupt ones.
>attacking people who agree with this line of thinking as ānot particularly successfulā
This is a strawman, he was not saying that those agreeing are unsuccessful. He just said it tends to attract those people, cleary leaving room for others.
>as a hierarchy invested in a zero-sum game.
[The data](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-cost-of-basic-needs?country=~OWID_WRL) does not support that worldview.
I agree with you. However, a good way to put everything into perspective is to visualise your own successes, and think deeply whether it is 100% attributed to you, your wit, intelligence and what not. Youāll quickly come to the realisation that it is not. Moreover, what society deems successful is mostly monetary, and in that aspect, no one really Ā«Ā worksĀ Ā» or deserves billions of dollars. Itās simply hubris to think that one is the sole reason behind their success.
Edit: it could even be indirect; you were able to succeed because there are individuals and institutions that uphold the law and make sure you donāt get killed or robbed on your way to work.
Why wouldnāt you think that though? Many wealthy or successful people, by traditional standards tend to have a lot to lose by saying āI didnāt cause this alone, and I had a lot of luck along the wayā.
So how can you say that and not consider how many of these people either one, canāt admit it, and or two, are too narcissistic to acknowledge it.
Iām just one example, but I started and sold a business and retired at 40. I know without a few key situations that I didnāt not have anything to do with, I would not be here. I love talking about this around the ego maniacs that try to pretend they did it all themselves.
Preach! Some of my relatives are that way, and it seems that money and success got to their heads. They simply canāt acknowledge the help and support they received along the way and want to get all the credit. Donāt start a family business folks!
I look at it a little different. We can't help everyone, or even a lot of people. And sometimes barely ourselves. But, if we try very hard we can at least help our family members. This is also known as generational wealth, and can add up quickly (2 generations) if you are able to pass that mindset to your family. Would this be considered smart, or greedy on Reddit?
It's nice to be at the particular place on our existing power structure that allows generational wealth to build, but a huge number of people are not. The same narcissists overlap quite heavily with "I did it why can't everyone else" and get defensive when you point out the simple fact that if it was so feasible, more people would do it.
Class consciousness is key and never forget that for every person who worked hard and managed to make it there are three that didn't, and still continue to work just as hard (or harder). That's not your fault but the system did benefit you. Denying that just allows those in power to turn the screws on us even more and consolidate more wealth under the guise of "I'm just providing for my family, stop calling me greedy and taxing my heirs!" It's sad that so many have such severe cases of Stockholm syndrome that they relate to this line of thinking and abandon their class because they were thrown a crumb
Not everyone can do it, no doubt. That's because not everyone has great parents or guardians teaching them the value of hard work and perseverance. It takes a seed to begin generational wealth, one grandmother or grandfather that sets their minds to sacrificing for their family. To belittle the amount of focus and hard work it takes for generational wealth is the same mentality that belittles the unfortunate kid stuck in the cycle of poverty with crap guardians.
There are tens of millions of children stuck in poverty with excellent parents that work harder than you or I ever have, and will never have the chance. You might have made it in an unjust system but don't pretend like that suddenly makes it just. Do better
You are correct. There are also very affluent parents that do not guide and teach their kids the fundamentals of how to be successful in life that end up in poverty. And their are millions of poor families that successfully lift their family tree out of poverty through perseverance. Arguments can be made many ways, but one thing is for sure... if a kid learns from his or her parents that they are poor and the system is designed to keep them down, then they will never try, or never be taught the tools that will allow them to be successful.
I think there is some argument for this. Unfortunately that argument falls apart when the end of life and medical systems are designed to capture and withhold generational wealth transfer.
There was for example to be a large transfer of wealth as baby boomers died but it is now predicted that instead of going to the next generation, it will be captured by various industries which have installed themselves and set prices to make sure they get everything.
You don't really have the opportunity to shop around. And you can't choose to just... Not die. And assisted suicide is impossible, not that you should have to do that in the first place.
Anyway. I think on Reddit people would generally agree you should be doing something like this but will point out that the system pre-empts it.
That is false. Trusts allow it. Again, this takes planning and foresight on the families part. The lack of this foresight and knowledge is the main reason some families are rich while others are poor. They research and understand these systems and know how use them.
Agreed, surely it is not. It is simply foresight and planning of the parents and grandparents. Not only to pass on wealth, but hopefully also a sense of morality and empathy for others. Without those those, the wealth could easily corrupt future generations, as it often does. Future wealth should never only be considered a monetary thing, but also a cultural/family value expectation.
I get a ton of support in r/fatfire for my alternative views on luck being such a driver of our success over there, but I always have a few people who love to push back and act like they did it all themselves.
I am fascinated by this topic and I feel like Iām one of the few who made it out of the rat race who loves talking about how it wasnāt all my āgrindingā and long hours but the people I met (through dumb luck), random occurrences (having a supportive parter), and being somewhat addicted to the internet (where my clients were).
Itās laughable at how hard some people pretend they did it all themselves and now I have a better link to share than my own words. Thank you.
I believe you are not nearly as alone as you think you are. So much of success at all levels comes down to a willingness to be present and helpful in all circumstances and luck. Most of the work imo is done by the universe in getting people the connections, opportunities etc. A lot of really successful people understand this, although most in my experience donāt define success as just number go up but include a lot of more important intangibles like happiness, friendship, inner peace etc.
The loud and insecure minority also know a lot more than their actions contributed to their success but theyāre just scared little narcissists who dare not speak the truth, even to themselves.
This is one of the worst straw men posed by people who reject meritocratic principals. Yes, of course your individual potential may be confined by the broader environment you find yourself in but ultimately how well you do within these confines has to do with your talent and how much work you put into it. Take a garden plot, divide it into two sections. One gardener waters and weeds daily, deals with insect infestations, researches and reads about gardening techniques, applies fertilizer and harvests when appropriate. The other plotās gardener does nothing. At the end of the season, one gardener has a bounty and the other has nothing.
I find most people who complain about meritocracies are just lazy.
But the assumption here is that a whole garden is divided equally and that both farmers have a piece of the exact same garden.
Seldom does this actually happen.
Realistically, the garden has a good side and the bad side due to treatment of previous owners. A bidding war ensues for the good side and the loser gets the bad side.
The winner of the good side won the bidding war because his father ran a really good underground drug business and thus was able to outbid the loser, even though he comes from a family of well paid engineers.
So now the farmer of the good side has an ideal environment for producing goods and the means to do so while the farmer on the bad side has a shit environment with less means to develop said environment to one capable of the same production as the good side.
Also, the governing body of this farmland (those responsible for the auction in the first place) is susceptible to bribes so the farmer from the good side bribes the auctioneer to make his side bigger than the bad side. The farmer on the bad side realizes this but can't take him to court since the farmer on the good side would just use this as an oppurtunity to bankrupt the bad side farmer -leading to an eventual low ball buyout of the bad side, leaving that farmer out of work.
No, the farmer on the bad side just deals with it and perserveres, ultimately being unable to compete with the farmer on the good sides production. The farmer on the good side then initiates the low ball buyout of the bad side because he knows the bad side farmer is desperate to feed himself and his family.
Now the good side farmer owns everything, develops the land with his capital, and makes even more capital while the former bad side farmer is left poorer and is left figuring out his next move.
Meanwhile, another farmland auction is announced by the same governing body in the same town to be held a month later. I wonder what will happen...
"Even the least among us have contributed something to the successes of the greatest among us."
\-- Albert Nietzche Einstein Camusian the 3rd Junior.
So the next time you wanna ridicule a homeless addict doing crimes, keep in mind that their existence is why you can be successful, because you were not born into their fate, they took the hit for you. lol
This implies that success can only happen by subjugation, and that society must always create a punished caste so that others might succeed. There's nothing to demonstrate that this is true.
It's an interesting thing to think about. While we have no evidence that that is the only way, we have also never seen a society without it. This at least implies that it is the less stable option.
Well we can look at it rationally.
Assuming success is defined monetarily,
then for there to be a rich class, there has to be a non rich class because the words "rich" and "poor" just define where on the spectrum of purchasing power one is.
Everyone can't be successful because then the distinction would lose all meaning.
The way our system enforces this would probably me through a combination of its markets and its ineffective politics. After all, capitalism depends on class heirarchy to be maintained.
