Michael Sandel is one of my favorite scholars and public intellectuals. His Justice course at Harvard, which can be watched online for free and in it's entirety, is one of the most thought provoking courses I have ever had the privilege of witnessing in my life. That being said, I cannot agree with his argument here. It is interesting how he denotes biological determinism is not morally praiseworthy in terms of reward determination, however, it just sounds like a latent argument for social equity which, in my view, simply does not align with human nature. If you win the birth lottery, that too, isn't your fault.

An interesting watch nonetheless.

Opening Side of Debate

Didn't think that one all the way through, did he?

His premise is wrong. You can't reward competency correctly without meritocracy.

PeekingDuck said:

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Didn't think that one all the way through, did he?

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I think he did. His argument isn't against merit and competence, it is against rule by merit or meritocracy.

A faulty argument, I agree, but he does support it on the youtube.

I don't even have words for the OP pretending to be a fan of merit based on zhir own posting history.

Meritocracy does not just benefit the individual's competency, it rewards the systems that bring about the most competency. That is why there is a push back to it from the left. The left only wants the results of free markets, hard work ethics, good decision making but without what actually creates those things.

Bill Clinternet said:

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Michael Sandel is one of my favorite scholars and public intellectuals. His Justice course at Harvard, which can be watched online for free and in it's entirety, is one of the most thought provoking courses I have ever had the privilege of witnessing in my life. That being said, I cannot agree with his argument here. It is interesting how he denotes biological determinism is not morally praiseworthy in terms of reward determination, however, it just sounds like a latent argument for social equity which, in my view, simply does not align with human nature. If you win the birth lottery, that too, isn't your fault.

An interesting watch nonetheless.

Opening Side of Debate

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The problem with Sandel, and other political philosophers who moralize equity, is that nature does not operate under such conditions. There are always animals and people with greater natural strength and intellect than others. That is why we have the law, to insure that at least theoretically, that men have equal rights, not equality of outcomes.

You generally want decisions and resources driven towards those most likely to make them competently and employ them to greatest effect and benefit, but also there is some interest in everyone affected having a share in the decision making. Representative democracy helps with this in that the representative chosen is more often than not a more intelligent member of the represented group (though sometimes not) and they do have an interest in representing the interests of their electorate to weigh against their own individual inclinations.

The curse of intelligence is having to be aware you are still beholden to dealing with human stupidity, whereas the stupid are blessed with usually being naively unaware of their condition.

Sure it's unfair to reward those who won the genetic or social lottery. But what's really unfair is to impede another human being in the name of "correcting" for their fortunate positioning. The functional result of that policy - taken to broad application - is to cut the legs out from every person who is likely to be successful in favor of those who will fail.

As soon as you walk away from the theoretical and onto a farm, you realize that there's very good reasoning to pass the operation down to a first born son. Damn what's "fair" for the other children or those who grew up without family land. If you want them all to be able to eat, the "fortunate" one "wins" and life ain't fair.

Bill Clinternet said:

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PeekingDuck said:

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Didn't think that one all the way through, did he?

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I think he did. His argument isn't against merit and competence, it is against rule by merit or meritocracy.

A faulty argument, I agree, but he does support it on the youtube.

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like so many others of his type, his conclusions either ignore or make faulty assumptions about human nature and instinct.

Is he advocating for rule by random selection?

He's an idiot. What he proposes is called Marxism.

Bill Clinternet said:

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PeekingDuck said:

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Didn't think that one all the way through, did he?

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I think he did. His argument isn't against merit and competence, it is against rule by merit or meritocracy.

A faulty argument, I agree, but he does support it on the youtube.

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Any group of people will ultimately come back to meritocracy, given a long enough timeline. Eventually people stop caring about being equitable when they starve. History has born this theory out repeatedly.

Bill Clinternet said:

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Michael Sandel is one of my favorite scholars and public intellectuals. His Justice course at Harvard, which can be watched online for free and in it's entirety, is one of the most thought provoking courses I have ever had the privilege of witnessing in my life. That being said, I cannot agree with his argument here. It is interesting how he denotes biological determinism is not morally praiseworthy in terms of reward determination, however, it just sounds like a latent argument for social equity which, in my view, simply does not align with human nature. If you win the birth lottery, that too, isn't your fault.

An interesting watch nonetheless.

Opening Side of Debate

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I absolutely abhor original posts that do not present the primary points of an article / video.

That is all. You get no debate from me.

Don't know why but this somehow seems related.

In a market of diverse labor resources, meritocracies are how we apply labor efficiently.

If plumbing jobs were assigned at random after graduating from High School and everyone got paid exactly the same, we would all die of dysentery.

If nuclear plant operator positions were assigned in a similar manner, EVERY reactor would melt down.

lb3 said:

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In a market of diverse labor resources, meritocracies are how we apply labor efficiently.

If plumbing jobs were assigned at random after graduating from High School and everyone got paid exactly the same, we would all die of dysentery.

If nuclear plant operator positions were assigned in a similar manner, EVERY reactor would melt down.

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What makes you think we'd have nuclear reactors? Or indoor plumbing?

Meritocracies are the system we use to incentivize the most gifted people to take on enormously stressful jobs that benefit society as a whole. If you do away with meritocracy, then 2/3 of your very brightest are going to quit to go work at Starbucks and get drunk on the beach every evening. You think anybody is putting up with the Amazon hustle culture for market pay?

This is not difficult or revolutionary logic - Just ask a random white collar stranger if he'd quit his job if he was given a paycut.

Sounds like your favorite scholar/public intellectual is another high IQ dumbass who can't mentally walk through the consequences of his stupid ideas.