A lot of my posts are centered around skill gaps and skill development, because that is an interest area for me personally and professionally. And because of this, there are questions of merit that get raised, where most people believe that people should be rewarded based on their merits, though they often only want this when they themselves are fit for the evaluative categories - or their interest areas.
For instance, most want their doctor to be there based on their merit for the role, and most people want to see their favorite sport played by the people who are the best in the business. This is merit based, but it is also skill based, which means that natural talent and ability to develop skills like IQ, physical prowess, emotional stability are factors. The challenge is not in the testing of suitability for the role, it is in the pipeline to get to the test itself, as that can vary greatly.
The US Supreme Court recently voted to end "Affirmative Action" practices, which gives preference to some groups of students over other groups students to get into higher education based on their race. This was designed to combat the problem of discrimination on race and race-based pipeline inequality, by altering the testing parameters at the end point. However, this has also led to handicapping some groups of "overperforming" students based on their race, which is creating discrimination on race and race-based pipeline inequality. What this means is,
Affirmative Action failed.
Because, it is codified to be discriminatory by design, based on race. It also failed to account for other races that might also have similar reasons to be given more opportunity, or merit.
It isn't the policy's fault that it failed, it is our fault. Sure, this might sound like a US problem, but since I have never been there and have been discriminated against my entire life based on my race, I know it is not. The failure is in our inability to see past race to begin with, which is why there is a pipeline inequality in the first place. We can look at the laws to balance things, but if we aren't personally codified to be non-race-based discriminatory, the laws will always fail.
But, admitting that this is a failure in the US might start people taking the real journey to understand the and start to develop strategies to deal with the real problems - our human systems that keep applying value to arbitrary, surface level attributes, like skin color, or eye shape.
But to do this, it isn't about changing the tests at the end of the pipeline, it is about improving the quality of the pipeline itself. Yet, this raises problems, because while people are so focused on some of the surface levels, they are not recognizing that they are discriminating on other aspects, that may be even more arbitrary.
While conservatives might be celebrating the downfall of Affirmative Action and that it will lead to a merit-based system, they aren't necessarily recognizing if they themselves are the ones with the merit - at least when it comes to things like those entry tests to get into university. For a lot of the academic areas in the US, Asian backgrounds tend to have the highest scores and would gain many of the positions. If you want to have the best basketball players however, should they be required to pass a math test of any kind?
Should someone entering into a dance school have to be able to play the clarinet as well?
And then, this raises other questions about merit, doesn't it? For instance, in Finland, I don't have the same rights as a Finn, because I am not a citizen. However, what does that matter in terms of a meritocracy? If people believe that a strong economy leads to a better community, and a strong economy is driven by the people with the skills to develop, innovate and grow, what does citizenship have to do with it?
If we look at the pipeline for me to have got into a position of a middle-class position in Finland in comparison to the average Finn, it was far harder for me. However, what does this say in terms of merit for those who are unemployed, even after being given a lot of opportunity and are now being supported in part, by me, a foreigner who has less rights in the country than they do?
This raises more questions about nationalism also, since it is an arbitrary indicator for citizenship rights, considering that the majority of people are born with the label already, by chance. Nationalism is cronyism for the most part, but the only people who have actually "earned" their citizenship, are foreigners who came to the country and passed the relevant tests, including financial means testing.
The other day, I used the example in a post about picking teams at school, where two captains would choose one person each until there was no one left. However, who they choose is going to depend on the game they are looking to play and win, right? If the game is football, the selections might be different to if it is a gymnastics team, or for a math competition.
My friend Matthew was brilliant at math, but he was super uncoordinated on the basketball court.
Which merit has value?
And this is an interesting question to consider, because obviously, it is situational. However, to get into university, there are standardized tests for many of the courses, even if they don't offer any insight into the ability to perform on their respective field of play.
“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
While the genius Einstein never said that, at least part of it is true, just not the first sentence. Not everyone is a genius, unless we change what we attribute to genius, which is being able to do something of value incredibly well. Most of us are at best, average at most things and likely above average in very, very few. However, it is the "of value" that is important to recognize, because while we all have different definitions of what is valuable, there must be some kind of consistency, right?
But, while standardized testing might seem consistent, it isn't consistent by the definition of the endgoal. The goal of education isn't to get educated for the sake of it, it is to be able to perform a particular role past that education, supported by that education. If the education isn't supporting the endgoal role, it is failing. If the testing and acceptance process isn't filtering for the most suited, it is failing. But, if the pipeline isn't being developed to increase the quality of applicant, no matter the arbitrary factors like skin color,
Society itself is failing.