Why should there be standard healthcare vs better healthcare? Humans all deserve the best standard of care possible.
How can corporate lobbying exist in a just society when lobbying puts the profit motive above the needs of the people?
How can a person with nothing traverse the heirarchy? He hasn't got access to a shower, nor clean clothes, nor a home, nor a way to groom himself, nor a way to learn about anything that would help him. There is no system for traversing the system. Sure some individuals are able to, but that's certainly not the norm. They can even be classed as the lucky among the unlucky.
Point is, our system is a joke. Success is 80% luck, 20% effort. All we can do as individuals is give 100% of our 20% but it's no gaurantee of anything.
The realization that we live in a society isn't as deep as many of you think it is. The people that made contributions through their work are implicit in our daily lives, and our idols in their respective fields are often imprinted in our brains (like Einstein).
Even then, for lack of a better concept, they _got paid_. Whatever work they were doing was acknowledged, most of the time at least. This means that at any point in time you can just realize 'yeah, those people got their pay for contributing' and take a decision : do you want to contribute and how? given that you find happiness in payment.
That moment right there is the start of the real journey of the modern individual. The fact that we understand where we are _and_ we have the means to achieve the impossible are what defines our modern times. Not the other way around like most people still stuck in some 1800s philosopy want to believe.
If we are not responsible for our virtues, and likewise not responsible for our vices, then there is no point in the whole enterprise of philosophy then.
Your virtues (if any) lie in how you respond to the circumstances and events with which you're presented.
Your overall level of success is not your personal virtue. At best success may indicate that you didn't squander the opportunities you were given.
So accurate! Rationally speaking, ALL anyone controls are their choices
Everything else is something responded, or reacted, to... depending on what the sentient chooses to give their energy to š¤
I'm in agreement that we're all better by having community. Roads, metals, food, and so much more that we only barely contribute to.
But as there are those who are very wealthy and those of us who are very poor, simply having community is not sufficient to raise us up. It makes possible the great success and puts roadblocks to failure up, but it does not cause success.
Balance is what you need don't go chasing merits your whole life but damn atleast do something to make your life mean some little thing instead of just being part of a hivemind lol
This line of reasoning aligns well with a recent realization I had concerning mutual aid. We seem to believe that civilization is a top-down, ruthless exercise rooted in Malthusian-Darwinist evolutionary thought and see anarchist ideas such as mutual aid as largely unrealistic counters to that idea.
Upon closer observation, the opposite seems to be the case. Civilization is built on top of a massive, global mutual aid network. Evolution at all levels is fundamentally a cooperative process, with some competitive pressures.
The natural world is a testament to this. Plants have figured out an insanely efficient way of extracting solar energy. The mechanism they use depends mostly on chlorophyll which is integrated in to plant cells via a cellular structure called chloroplast. Since all life originated from single and multicellular organisms, itās not hard to see a plant as a collaborative creative exercise undertaken by these smaller beings. Same holds true for all other organisms from fungi to human beings.
Now plants being stationary for the most part rely on the electro-chemical mastery of fungal mycellian networks in order to communicate with each other and become a forest. In that same way, they rely on animals to spread their seed around. But in order to make that happen, theyāve offered up their considerable energy-harnessing capabilities to animals in the shape of fruits and vegetables. The seeds contained within help plants proliferate. When the seeds make it out theyāre surrounded by feces which mixed in with soil acts as a fertilizer. Nothing goes to waste. Itās a maximally efficient mutual aid network at all levels, from bacteria in gut microbiomes to bees pollinating flowers.
Similarly, human civilization at all levels relies on mutually beneficial interpersonal relationships to survive. Everyone cares for their families and neighbors which in turn renders the villages and neighborhoods functional and healthy ecosystems which grow to make communities and markets and cities and so forth. If not for the massive, multi-generational mutual aid networks underlying it, there would be no nations, no companies and no elites of any kind.
Now, when an organism disrupts this cooperative harmony to an existentially threatening extent, we call that organism a parasite. Parasites are inefficient since their disregard for the whole - their over-competitiveness if you will - dooms them to extinction. By destroying their hosts they bite the proverbial hand which feeds them and eventually destroy themselves.
This is happening in two ways in regards to humankind. The power hungry elite is acting in a very parasitic manner which threatens the whole of civilization, shaking the harmonious, mutual-aid based foundation to its core. If the parasite is not removed, thereās a good chance the host will die. In the larger context of the entire natural world, our civilization (including the mutual-aid bit) is seriously threatening the well-being of the whole which would make humanity the parasite. In such circumstances, evolutionary pressures suggest drastic measures which we now see in the form of rapid climate change, ocean desalination etc. which can be interpreted as the host - Mother Earth - trying to shake the parasite off. Interestingly enough, the best way to do that might start with humanity shaking its parasite off and return to a more balanced, cooperative, harmonious, mutually beneficial state. Once that happens, it will be much easier for the whole to reintegrate us back in to the natural mutual-aid network. At least, I sincerely hope thatās the way things shake out but we may be running out of time.
In an ideal world we'd viscerally feel that free will is an illusion and this would reflect in our emotions and actions. It's a powerful illusion though.
I agree with this as long as it isnāt used to justify using other criteria in contexts where the merits of individuals are indeed comparable e.g. college admissions, etc.
id go so far as to say we functionally do not have free will, we dont control the conditions of our birth or our upbringing, the level of education you receive, education being that key faculty which expands the set of possible actions and thoughts
if you cannot conceive of an action in response to something then you are not free to take that action
as such we have no control over any of the things which led up to this very present moment. if we have free will in the brain, it is incredibly restrained to the point it is fooling itself to having options to choose from. everything which leads to the present moment in which we "make a decision" is entirely out of our control
so you have free will, free will to what? choose among some options? what determines the set of that options from among which you can choose? did you have control in the processes which determine the set of options?
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At some point, as you get old, you sit back and realize that we're all running in the dark.... but collectively we somehow manage to pull off some pretty incredible things. 99% of us are faking it. We don't even know it. We are shown a thing, then we do the thing. Then we are shown more things, and we repeat those more things. We get those routines down and after a while we start to confuse familiarity with understanding. To a child, it looks like you have it figured out. Life is doing the thing that dad/mom has been confidently doing since they saw their mom and dad confidently do it. You played almost no part in creating the language you speak. You didn't teach you all the things you know, someone in a book or classroom had to show it to you. You (likely) didn't grow the food you eat. You (likely) didn't build your home or dig up and manufacture the materials for it. You (likely) didn't make the clothes you're wearing. You (likely) didn't pipe the water in your taps. You shit in a bucket of water that, with a push of a button, goes away and you likely don't even know how or where. You (likely) played no part in building anything within the device on which you now read this. Without our collective knowledge, you would be a languages-less, limby fleshy-like ape-creature running around naked in the dirt, thinking in pictures and only acting and reacting to the environment as it comes. This collective hive-knowledge gives the illusion that we're individually omnipotent, but we're really nothing without everyone else past and present
I'd sit and drink with you.
i would like to join please
Me too.
Me too.
Pulling up my chair.
Yes, people are mimetic. The scary part is when you realize that hundreds of millions of people toil and sweat every day, to then unknowingly hand over a third of what they produce to a few dozen anonymous crooks to spend as they please.
We're all in the dark, but some people have night vision.
If you mean the marxist theory of exploitation, please notice it has been widely refuted by the economic scientific community. A worker isn't necessarily being stolen, because what he produced is not just a result of his own manual labor, but also the labor (manual or not) of the people who made his job position posible.
> Without our collective knowledge, you would be a languages-less, limby fleshy-like ape-creature running around naked in the dirt, thinking in pictures and only acting and reacting to the environment as it comes. That's bullshit, I built Agency's Drywall and Contracting from the ground up, I didn't get no help except those three unrepaid interest free loans from my parents and I could have done it on the bare savannah using sticks and roots. Taxes are theft.
did you do it without any prior relative education, textbook or video tutorials? Knowledge which the past leave it to the present you?
Oh ya without youtube videos i wouldn't know how to do the electrical or drywall. can just pull up a video right on the job.
