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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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While I understand the idea that distributive justice can be separated partially or fully from meritocratic selection, such that both run separately, "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs" doesn't work when the thing being distributed is the status that comes from being in charge of . Hence the Enemy at the Gates speech.

Even leaving aside incentives, which are necessary to ensure that ambitious people are choosing to put their efforts into getting good at s we actually need and make us happy, people want to be honored, put in charge. And they will find ways to turn being honored and put in charge into other material rewards.

So in the end, I don't think there are two forms of meritocracy, either people deserve things they get or they don't. There's a certain level of baseline humanity, but beyond that it's all status, you can equalize pay people will still fight just as bitterly over status. Sayre's law: "Campus politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small"