7 years ago
7
‘Meritocracy’ Is Just Another Way to Put You Down
Society is in trouble when we start throwing around terms like “the best and the brightest.” By Justin Fox.
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http://www.bloomberg.com
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If you're going to downvote a post at Snapzu, it's best to leave a comment saying why. If you can't be bothered to explain, you can at least tick the reason on a multiple-choice list. To do that, you go to the snap, downvote it, and when the button for the reason comes up, you pick out why. That is, if you have a reason.
Actually, I haven't downvoted a single post yet on Snapzu. The fact that you have to give a reason for a downvote is IMO the biggest advantage of this site overs like Reddit or Voat (setting aside the crowds both places attract).
Every time I think of downvoting, I get to the screen asking for a reason and then I either reply to the post or leave. Most of the time, downvotes do not serve any constructive purpose.
Sometimes you get downvoted, you click the downvotes to find out why, and it turns out you've reposted something. Maybe something that's already at the top of Snapzu, from a better article, with useful sources cited and topical related links and effervescent comment threads. So you're glad to know.
Or if your post is misleading, or paywalled, or linkjacked clickbait blogspam ransomware or whatever… they can be useful signal. Qualified downvotes like those maybe don't affect your reputation, either, because they're meant to be informative for the submitter, not punitive.
What unqualified downvotes really are a lot of the time, I suspect, are accidental taps or clicks, because those buttons are pretty small, but probably less so now the mobile makeover's done.
Either that or, especially on nuanced or informative posts where you're delving into points of view you may not agree with, you get these resentment votes. One user a while ago would reflexively downvote anything that reminded him of anyone on his enemies list, and it was just this endless thing he made up as he went along. That user's no longer here. Not that users like that aren't here any more, mind you.
Some of the best snaps have been ones you weren't meant to agree with. JazzOfAllTrades was always up for those. He'd leave them to smoulder until someone really read it and oxygen would feed the flames. Miss that guy. Hey, out there, Jazzy! (If you're there.)
On balance, it's a good sign if you can gladly upvote a snap with which you strongly disagree but got a lot from.
I can't tell if that was an article or a book report!
However, I am interested in reading other points of view on how others view the topic of meritocracy.
I strongly disagree with statements like the caption, but for the most part, I agree with the tone of the article.
I'm sure the caption was intended to get my attention so maybe it was intentionally out of line for clickbait reasons.
edit: I didn't do any downvoting, fyi.
What? What a terribly written article. The author seems upset about the use of certain words used in certain book titles, but never really makes the case for why "Meritocracy" is bad since he never really clearly defines his terms. On the one hand, he's arguing the words are being used wrong, but on the other hand, those wrong uses don't directly apply to real life as much as it does the book he's panning.
Sounds like someone needed to make a deadline and happened to be reading a book they didn't like. For those of you interested, the definition: "Meritocracy is a political philosophy holding that power should be vested in individuals almost exclusively based on ability and talent. Advancement in such a system is based on performance measured through examination and/or demonstrated achievement in the field where it is implemented." Where this breaks down IRL is, the testing. If people could devise tests to find the next Einstein or Bill Gates or Elon Musk, they would. But these people often emerge later, after standard testing fails them. Merit has to be based on people's actions and achievements and in context based on other variables. You're not going to find an accurate test for this.
I disagree completely. In the U.S. we are suffering a deadly plague of stupid and I don't know if we'll survive it. I'm sure that meritocracy in imperfect but it must be better than the current coterie of fools.
Yet those very some folks’d tell you they are the meritocracy. If you let 'em, they'd move on to how very trying it is for them. Come to think of it, maybe it is best if we don't talk with our betters. We might get ideas above our station.