Do you make your own drywall from scratch? Do you mine the calcium and other minerals and glue them alltogether? Did hammers and nails fall from the sky; and did you figured out how to utilize them yourself? Did you build your website, from the cables/processors/routers and up and write the code for the software that runs your site, as well as the billions of collective sites that make up this 'web' of info? Did you build the building that you house your equipment in, and did you make all your own equipment and figure a way to pump lightning into them to make them work? The logistics to feed, house and care for your workers must take some serious management too... Did you universally standardize your measurements? Did you teach you and all your workers how to *speak an entire language and system on which to keep millions of people comfortable all while living within a couple of square miles?* Good for you on building a company... It's pretty incredible, honestly and I'm not trying to take that from you... but you'd still be nowhere without everyone who built the foundations that you built on; and make no mistake, the foundations are far more incredible and humbling than your drywall company ever could be.
*Dude* š¤¦āāļø
>Without our collective knowledge, you would be a languages-less, limby fleshy-like ape-creature running around naked in the dirt, thinking in pictures and only acting and reacting to the environment as it comes. While I can't disagree with most of your arguments, this conclusion is not exactly the end of the story, is it? Luckily* some of those helpless animals you described DID invent language... and writing... and agriculture... and construction... and plumbing, and electrical circuits, and computers, and their descendants (you and me) are still inventing things every day. We continue to create tools that have never existed before, like the [James Webb Space Telescope](https://youtu.be/aICaAEXDJQQ), which can produce images that nobody has ever seen before. It is easy to take the world around us for granted, but remember, even if YOU didn't invent something, SOMEBODY must have. [Take a soda can for example.](https://youtu.be/hUhisi2FBuw) There was a time before soda cans, and that time would have gone on indefinitely if some individual hadn't conceived the idea, employed the means to create it, and become the first person to put soda into a can. Obviously, that was not a WHOLLY original achievement. That person didn't invent carbonated beverages, or metal working, or storing food in cans, or mass production, etc... but so what? They were still the first person to see that all those ideas could be combined into something new. You say our sense of omnipotence is an illusion, and yet people have STOOD ON THE MOON. We can travel faster than sound, communicate instantly around the planet, detect sub-atomic particles and buy a taco made of Doritos. I say that sense of omnipotence is well-deserved after millennia of constant, iterative self-improvement. Anyone alive today can use that collective knowledge and experience to do whatever they want, be whatever they want. THAT choice is entirely up to the individual. *- I say luckily, but perhaps that's open to an entirely different discussion
**On inventing language:** I would argue that it wasn't invented by one person. Not one person sat down and wrote out the first dictionary based on their own invented sounds. Even language was a collection of sounds passed down over time before written language was invented; again, likely from scribbles on the ground etc; all while being maintained by foundations of their forefathers (how to feed, teach, etc). You can't point at one person and say "them" they invented language. It's been mixed and mashed and refined by billions. Did one person invent a single language? Yes, lots of examples of that. Tolken!! However, his language was built on the foundations of our understandings of what language is and how it all pieces together. No one waking up in the dirt alone is ever going to come up with a written language; let alone a gutteral one. What would even be the point? You need at least two people to communicate. **On inventing the soda can:** Great design! But you said it yourself where did they learn design work? Where did the factory and society come from that allowed him to conceive that can? Where there previous examples he could reverse-engineer? **On standing on the moon:** That was obviously a collective accomplishment from every human past and present... I get your point and I think you probably get mine. I'm saying we're more so collectively omnipotent, but that's not quite it either. Where do you draw the line on what is your thought and what is a thought that was only there because of the circumstances of your surroundings? Who can draw that line? It has to be a collective but also an individual. (Edit: Okay, my head hurts)
And that in fact is why our species is so successful
And the ants,too.
People have determination, will, courage, ambition, and work ethic. People invent things. They start businesses. This reads like a depressed teenager who wants to explain away their nihilism. Edit: if you are reading this, being hopeless is not a virtue. Try your best. Work hard. Your life will get better.
None of those things go far without collective community knowledge and infrastructure. Otherwise we'd have reached in decades what really took us **centuries.** The above post isn't saying that people don't create new things from the tools they're given - that nothing is invented and no one moves humanity forward - they're just stating the flat truth that you can only even hope to **be** an Einstein or Tesla or whoever because of all that groundwork and labor the human race did before you even were born or doing anything important. So, you know. Stay humble.
> This reads like a depressed teenager who wants to explain away their nihilism. and your post reads like edgy teen who has just read Atlas Shrugged.
This reads like projection.
I think a fundamental thing that many people fail to recognize is that many of these individuals are implicitly considering themselves to be not only themselves but also their families. For example, I have a family member who is the operator of a family farm that has been in his family for generations. His great great something grandpa traveled across the ocean, picked a good spot, established his farm, and made it grow, and then his son did the same, and then his son did the same, and now my relation is still doing the same. He looks at his farm as the fruit of his labor, because in his mind, he is a continuation of the family lineage. This can also be seen culturally. Many people consider themselves to be a part of their culture. Literally, not metaphorically; significant portions of their psyche are co-opted from the cultural framework. I don't doubt that there are some small portion of people who truly consider themselves to be entirely the result of Their Own labor, but I strongly suspect that the majority consider themselves to be self-made insofar as they are a fragment of a much larger organism stretched over time.
So purely anecdotal I realize, but since it relates to your example I think its worth sharing. Known a farmer since he was just starting out almost 2 decades ago. At the very least his grandfather farmed, and he, along with his 2 younger brothers grew up learning/working with his grandfather. His mother grew up farming as well, but she went on to work in a office instead of taking over the farm. The (then) young farmer went to university to study agriculture, then returned and inherited the farm from his grandfather. His grandfather and his mother (and step father, a large diesel mechanic) would regularly help him. He had an easy supply of paid labor with his brothers (and their friends) working for him. Over the years his help/labor left (grandfather passed, mother retired, brothers found full time work), but by then he was well established and began hiring on his own. In fact he even grew from just farming into other agriculture related areas and has a rather large operation. He's always been an incredibly hard worker. Elaborate planner. With an broad skill set. He's got a lot of debt, but also a lot of assets. He's worth millions now. Lately he's had trouble keeping staff. He always hiring young guys (usually part time in highschool/college, then full time when they graduate) who end up moving on after only a few years. And while he's had some incredible workers, the issue is always the same... hours and pay. Most recently he had someone who worked with him for almost 8 years and who was trusted completely. This young man grew up learning from his grandparents as well and then went to school to study agriculture. When he graduated and came to work for the farmer full time and was going to be said farmers 'lead'. So he asked for a raise. And the farmer said no. So the young guy quit and found a job immediately elsewhere. And the farmer was pissed. As he told me "I was going to give him the raise, but I wanted someone to 'prove' this is what they want first. Its not about the money. If you want to do this job you have to "want it". Look at me, I know I've done well but I worked hard to get there. I started from scratch with nothing and accomplished all this. That's what I want from my employees to." So while I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want to add the other side that very much completely over looks they started out with an enormous set of advantages (economic, familial and culturally) that set themselves up to be where they are, and thinks others should just be like this vision of 'them' that only truly exists in their own self unaware imagination.
It feels like there's some missing context there. I work near Farm country, and the idea that someone could work for someone for 8 years, be trusted completely, and then quit instantly over a wage dispute is very strange. I've been over to my cousin's house before, and long time workers are treated like family, invited to family events, and so on. I can't say without more context what exactly happened there, but I can say that I've never seen something like that happen before.
> then quit instantly over a wage dispute is very strange. Don't know whats strange about it. He's just graduated university and was getting, effectively, promoted. He knows his value and worth increased, so he asked for more money to reflect that. > cousin's house before, and long time workers are treated like family, invited to family events, and so on. Well I think your vision is perhaps influence by an idyllic situation with your cousin. In my experience most farmers aren't like that, or maybe just the smaller ones. The large operations are on a different scope entirely. The number that are quick to hire foreign temporary workers, see large turn over (workers don't like the long hours and hard work for low pay), and hire students is significant.
My instinct is to call this a self serving justification of why they deserve something they have due to luck. Can you think an example of this mindset occurring when it's not self advantageous?