WE are failing.
We also have to face that we are all prejudiced in some ways, because that is the only way to navigate our world. However, each of us should spend some time reflecting on why we are prejudiced on various aspects and whether our behaviors are leading us to the outcomes we want. If our own preferences are holding us back from being our best, or if the are holding back others from being their best, we might want to think about rearranging our habits to better align with the outcomes we want to see in the world, and for ourselves.
In the coming years and looking at the trajectory of technology, we are going to be more capable of leveling playing fields in many aspects of education, as we can essentially lower the bar for entry, because quality of education and position, will matter less. What value is a Harvard education, other than name value?
If we are looking at the merit of educational institutions, most of them are a crony system in itself, with companies like law firms "only hiring from Harvard" or tech companies, "only hiring from MIT", as if the name of the institution defines the quality of the applicant and the value they can bring. There is some sense to this due to the strict exclusion systems they have in place for acceptance, but it also filters out a lot of potentially higher value people who have more merit, but didn't get the opportunity to even apply or, were tested on aspects that aren't relevant to the future role.
However, most people will not see the discrimination in these systems that look to combat discrimination, because they don't actually want to face the consequences of not having them. Take away the arbitrary rules that sort society and base it on merit alone, and many people are going to fail far more than they think they would and some people will benefit. However, if we lived in a world where there was increasing opportunity being built into the pipeline, over time, the process would lead to far better quality outcomes, that are far better suited to the application for the requirements of the role, where people who are best suited, can shine doing what they are good at.
If however, they want to pivot and try something else, that is fine too, but this will mean that human difference is going to play more of a factor and someone who is not naturally talented with the propensity to improve easily in a given field, will have to work harder in order to compete in that field. There is no way around this, but that is okay, because it means that there can be skill diversity that causes innovation to flourish through different perspectives and compounding factors.
In time, the argument about education will fall away, because of automation taking many of the roles that are being educated for and, accessibility to good education decreasing in price to approach zero, where pretty much everyone will have the support they need from early stages to follow the path they choose. Classrooms are no longer a limiting factor in this, so what they are doing is creating artificial scarcity through application and arbitrary factors like, who's parents went to the school prior, or who has a parent willing to pay more than another. Yet, even in places with largely free education like Finland, there are still massive differences in outcomes, because people are different, regardless of their skin color.
One of the things that attracts me to crypto is the "borderless" nature of it, where it isn't tied to a particular nation, because I see nations as arbitrary lines on a map, not something to be celebrated or fought for. What I do think we should be fighting for is increased wellbeing for humans in society, no matter what they look like, or where they are from. Yet, because humans are always looking to identify themselves with a particular group and then fight for that group, it isn't going to likely ever see a resolution, because we like exclusivity, we like division.
We want to belong.
And the easiest way to belong is basing our group identity on something that we have, but don't have to earn. Something that actually has zero merit toward anything that is meaningful to our wellbeing, but we can use as a sorting mechanism to exclude others.
But, people won't spend time thinking about these things, yet they will be outraged or celebrating the dissolution of things like Affirmative Action, without considering what ramifications they have down the road. And this is the problem, because down the road is the pipeline for the future, and if we aren't improving the journey, we aren't going to get to where we want to be.
As far as I know, I have never been the recipient of any benefits based on my skin color, but I have been the subject of a lot of prejudice. Some people would be bitter because of this, I see myself as better due to it. Not better than others, but a better version of myself. Someone who has a little more merit than they would have had, had they had an easier journey. It doesn't count in the test to get into a university, but it does count toward improving my life experience, as I feel like I have faced challenge, earned my place and have an impact on my own life.
Isn't that what we would want for everyone?
The other thing I like about crypto is that it has an inbuilt process that will be able to move the ascribing of value away from the centralized authorities and institutions like education systems, into decentralized environments using metrics that are the same for all. As this spreads to more aspects of our cultural mindset and starts earlier along the journey through increasingly advancing systems, we get a far more realistic view of what is valuable and what is not and, skin color will eventually amount to very little.
What holds us back however, is all the attention and resources we apply to useless arbitrary discussions and edge cases, instead of getting to the core of the matter, and improving the foundations of society from the ground up. It takes a lot of work to demolish and rebuild better, so most people would rather apply another coat of paint, or change the front door instead, regardless of the impact it makes on the fundamentals.
Human nature is not only prejudiced, it is also lazy to action to change -
Unless forced.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]