[FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

[Marcus Daniels]

Yes, but so what?   If there is a lottery system for top universities (per the abstract), how is that substantially different from just viewing individuals a cluster of particles in the expanding universe?   It’s one kind of luck or another.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2020 11:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

More luck.  Luck isn't the only thing but it's important.  Nick Hanauer says that years ago he had a couple million to invest and he was presented with a couple of venture capital opportunities.  He had no idea which to choose so he essentially flipped a coin.  His choice was Amazon and he's now a multi-billionaire.
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 11:56 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com<mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
Taking the view that success is nothing more than an outcome of a random percolation process, the individuals on the `winning’ end of that percolation process are significantly different from the people that got stuck somehow.   They have more skills, more knowledge, more contacts, more experience.  Yes there are arguable counter examples:  PhDs that do management and lose their technical edge, or individuals that are too specialized to do anything very useful.    But by in large it is helpful to be around people that study and solve hard problems for a living and accumulate expertise.   If it is a given that there are only so many slots available or needed for highly-skilled people in a society, then whether there is `justice’ for that selection isn’t really related to merit as a thing (versus as a process).   What’s really needed to get more people through some kind of enriching percolation process is a *demand* for it – huge numbers of open, positions that will participate in creating diverse services people want to pay for.   Then the various kinds of organizations that provide appropriate support for learning can adapt to that need.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of thompnickson2 at gmail.com<mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2020 10:28 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

This should do it!

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-j-sandel/the-tyranny-of-merit/

The thesis is that “meritocracy” is the cause of the fact that the us is now the least socially mobile country among the western democracies.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com<mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/



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