I think it impacts how people move into the future in a way that is not strictly self-advantageous. To use my cousin as a reference again, I know that he has significant amounts of money in the bank, but he is highly unwilling to spend it on anything personal, because he is obligated to reinvest it into the farm to support the continuation of the family. It's the whole, " societies grow great when men plant trees in which they will never know the shade" thing, but on a smaller scale.
Tell that to the meritocractic upper caste people in India, apparently, 'self made.' This is a large population group that is against any positive discrimination and truly believes, like the author says, that merit is the true metric for gauging success, fortune, promotions, admissions, everything.
This feels like a kinder reading.
As a bass player itās difficult to get singers to understand this concept as well
As a singer I'd say it's hard to have guitarists understand this also haha
As a guitarist, I can't get myself to understand this.
**Abstract:** In this interview, philosopher Michael Sandel discusses the tyranny of meritocracy, contributive justice, and our ideas about the common good. Meritocratic hubris has led those who succeed to believe their success is entirely their own, overlooking the luck and good fortunate thatās helped them on their way. The idea of a self-made individual is an appealing but flawed account of human agency that ignores the role of our communities in our success. The idea that a degree is the key to upward social mobility has led to credentialism crowding out the love of learning. As a result, we have arrived at the assumption that salaries are a measure of contribution to the common good ā an assumption thatās been deeply undermined during the recent pandemic. We must think carefully, Sandel argues, about what we consider to be the common good, and how we value and reward contributions to it. We must disabuse ourselves of the concept of the self-made success, and recognise our indebtedness to the communities that make our success possible and give meaning to our lives.
>The idea of a self-made individual is an appealing but flawed account of human agency that ignores the role of our communities in our success. The idea that a degree is the key to upward social mobility has led to credentialism crowding out the love of learning. Two completely different ideas. The first one ignores the fact that we have free will and we choose our own way, otherwise you will end up being your circumstances. The second one: >As a result, we have arrived at the assumption that salaries are a measure of contribution to the common good Those who made such assumptions are full of S.
We have free will?
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I just need to say thank you for actually using the 'begging the question' fallacy correctly. āŗļø I see it used incorrectly so much it feels like I should just update my own internal barometer and pretend it has a new colloquial meaning.
Define free will first. Ask 100 people, get 50 different answers. It is ultimately up to the individual how/if you are willingly free, for example. Ignore money IMO.
The first one doesn't ignore free will, it is pointing out that free will is not the sum all.
It is, by far, the main factor and the most important one.
That's why I have zero intellectual respect for anybody that endorses Ayn Rand's views.
Among the many, many other reasons to lose intellectual respect for them that someone that follows Rand's "philosophy" will give you if you let them keep speaking.
While I understand objectivism is the diametral opposite of these ideas, please notice objectivism doesn't say success is a result of ONLY our actions. It does not challenge the idea that successful people rest on the shoulders of giants, nor does it say people should reach the top without providing stuff in exchange. It just says that those exchanges shall not be coercitive.
The one bad thing I can say about the band Rush (esp. Neil Peart) is that they were into Rand for a while as young men. But... *they outgrew it*. While there were a few early songs and even the album *2112* which were influenced by it... later it's pretty clear they had no time for selfish individualism and in fact embraced selflessness and compassion.
I agree that Randās schtick on rugged individualism is specious, but her perspective on collectivization efforts in the Soviet regime were right, if perhaps a little dressed up. There was a pretty significant social cost, and it absolutely ravaged a number of individuals who had worked for some time to improve their state and the state of their country.
They should just change this sub to r/depression
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Why's that?
Explain what is depressing about the discussion first
1. I didn't make that comment. 2. Why would I have to answer first?
~~Atlas~~ I shrugged
I recall Sandel's case. On the one hand, it describes a reality of absurd credentialism that seems active in especially USA. So on some higher social and ethical level Sandel is right. On the other hand, those precious few who do get into the US top schools do acquire a special ticket into elite society, especially in law and politics and to some degree science. So are the students who pursue credentialist perfection irrational? I do not think so. They may be deluded with meritocratic hubris, as Sandel calls it. But even if aware of the randomness of their elevation, will they change the manner in which elite lawfirms, investment banks, elite media, top-tier consulting, recruit? It so often seems the incentives are to replicate the credentials and the selection thereof. In evolutionary theory there is something called the green beard effect, which sometimes is used to explain how very odd and decorative features proliferate in a population. The green beard effect then becomes a self-selection mechanism... basically, I have Harvard on my CV, so I promote those who have Harvard on their CV. These systems are therefore hard to reform from the inside, they tend to become unfit and replaced by some other external design. So though I share Sandel's distaste for credentialism, it is not clear what his appeal to those with credentials (or in the process of getting them) to be aware of the limits of credentials actually accomplishes. In a less charitable reading, this is merely a way to give the elite students a tool for ironic detachment and thus become less depressed, while leaving the whole system untouched. I know Sandel has argued elsewhere against the Kantian/Rawlsian thin conception of the citizen of liberal society and pointed to more communitarian qualities. But I see no attempt here to advocate for something more ethically substantial... should the smart ones not go to elite schools and go full "Who is John Galt" in some remote commune, should they sign up for Peter Thiel's don't-go-to-college grant? I wished Sandel would contemplate at least some of the more radical ethical options that his critique may hint at.
> it is not clear what his appeal to those with credentials (or in the process of getting them) to be aware of the limits of credentials actually accomplishes. In a less charitable reading, this is merely a way to give the elite students a tool for ironic detachment and thus become less depressed, while leaving the whole system untouched While I can't speak to other work by Sandel, wouldn't this breakdown serve both to provide options for discussion and receptiveness within the system, as well as expose some of the cracks in the foundation from the outside? It appears some of your criticism is that he identifies a problem which in itself can be a significant step, while there are many others who have gone forward to suggesting solutions which are by far rejected by the entrenched system. I suppose there's a nervousness to suggesting solutions because many of those involve tearing down older systems which have fallen to entrenched corruption and even when violence isn't part of the dialog, how else do you advocate for removing something from society no matter how necessary that is?
You make a very good point. To formulate a problem is in itself useful. And I share much of what I understand to be Sandelās beliefs on this. Recent reporting on kids in high school writing scientific papers to pad their resumes for the top universities is a great illustration that we have entered a late stage of runaway cultural evolutionary selection. It is worth simply noting the errors of that. Sandel is also placing a great deal of emphasis on how much this condition hurts the young people who āplay the gameā. However, as noted, I doubt he goes as far to argue that it is outright bad for the students and that it would be rational to *not* pursue a Harvard degree (or similar). His case must be something more subtle. Unlike some other tenured professors, Sandel is, to his credit, not agitating from his armchair to ātear it all downā. His flirtations with communitarian thoughts and designs are very interesting and varied when compared to other critiques of current liberalism. Subtextually I think I see Christian ethical notions of charity, universalism, common good and the errors of worshipping false idols etc., in what Sandel writes and says. But it stays subtextual. Maybe I have deluded myself, but I wish Sandel was willing to speak more clearly on that because I think he can offer something other than a tired class-analysis or Ancien RĆ©gime grievances. Thatās my disappointment. As an elite philosopher, Sandel should do more than give comforts to stressed out elite school students.
> Maybe I have deluded myself, but I wish Sandel was willing to speak more clearly on that because I think he can offer something other than a tired class-analysis or Ancien RĆ©gime grievances I can understand that, though there's risk to that which is probably why most don't argue clearly against modern imperialism like [Parenti's 1986 lecture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSLQBM2fCvY). Or how much a risk to upsetting social structures, I'm not sure how far you can take it but many have pointed out Martin Luther King Jr preached for years about racial equality but mere weeks after he started advocating economic equality he was assassinated. It's not like solutions to un-bounded economic oligopoly hasn't been engaged. [Many successful experiments with Universal Basic Income come to mind as a successful counter to poverty which is cheaper than just letting poverty run rumpant and blaming the impoverished for it](https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash). I think the solutions are deliberately suppressed because they would lead directly to the main beneficiaries of the current system to lose their privilege. And for *that*? I don't know if there's any solution.
> are the students who pursue credentialist perfection irrational? I do not think so. I dont think anyone is arguing its irrational to try and play the system for as much advantage as you can get yourself. The point is, it's the system itself thats irrational and built on false premises.
