SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
posted by
n1
on Saturday June 18 2016, @06:20AM
from the in-my-day-we-called-it-social-darwinism dept.
from the in-my-day-we-called-it-social-darwinism dept.
When Michael Young, a British sociologist, coined the term meritocracy in 1958, it was in a dystopian satire. At the time, the world he imagined, in which intelligence fully determined who thrived and who languished, was understood to be predatory, pathological, far-fetched.
Today, however, we’ve almost finished installing such a system, and we have embraced the idea of a meritocracy with few reservations, even treating it as virtuous. That can’t be right. Smart people should feel entitled to make the most of their gift. But they should not reshape society so as to instate giftedness as a universal yardstick of human worth.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
When the Term Meritocracy was Coined in 1958, it was in a Dystopian Satire
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 59 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm wearing PAMPERS!!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @08:12AM
Fact of the matter is some very bright people are attempting to move society past the grind of the ownership class into something hopefully better for even the less than mentally endowed.
Which masturbatory economy are you alluding to here? Basic income? Bitcoin? Robots? Basic income paid in bitcoin by taxing robots? Be more explicit, fuckface.
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Saturday June 18 2016, @08:25AM
Which masturbatory economy
VR porn isn't even here yet.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves (and you just know it's going to be proprietary like marriage).