No, just unworkable.
A meritocracy sounds terrific, but there are two key problems with the idea.
- It’s impossible for anything non-trivial to define the qualifications for a job to determine the “best” in all circumstances, and even if you could do it at one moment the requirements for many jobs change over time.
- Even if you could do #1, it’s impossible to develop and administer testing criteriaobjectively to determine a ranking of who the “best” people are for a position.
I’ve been through a fair number of hiring decisions on both ends of the process, and my experience is that it always breaks down something like this:
- You develop the best reasonable criteria for the job you can, usually relying heavily on “had success doing a similar job in the past”.
- You do a first round of interviews and mostly weed out the people who are obviously unqualified.
- You do a second round of interviews and try to see if anyone really jumps out of the pack. They usually don’t.
- You look at the acceptable candidates and pick the “best” almost entirely by “gut feel”. That’s where all sorts of bias tends to creep in.
https://www.quora.com/q/agoraphilosophy/Is-the-notion-of-a-meritocracy-inherently-unethical-and-or-paradoxical-1?ch=10&share=446ab542&srid=u4smXE
I believe (now) in a universal basic income…and once it’s there, I think it would be unethical and unwise to take it away. Even if you think the economy has recovered, it’s better to overprepare than to underprepare. We’re setting the stage for a future where America is still the main superpower with a bustling economy and happy, employed (or otherwise not impoverished) citizens. A UBI would help immensely to prepare us for a future where technology, illegal immigration (sorry to say, but it’s true) and college graduates unable to get a job have contributed. In a post-Corona world, with companies realizing how few workers they need and that they can cut costs by getting rid of the office and hiring part-timers, we need a good,stable economic plan and almost everyone agrees it would fix things basically immediately. They’re just not willing, fiscally, to take the risk. It’s a shame because other countries are giving their citizens a monthly stipend so their economies don’t tank. It’s definitely a good investment for a country’s future (and it’s not like a third-world country where they can’t afford it), and it’s the ethical thing to do, just like universal healthcare, in order to use whatever taxpayer money we get (hopefully mostly from the rich, and since we have a new Democratic president being sworn into office soon, I’m not worried about the middle and lower classes) as efficiently as possible. Ethically, that means saving lives and ending suffering. Realistically, we can’t use all of our money for third-world countries’ healthcare, but once we get our economy back on track, we’ll be able to contribute more time and money to the effort. In a world economy rampant with sweatshops and outsourced jobs, there will definitely be a small trickle-down effect that could grow if taken care of properly, without legislation being blocked or a Republican president selfishly and unethically trying to get votes or hurriedly fix his past mistakes.
I’d like to see a future where people are so well-off and kind due to post-Corona legislation and a sense that we’re all in this together that they contribute enough to charity that we no longer need to give the UN money to take care of them. Although some people may be angry at the idea of using taxpayer money to save lives, and you can’t save everyone or allocate too high of a percentage to it, saving lives should be a high priority in thinking of how to ethically, efficiently, and in a way people can more or less agree upon, distribute tax revenue. However, like most Libertarian ideals, this is unrealistic and should be considered a point to eventually work your way to and reach (probably by taking risks with your money like by investing in a UBI and infrastructure and by thinking both long-term and short-term like President Trump did when he tried to create more American jobs by ending NAFTA). We’re currently working on green legislation as a long-term project and I’d like to see everyone able to afford an air conditioner before people in Denver are able to go swimming in December. Once healthcare legislation is enacted and we are able to come back from the pandemic I’d like to see more emphasis on saving lives and ending suffering. Everyone knows that maintaining roads saves lives, yet people still selfishly vote against it all the time. They’re more concerned about things that special-interest groups can advertise and lobby for, which means that you have to have a certain number of people (like the difference between a church and a cult) and those interests have to have gained traction with time, passion, or both. I see lots of stuff against drunk driving but not much on road maintenance even though they’re both similar issues. If they collaborated (teaching people about improper road maintenance killing people, etc.) maybe more lives would be saved. I think the country has just grown up a little bit selfish and competitive, and almost half of it is against using taxpayer money to save lives with a healthcare package, even as Corona claims hundreds of thousands of lives. And the divide is more obvious than ever— across states, political affiliations, lines of work, socioeconomic status, ethnic background. And not wearing a mask because it’s a semi-political statement is just dumb. Besides people who don’t wear masks, there are people who think we shouldn’t have a police force to protect people who can’t protect themselves. I wrote previously that I thought we might eventually come to see things like unethical political affiliations as symptomatic of a mental disorder. I thought about it, and now I think that we’ll eventually come to see ourselves as too stupid to take care of ourselves (essentially meriting legislation like Social Security and healthcare insurance regulation), yet too smart to have any kind of mental disorder. We’re just selfish babies when it comes to our priorities in decision-making, and there are all sorts of reasons why. I hope that whoever reads this and agrees with me decides to take action and write a letter or sign a petition. We are smart, yet stupid, and we need not only good politicians but good role models and leaders. Please take time on MLK Jr. Day (the National Day of Service) to think about your effect in the world, past, present, and future, and how you can help, whether it be in a little way or with all your heart and spirit. Thank you for your time.