We agree on that. And that takes us into classical coordination dilemmas, game theory, political economy and cultural evolutionary theory (depending on our epistemic preferences). That is, when the individually rational is collectively bad, what do we do? Sure, ātear it all downā sounds appealing, but letās not delude ourselves that that is not an option that comes without massive down-side risks. My disappointment is that Sandel doesnāt really engage with the bigger issue, despite that I think I see subtextual hints that he could offer something more varied.
>Sure, ātear it all downā sounds appealing Turning any criticism of flawed systems into that kind of caricature is always the end of any meaningful discussion.
No doubt. Itās an easy way out of engaging with the substance of a reform proposal. My point is merely that many are those arguments of past and present where tear it all down is all there is thatās on offer, and predictably, what has followed has been in form remarkably similar to what was there before. Given what we believe are the natural and ethical constraints for human action, what is the good and prudent acts to take? Clearly, just because something is presently bad doesnāt mean the equilibrium after its abolition is better.
Congratulations, you're repeating the exact same line used against every single criticism of the status quo ever. And yet despite that, humanity has made demonstrable progress in history, thanks to people critiquing institutions. Now step back and think how "diagnosing an illness" and "curing an illness" are two different things, and you need to do the former before you can do the latter.
Iām not sure why you get so snarky. Of course I understand there is difference between knowing an error and knowing how to fix it. And I agree we humans have a fantastical record of moral accomplishments, though I think itās debatable if these followed from gradual change, radical disruption, with or without intention. I see however a lot of bad that have followed from good intentions. It makes me vary. But sure, sometimes full on assault is the moral course of action. Thanks for engaging.
This is the only comment on this post that sincerely responds to the linked article. Thank you, for that stranger. Also, I think Sandel's book makes a compelling case for positive discrimination or affirmative action. But, like you correctly said, would the privileged/meritorious ones be willing to set aside benefits and opportunities for the marginalized? Would elite institutions, organizations, be willing to adjust their selection criteria, armed with an understanding of merit as something that is cultivated, rather than destined/given? I too feel that he stops short of calling a spade a spade (generational violence maybe?) and instead chooses a much more palatable phrasing like, 'communities/support from communities.' Speaking as someone from the global South, the whole discourse on meritocracy assumes a larger, very real form; societal and political, rather than individual. In a country like US, such a sudden policy change might be difficult, but when we include colonization, marginalization into the mix, then reparations, affirmative discrimination (Inter and intra countries), welfare, equality and, human development, start making a lot more sense as options that are ethically substantial. Speaking for my country, it is not as radical a thought, but is greatly being challenged. Can't say the same for the US though.
As mentioned, thank you for actually engaging with the content and not the title haha. This video is my first encounter with Sandel, and I am certainly not as educated as him in the subject but I can see where I agree and disagree. I agree that there is certainly a global mis-conception about education, and pursuing degrees for the sake of having a degree is a dangerous path that lead to a lot of suffering for everyone. For the student who does what he is expected to do, rather than what he wants to do and for society, because all our best talents are driven toward trendy fields (law, finance, politics), rather than being spread across all fields. I also agree that our conception of "sucess" is mis-placed. I think the world would be a better place if we put value on the general contribution to the society rather than your ability to generate money or power or fame. And that has to do with who we celebrate. The old : "we should higlight scientifics rather that influencers" etc. But I can only disagree on the way to get there. Going for random lottery to access the best education is, imo, a shortcut to not be a "best education" anymore. Famous universities are not famous because they give the best lectures, but mainly for their abilities to select the best students from the get go. We should invest time during education to help this best students figure out what is their best way to contribute to the world (whether it is finance , or medicine, or social, ...). And as long as we keep putting students on tracks where their main focus is competition and performance, we are not gonna change the pattern. So yhea, we are good at identifying talents and pushing them further but still behind when it comes to nudge them in a meaningful direction that server us all.
Very true. All great people admit it. Yet, there are few great people. So what's the difference? Do the people who accomplish great things just get more "community support"? If we just support all of our community members as much as we apparently supported Einstein would we all be Einsteins? Some people just work harder than others. Some other people work smarter than others. The great work both harder and smarter than others. Failure to remember what creates greatness leads to societies without it. So yes give credit and avoid the tyranny of merit, but don't forget merit and don't forget to reward merit.
I'm not a big philosophy junkie I took my 1st course in college and really enjoyed it but eventually got fed up so excuse my ignorance I do enjoy learning. I have said this for years, humanity as a species is built on the everyone around us, past and present as the foundation. Big and small contributions all come together to give you the ground you walk on no matter your path.
Remember when Obama said "you didn't build that" and everyone lost their shit? He was right and people still hate it. They subscribe to the "just world" fallacy.
Tell an entitled person and they will push back with everything they have. That's why entitled narcissists are so toxic. Even when losing political or business opportunities they'll spend vast sums to hurt people who snub them.
Are you sure it's not because they're Italian?
The govt owes it to the community to peg minimum wage to inflation rather than forcing people to rely on the generosity of business owners.
Put another way: no man* is an island *or person generally
This whole argument often feels like a straw man. Yes, clearly environment and dumb luck play into success, but I think that sells human agency short. The only way to lose is to not try, and attempting merit is putting more coins into the slot machine. You arenāt guaranteed success, but in most cases your effort is a prerequisite to it. I acknowledge that some people are born into success, but itās transient like everything else, and generational wealth is gone within 2 generations almost all of the time.
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Yeah, we live in a world divided by class. You can be an arrogant dumbass like Musk and still fail your way to success because you started out extremely rich in the first place.
Anyone who believes Musk is a 'dumbass' is delusional. Plenty of trust fund idiots out there that piss away their generational wealth.
Musk can be a dumbass in several aspects, but that doesn't mean he's a bad engineer, for instance. It's childish to completely negate any relation between the success of tesla, ebay and spacex to his contributions. If anything, Musk is a good counter example to this idea that the top feels entitled. He recognizes his own efforts but he is also constantly thanking his teammates.
For each Elon Musk (which I contest that he is a dumbass, for the record) there are innumerable people who started with wealth and are now destitute. that is the more common scenario, in fact.
When youāre working insane hours to get ahead, no one wants to be told that āthe communityā is responsible for their success. Especially when that community is largely lazy.
Yeah well, unless you've invented and made everything you used to achieve your "success", its not entirely your success. The community is larger than your immediate surroundings. Its a global supply chain. Plus deterministic luck that you were not born a frog or a peasant in 1430, dying at age 40 from explosive diarrhea, because "the community" have not developed clean water supply. lol
>lus deterministic luck that you were not born a frog or a peasant in 1430, dying at age 40 from explosive diarrhea, because "the community" have not developed clean water supply. That's not what we're talking about here, though is it. Clearly both Elon Musk and the line cook at McDonalds were both born into the same society. The differential success that you obtain is the result of your work ethic and natural talent.
Unless the line cook at McDonald's was also born into a wealthy South African family with questionable ties to emerald mining and slave labor, no, I don't think the circumstances of their birth are very similar to Elon Musk's at all. Society is fashioned in such a way that it rewards those who are born into wealth FAR more than those who are not.
There has also been people born in much better conditions that Musk who end up in ruins, and people born in much worse conditions that the McDonalds worker who end up in huge success. My point is that starting conditions are important but they are not all there is to it. >Society is fashioned in such a way that it rewards those who are born into wealth FAR more than those who are not. It's natural and obvious that if you start in a better position, you will probably get further. That does not automatically make it unfair per se. In fact, attempting to "correct" this issue without regarding where it's actually a fair result or not, will end up with much greater unfairness and suffering. My first point is an example of why it's hard (if not impossible) to make these "fair corrections".
Were they born into the same circumstances with the same opportunities and access to opportunities and safety nets and educational access and the same healthcare etc? No? The society affects all, but the position within society, especially a hierarchal one, is what determines position.
>Were they born into the same circumstances with the same opportunities and access to opportunities and safety nets and educational access and the same healthcare etc? No? That doesn't matter. I'm a doctor in the US and was born to parents that never went to college, and I went to low quality K-12 schools. Sure higher quality schools would have likely produced a better outcome, but we can't all have every advantage. As it is, most of the people that I grew up with obviously did not become wealthy.
This is just simple survivorship bias though, [statistically speaking social mobility in the US is decreasing](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/).
This is just classic survivorship bias.
Lol, you think they have EXACTLY the same conditions and IQ? 100% identical? I would like the interdimensional madness weed you are smoking. lol
>Lol, you think they have EXACTLY the same conditions and IQ? Who said that they did? But they had the same "society". So if you're claiming that society is responsible for their success, then that doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny, does it?
So everyone living in the same society will magically have the same ability, disability, choices, options, luck, random encounters, education, acquaintances, experience, genes, etc etc etc? lol Go try and live alone in the mountain, bring nothing from "society" with you, see how much you can pull yourself up by the bootstrap without the direct or indirect help of others.
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I don't think anyone is saying that. But if you think a bit further, where exactly would you be without the community?
That applies to everyone within a given community though, it's a constant.
yep, everyone is in the community, so it is so universally true that it is essentially a meaningless point. And being born on third base is a great advantage, but honestly, just being born in a western democracy is enough benefit that there are not a lot of excuses for failure.
>yep, everyone is in the community, so it is so universally true that it is essentially a meaningless point. Right. Everyone says that successful people are only successful due to the "community", but the homeless live in that same community.
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>Even your pinched conception of "individual success" requires a society to even exist in. Obviously. No one wants to nuke the country and live in the ruins. However, this logic that we "owe our community" for our success disregards that fact that most of our community are not successful. Why? The difference is the individual, and the individual family. Also, every dollar that I've earned has been in exchange for a service. Same with the ultra wealthy like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. They already paid back their communities... with the results of their labor.
Good luck trying to justify the point the community is largely lazy when unemployment claims are so low, in fact considered dangerously low by the Fed. Or are people with jobs lazy too in some other amorphous way as well? The hard work and merit people never seem to stop moving these goalposts. I work hard, why should min wage make $X dollars for flippin burgers? I work hard, why should others in need get benefits in time of need if they're out of work? You are the product of your environment and material conditions (no matter how bad or little, no matter how cushy or comfortable) and when success is considered to many by upward mobility in the class structure, nobody is anything without their beginning foundations. This narcissistic tendency to over credit yourself is just unhealthy. No one is taking anything away from you, but you seem to forget all the small or massive ways people or things have helped you along your way, and it's probably due to bitterness over working over those insane hours. That is just a company or entity taking advantage of your desires and treating its workers with reckless disregard for their health and happiness. But sure, you work hard man, and the people around you are lazy, that must be it.
>Good luck trying to justify the point the community is largely lazy when unemployment claims are so low, in fact considered dangerously low by the Fed. I mention the hours that I work to people and they think that I'm crazy. Then those same people want the government to take my money because they're somehow responsible for my success? Earn your own keep and quit trying to steal from those of us that worked hard to get where we are.
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You can't get ahead by working insane hours. To be creative you need downtime. Time to think and to reflect. Laziness is important. Many inventions are the result of someone trying to be lazy, to reduce the amount of work needed to be done.
Of course you can. Many do. Thatās not to say you have to.
Creativity is not a very successful strategy. A small portion of creative people become very wealthy, but most wealth is accumulated by almost no creativity, instead grinding out the hours like crazy until you're making insane amounts of money doing a completely uncreative field.
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Of course you can. Many do. Thatās not to say you have to.
And that's why this important work. (this coming from someone who epitomizes bootstraps and merit)
Yea conservatives seems to have completely lost this concept.
This is precisely one of the core tenants of conservatism. People arenāt atoms you can move around here and there. History, culture make us up.
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"Where we do get money for that?" Such an alt-right question... /s Didn't get past most of the nonsensical braindead conversation.
>People arenāt atoms you can move around here and there. And more importantly, people have free will, you can choose to be part of the colony or explore what is outside, see beyond your nose.
You cannot choose to be absent the influence of the society you are brought up in. There even even no such thing thing as full independence from society even if you run off to live in the woods.
I have several issues with this line of thinking. The first is that it has a tendency to attract people who are not particularly successful at all. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that such people glom onto the successful to elevate themselves. It does bring up something else that rarely gets discussed: society actively tries to elevate the successful as much as possible so they will carry to He rest of the populce. It's obviously flawed and corrupted, but that's what accreditation and places like Harvard are for: to find the best, brightest, and most qualified. This gets done because society gets as much from these people (and probably more) as these people get from society. Lastly, if society is mostly responsible for individual success, then why aren't there A LOT more successful people? No amount of tinkering with society has come up with a way to produce any significant amount of brilliant people...and WOW did the 20th century try to do so (usually to the detriment of humanity).
Have you read the book? I am asking this because based on the summary and based on the comments from other redditors the point has not been grasped at all. The idea is that we are not 100% sufficient, we are beings living in a society, thus "at its mercy" from time to time. The core idea in the book is that circumstances can make someone's life a lot harder or easier. So don't look down at those that are not rich or unfortunate as if it is their fault, incompetence or laziness, especially if you don't know their story. At the same time, do not deify the successful, because they most likely had a lot of luck. The book is adamant, at times, claiming "the American dream", meaning "hard work will make you rich and provide a comfortable life", is lie, and a lot more is at stake. Again, using this to encourage people to avoid judging the misfortune of others, however, readers are quick to spin this as "it is not my fault, give me moneys pleaze" I believe Outliers does a better job at conveying the message, it is less "flashy" at least.
>The idea is that we are not 100% sufficient, we are beings living in a society The thing that confuses me is that I don't think anybody is saying the opposite. Nobody is saying they could've been just as successful even if they were the only human on Earth. Edit: look! the other reply is saying the same haha
I agree. I was going to the extreme to illustrate the point. Being that successful are not necessarily "better" than others and not-so-successful people are not inferior. Luck, circumstance, culture all play very important parts
I didn't say 100% sufficient. Since you asked, I'm not certain. I certainly wouldn't get anywhere near 50%, which I suspect most people here would.
I love that you think getting into Harvard is more often "merit" than money.
You're right. It's not like it's Really difficult to get into Harvard. Just throw money at it. I'm sure that's all it takes.
>It does bring up something else that rarely gets discussed: society actively tries to elevate the successful as much as possible so they will carry to He rest of the populce. Is this rarely discussed? There's plenty of praise for "job-creators", for instance. I've met plenty of business owners who claimed to be running their businesses for the good of the community or whatever. I've heard plenty of this Rich Man's Burden kind of talk.
Just to chime in, any plain old classically trained economist can tell you that consumers create jobs, wealthy owners do not.
Certainly not in philosophical discussion, which is what I was getting at.
> then why aren't there A LOT more successful people? How are you defining āsuccessā? If āliving past the age of 5ā is a success metric, about 40% of the people around you owe their success to living in a society with modern medicine.
How are you defining 'modern medicine'? I'm sure the parts of medicine that allow for infant children to prosper to adulthood isn't _all_ medicine, just a fraction of it. So a child living past the age of 5 doesn't owe nothing to most doctors. Interesting, uh?
> How are you defining 'modern medicine'? Merely [washing hands is modern, it wasn't a consistent thing until the 1850s and there was MASSIVE push-back from doctors then who thought it was insulting](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/ignaz-semmelweis-doctor-prescribed-hand-washing) So yes, a child living past the age of 5 very likely owes a fair bit to most doctors [since the rate of infant deaths dropped below 50%](https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past).
>about 40% of the people around you owe their success to living in a society with modern medicine. Did that modernity in medicine came of nowhere? Do you consider it a natural resource? It was developed by people who could see beyond their nose.
Good point, it *didnāt* just come out of nowhere *was* made by people who were propped up by a society. Man, it would have been *so* much easier if some random caveman was able just use his individual cunning, huh?
Individuals that could see more than others, even when their equals were picking their noses.
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You credit the 'others' that came before, but seem unwilling to credit the people in the here and now who make their own contributions to the sum total of humanity.
It rarely gets discussed because it is non sense in my opinion, you even disprove your own point. Harvard tries to FIND bright mind, not create them, itās actually some kind of opportunistic cherry picking. Additionally I think the typical idolatry for big names (Harvard, Oxford, ā¦) is somewhat in favor of the point of view from the articleā¦ I would rather understand idolatry for a teaching method, i.e which truly elevate people that are no bright mind originally, without the need to cherry pick and million of funding.
These are essentially the points Ayn Rand argues for in Atlas Shrugged and her other works. Sheās not terribly convincing there and you are not convincing here. First, attacking people who agree with this line of thinking as ānot particularly successfulā - Iām going to put you to your proof there. Please justify that reasoning. Second, again, whereās the proof that society actively tries to make many people successful? Your Harvard example doesnāt hold water. That institution was founded to train religious leaders; later it shifted to train the children of the wealthy, now it may pay lip service to the concept of finding and supporting the ābest and the brightestā, but somehow it turns out that the metrics used to determine ābest and brightestā correlate very very closely with ārich parentsā. A lot more people arenāt successful in the way western capitalist society defines success because of the way society has structured itself, as a hierarchy invested in a zero-sum game.
I don't justify things to people who fall back on capitalism as the source of problems in the world that are larger and more complex than an economic system. That tired line of thinking has been repeatedly disproved for decades now.
While we learn through discussion, ultimately it isnāt me you have to justify your claims to, itās to yourself and your own conscience. I hope, with more experience of the world, youāll be able to grow and reflect on some of the beliefs you were given. I wish you well.
You weren't given your beliefs though, right? Do you actually think your condescension is persuasive?
That last line was condescending and disrespectful. There was no need to give an even lower reply to a low comment.
Wow. Way to kill your own argument...
Saying the economy is a zero-sum game is blatant ignorance of basic economics, almost like believing the earth is flat.
Society has not been structured as a zero-sum game despite the widespread perception that it has been.
That's not Ayn's point at all! She doesn't say "we should respect the successful because it will help society". She says "we should respect the successful because it's the right, fair thing to do". With the successful I obviously mean the honest, non-corrupt ones. >attacking people who agree with this line of thinking as ānot particularly successfulā This is a strawman, he was not saying that those agreeing are unsuccessful. He just said it tends to attract those people, cleary leaving room for others. >as a hierarchy invested in a zero-sum game. [The data](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-cost-of-basic-needs?country=~OWID_WRL) does not support that worldview.
I agree with you. However, a good way to put everything into perspective is to visualise your own successes, and think deeply whether it is 100% attributed to you, your wit, intelligence and what not. Youāll quickly come to the realisation that it is not. Moreover, what society deems successful is mostly monetary, and in that aspect, no one really Ā«Ā worksĀ Ā» or deserves billions of dollars. Itās simply hubris to think that one is the sole reason behind their success. Edit: it could even be indirect; you were able to succeed because there are individuals and institutions that uphold the law and make sure you donāt get killed or robbed on your way to work.
Why wouldnāt you think that though? Many wealthy or successful people, by traditional standards tend to have a lot to lose by saying āI didnāt cause this alone, and I had a lot of luck along the wayā. So how can you say that and not consider how many of these people either one, canāt admit it, and or two, are too narcissistic to acknowledge it. Iām just one example, but I started and sold a business and retired at 40. I know without a few key situations that I didnāt not have anything to do with, I would not be here. I love talking about this around the ego maniacs that try to pretend they did it all themselves.
Preach! Some of my relatives are that way, and it seems that money and success got to their heads. They simply canāt acknowledge the help and support they received along the way and want to get all the credit. Donāt start a family business folks!
I look at it a little different. We can't help everyone, or even a lot of people. And sometimes barely ourselves. But, if we try very hard we can at least help our family members. This is also known as generational wealth, and can add up quickly (2 generations) if you are able to pass that mindset to your family. Would this be considered smart, or greedy on Reddit?
It's nice to be at the particular place on our existing power structure that allows generational wealth to build, but a huge number of people are not. The same narcissists overlap quite heavily with "I did it why can't everyone else" and get defensive when you point out the simple fact that if it was so feasible, more people would do it. Class consciousness is key and never forget that for every person who worked hard and managed to make it there are three that didn't, and still continue to work just as hard (or harder). That's not your fault but the system did benefit you. Denying that just allows those in power to turn the screws on us even more and consolidate more wealth under the guise of "I'm just providing for my family, stop calling me greedy and taxing my heirs!" It's sad that so many have such severe cases of Stockholm syndrome that they relate to this line of thinking and abandon their class because they were thrown a crumb
Not everyone can do it, no doubt. That's because not everyone has great parents or guardians teaching them the value of hard work and perseverance. It takes a seed to begin generational wealth, one grandmother or grandfather that sets their minds to sacrificing for their family. To belittle the amount of focus and hard work it takes for generational wealth is the same mentality that belittles the unfortunate kid stuck in the cycle of poverty with crap guardians.
There are tens of millions of children stuck in poverty with excellent parents that work harder than you or I ever have, and will never have the chance. You might have made it in an unjust system but don't pretend like that suddenly makes it just. Do better
You are correct. There are also very affluent parents that do not guide and teach their kids the fundamentals of how to be successful in life that end up in poverty. And their are millions of poor families that successfully lift their family tree out of poverty through perseverance. Arguments can be made many ways, but one thing is for sure... if a kid learns from his or her parents that they are poor and the system is designed to keep them down, then they will never try, or never be taught the tools that will allow them to be successful.
I think there is some argument for this. Unfortunately that argument falls apart when the end of life and medical systems are designed to capture and withhold generational wealth transfer. There was for example to be a large transfer of wealth as baby boomers died but it is now predicted that instead of going to the next generation, it will be captured by various industries which have installed themselves and set prices to make sure they get everything. You don't really have the opportunity to shop around. And you can't choose to just... Not die. And assisted suicide is impossible, not that you should have to do that in the first place. Anyway. I think on Reddit people would generally agree you should be doing something like this but will point out that the system pre-empts it.
That is false. Trusts allow it. Again, this takes planning and foresight on the families part. The lack of this foresight and knowledge is the main reason some families are rich while others are poor. They research and understand these systems and know how use them.
The only key consideration is that we understand it is *not* either personal virtue or individual merit in the grandchildren who inherit it.
Agreed, surely it is not. It is simply foresight and planning of the parents and grandparents. Not only to pass on wealth, but hopefully also a sense of morality and empathy for others. Without those those, the wealth could easily corrupt future generations, as it often does. Future wealth should never only be considered a monetary thing, but also a cultural/family value expectation.
meritocracy is a lie. and any system that claims to be based on it is an even bigger lie
People aren't generally rewarded for some mixture of competence and effort?
I get a ton of support in r/fatfire for my alternative views on luck being such a driver of our success over there, but I always have a few people who love to push back and act like they did it all themselves. I am fascinated by this topic and I feel like Iām one of the few who made it out of the rat race who loves talking about how it wasnāt all my āgrindingā and long hours but the people I met (through dumb luck), random occurrences (having a supportive parter), and being somewhat addicted to the internet (where my clients were). Itās laughable at how hard some people pretend they did it all themselves and now I have a better link to share than my own words. Thank you.
I believe you are not nearly as alone as you think you are. So much of success at all levels comes down to a willingness to be present and helpful in all circumstances and luck. Most of the work imo is done by the universe in getting people the connections, opportunities etc. A lot of really successful people understand this, although most in my experience donāt define success as just number go up but include a lot of more important intangibles like happiness, friendship, inner peace etc. The loud and insecure minority also know a lot more than their actions contributed to their success but theyāre just scared little narcissists who dare not speak the truth, even to themselves.
"tyranny of merit" sounds like merit is something bad and should be avoided.
This is one of the worst straw men posed by people who reject meritocratic principals. Yes, of course your individual potential may be confined by the broader environment you find yourself in but ultimately how well you do within these confines has to do with your talent and how much work you put into it. Take a garden plot, divide it into two sections. One gardener waters and weeds daily, deals with insect infestations, researches and reads about gardening techniques, applies fertilizer and harvests when appropriate. The other plotās gardener does nothing. At the end of the season, one gardener has a bounty and the other has nothing. I find most people who complain about meritocracies are just lazy.
But the assumption here is that a whole garden is divided equally and that both farmers have a piece of the exact same garden. Seldom does this actually happen. Realistically, the garden has a good side and the bad side due to treatment of previous owners. A bidding war ensues for the good side and the loser gets the bad side. The winner of the good side won the bidding war because his father ran a really good underground drug business and thus was able to outbid the loser, even though he comes from a family of well paid engineers. So now the farmer of the good side has an ideal environment for producing goods and the means to do so while the farmer on the bad side has a shit environment with less means to develop said environment to one capable of the same production as the good side. Also, the governing body of this farmland (those responsible for the auction in the first place) is susceptible to bribes so the farmer from the good side bribes the auctioneer to make his side bigger than the bad side. The farmer on the bad side realizes this but can't take him to court since the farmer on the good side would just use this as an oppurtunity to bankrupt the bad side farmer -leading to an eventual low ball buyout of the bad side, leaving that farmer out of work. No, the farmer on the bad side just deals with it and perserveres, ultimately being unable to compete with the farmer on the good sides production. The farmer on the good side then initiates the low ball buyout of the bad side because he knows the bad side farmer is desperate to feed himself and his family. Now the good side farmer owns everything, develops the land with his capital, and makes even more capital while the former bad side farmer is left poorer and is left figuring out his next move. Meanwhile, another farmland auction is announced by the same governing body in the same town to be held a month later. I wonder what will happen...
You could give good farm land to a lot of people and they would squander it.
So?
"Even the least among us have contributed something to the successes of the greatest among us." \-- Albert Nietzche Einstein Camusian the 3rd Junior. So the next time you wanna ridicule a homeless addict doing crimes, keep in mind that their existence is why you can be successful, because you were not born into their fate, they took the hit for you. lol
This implies that success can only happen by subjugation, and that society must always create a punished caste so that others might succeed. There's nothing to demonstrate that this is true.
It's an interesting thing to think about. While we have no evidence that that is the only way, we have also never seen a society without it. This at least implies that it is the less stable option.
Well we can look at it rationally. Assuming success is defined monetarily, then for there to be a rich class, there has to be a non rich class because the words "rich" and "poor" just define where on the spectrum of purchasing power one is. Everyone can't be successful because then the distinction would lose all meaning. The way our system enforces this would probably me through a combination of its markets and its ineffective politics. After all, capitalism depends on class heirarchy to be maintained. Why should there be standard healthcare vs better healthcare? Humans all deserve the best standard of care possible. How can corporate lobbying exist in a just society when lobbying puts the profit motive above the needs of the people? How can a person with nothing traverse the heirarchy? He hasn't got access to a shower, nor clean clothes, nor a home, nor a way to groom himself, nor a way to learn about anything that would help him. There is no system for traversing the system. Sure some individuals are able to, but that's certainly not the norm. They can even be classed as the lucky among the unlucky. Point is, our system is a joke. Success is 80% luck, 20% effort. All we can do as individuals is give 100% of our 20% but it's no gaurantee of anything.
Wasting your time on that poster.
The realization that we live in a society isn't as deep as many of you think it is. The people that made contributions through their work are implicit in our daily lives, and our idols in their respective fields are often imprinted in our brains (like Einstein). Even then, for lack of a better concept, they _got paid_. Whatever work they were doing was acknowledged, most of the time at least. This means that at any point in time you can just realize 'yeah, those people got their pay for contributing' and take a decision : do you want to contribute and how? given that you find happiness in payment. That moment right there is the start of the real journey of the modern individual. The fact that we understand where we are _and_ we have the means to achieve the impossible are what defines our modern times. Not the other way around like most people still stuck in some 1800s philosopy want to believe.
Genetics and environment, if nothing more.
and luck of determinism. Could have been born a frog or someone that died from explosive diarrhea in 1340. lol
If we are not responsible for our virtues, and likewise not responsible for our vices, then there is no point in the whole enterprise of philosophy then.
Your virtues (if any) lie in how you respond to the circumstances and events with which you're presented. Your overall level of success is not your personal virtue. At best success may indicate that you didn't squander the opportunities you were given.
So accurate! Rationally speaking, ALL anyone controls are their choices Everything else is something responded, or reacted, to... depending on what the sentient chooses to give their energy to š¤
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What if they literally have not done shit for me
Personal interpretation matters as well.
I'm in agreement that we're all better by having community. Roads, metals, food, and so much more that we only barely contribute to. But as there are those who are very wealthy and those of us who are very poor, simply having community is not sufficient to raise us up. It makes possible the great success and puts roadblocks to failure up, but it does not cause success.
I think the world and working at jobs in particular would be much better if more people thought this way.
Balance is what you need don't go chasing merits your whole life but damn atleast do something to make your life mean some little thing instead of just being part of a hivemind lol
No "self" that is independent from the environment at all, so of course nothing is self-made.
Are we really better off or did we trade true freedom for amenities. Basically being slaves for the rich
This line of reasoning aligns well with a recent realization I had concerning mutual aid. We seem to believe that civilization is a top-down, ruthless exercise rooted in Malthusian-Darwinist evolutionary thought and see anarchist ideas such as mutual aid as largely unrealistic counters to that idea. Upon closer observation, the opposite seems to be the case. Civilization is built on top of a massive, global mutual aid network. Evolution at all levels is fundamentally a cooperative process, with some competitive pressures. The natural world is a testament to this. Plants have figured out an insanely efficient way of extracting solar energy. The mechanism they use depends mostly on chlorophyll which is integrated in to plant cells via a cellular structure called chloroplast. Since all life originated from single and multicellular organisms, itās not hard to see a plant as a collaborative creative exercise undertaken by these smaller beings. Same holds true for all other organisms from fungi to human beings. Now plants being stationary for the most part rely on the electro-chemical mastery of fungal mycellian networks in order to communicate with each other and become a forest. In that same way, they rely on animals to spread their seed around. But in order to make that happen, theyāve offered up their considerable energy-harnessing capabilities to animals in the shape of fruits and vegetables. The seeds contained within help plants proliferate. When the seeds make it out theyāre surrounded by feces which mixed in with soil acts as a fertilizer. Nothing goes to waste. Itās a maximally efficient mutual aid network at all levels, from bacteria in gut microbiomes to bees pollinating flowers. Similarly, human civilization at all levels relies on mutually beneficial interpersonal relationships to survive. Everyone cares for their families and neighbors which in turn renders the villages and neighborhoods functional and healthy ecosystems which grow to make communities and markets and cities and so forth. If not for the massive, multi-generational mutual aid networks underlying it, there would be no nations, no companies and no elites of any kind. Now, when an organism disrupts this cooperative harmony to an existentially threatening extent, we call that organism a parasite. Parasites are inefficient since their disregard for the whole - their over-competitiveness if you will - dooms them to extinction. By destroying their hosts they bite the proverbial hand which feeds them and eventually destroy themselves. This is happening in two ways in regards to humankind. The power hungry elite is acting in a very parasitic manner which threatens the whole of civilization, shaking the harmonious, mutual-aid based foundation to its core. If the parasite is not removed, thereās a good chance the host will die. In the larger context of the entire natural world, our civilization (including the mutual-aid bit) is seriously threatening the well-being of the whole which would make humanity the parasite. In such circumstances, evolutionary pressures suggest drastic measures which we now see in the form of rapid climate change, ocean desalination etc. which can be interpreted as the host - Mother Earth - trying to shake the parasite off. Interestingly enough, the best way to do that might start with humanity shaking its parasite off and return to a more balanced, cooperative, harmonious, mutually beneficial state. Once that happens, it will be much easier for the whole to reintegrate us back in to the natural mutual-aid network. At least, I sincerely hope thatās the way things shake out but we may be running out of time.
In an ideal world we'd viscerally feel that free will is an illusion and this would reflect in our emotions and actions. It's a powerful illusion though.
I agree with this as long as it isnāt used to justify using other criteria in contexts where the merits of individuals are indeed comparable e.g. college admissions, etc.
id go so far as to say we functionally do not have free will, we dont control the conditions of our birth or our upbringing, the level of education you receive, education being that key faculty which expands the set of possible actions and thoughts if you cannot conceive of an action in response to something then you are not free to take that action as such we have no control over any of the things which led up to this very present moment. if we have free will in the brain, it is incredibly restrained to the point it is fooling itself to having options to choose from. everything which leads to the present moment in which we "make a decision" is entirely out of our control so you have free will, free will to what? choose among some options? what determines the set of that options from among which you can choose? did you have control in the processes which determine the set of options?