5161

I don’t believe that what you quoted there is saying that being rich means you have merit.

Rather, it is the advantages conveyed by wealth, and the disadvantages conveyed by the lack thereof, which may result in a person developing into a person who is more or less competitive.

It’s not the wealth of lack thereof which defines their merit. But it makes it easier or harder to engage in meritorious behavior.

5162

Fixed that for you. There are other measures of merit. Van Gogh died a poor wretch, and is yet still hailed as one of the greatest artists of all time. Ditto Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde and many others who have had led much more meritorious lives than the wealthy of their times.

5163

I would argue that the reason for that was that society did not recognize their merit while they were alive. That is, the issue was not that merit was not rewarded with wealth at those points in history, but rather that society did not deem their actions meritorious at that point, for one reason or another. If Van Gogh had been discovered and recognized while he were alive, he would have died a rich man, as his works are now worth millions.

It’s a fair point though, that out highlights the fact that society does not always immediately recognize merit, and that failure to recognize or enable greatness will result in meritorious conduct not resulting in wealth gain and success, eroding the notion of a meritocracy.

It reminds me of the case of Philo Farnsworth, who invented the idea of a using a scanning electron beam to render a signal as an image, which led to all modern display technology based on CRTs. He invented and patented the idea, but RCA refused to pay him for it. He didn’t have the means to bring it to market himself, and rather than paying him for his idea, RCA tried for years to find another way to do it. They failed, but ended up just waiting for his patent to expire, then took his idea and marketed it. He had the idea, but basically got screwed because he didn’t have the means to leverage it.

This is why modern funding mechanisms like crowdfunding, or software marketplaces that make it easy for developers to get a product to consumers without a large publisher, are such awesome enablers

5164

Timex, there are two main problems with your reasoning.

First, the market does not assign “merit”. It assigns prices. While the values assigned by the market are often similar to the value assessed by society, there is no guarantee this will be so. In fact, nearly all economists agree that market failures exist: situations in which the values assigned by the market are not what they should be. For instance, the market assigns a high value to methamphetamine cooks, because they make a product that millions of consumers are willing to pay a lot for. And it assigns low value to basic science research, because few consumers want to pay for it themselves. But the market does not have the final word, so these failures are identified and corrected using another, more final standard of value.

Second, capitalism is a system of allocating resources. But meritocracy, like democracy, aristocracy, and theocracy, is a system of assigning power to leaders. The purposes are orthogonal, because a market can choose its leaders however it wants. In a public company, leaders are chosen because of their popularity, using democratic (or oligarchic) means. In a family run business, leaders are chosen through nepotism. And in a Silicon Valley startup, they might be chosen because of their ability or credentials (ie meritocracy). There is nothing about capitalism that intrinsically favors the latter.

5165

Lovecraft!

5166

Capitalism isn’t political, even though there are politicians that oppose it. The desire to make more money inherently favors merit, which is why merit is so highly valued in a capitalist system, and why more opportunities to financially succeed will exist in a freer economic system.

Anyway, back to this thread’s topic. How about the backlash to the DOOM violence? I do find it weird how these games are marketed based upon gore and violence - it looks really weird, and offputting, to see corporate officer-types laud and cheer gore.

5167

Maybe I’m just getting old, but over the top violence for the sake of violence seems kind of juvenile at this point.

I’m not really upset about it, or think it’s somehow damaging. Certainly it’s not like violence hasn’t captured the American market for ages. Remember the original Robocop?

But it just seemed kind of “meh”. I mean, OK. Doom. I’ve seen this game before. Why should i care about this any more?

5168

Merit is just one part of the equation. It’s sort of like saying, “getting successfully elected inherently favors merit.” But it also favors connections, wealth, and plain old nepotism.

We have a democracy. But did GW Bush achieve political success because of his family? His ability? His wealth? His connections?
We have a market economy. But did GW Bush become a senior executive for the Texas Rangers baseball team because of his family? His ability? His wealth? His connections?

They are all factors, and there is no good way to disentangle them.

Anyway, I agree with you about Doom.

5169

Also more opportunities for corruption and abuse of the system. I would actually say the desire to make money might actually hamper merit, since there seems to be faster ways to achieve it than directly through merit. As magnet says, society doesn’t necessarily value merit.

Money can be, I agree, a consequence of recognized merit, but I doubt it’s really one of the main causes for it (it’s a factor, for sure, but I doubt how important).

As for DOOM 4, I don’t mind people protesting the violence either, although I personally feel just indifferent towards it. It makes sense that people object to those kind of experience being one of most marketed, and lauded. It brings absolutely nothing to the table. I think it says a lot about how infantile the medium -or a section of the audience- still is.

5170

And you are describing a system where hereditary wealth or social status is a determinant in an individual’s success rather than merit. Not a meritocracy.

5171

If you can make some delicious soda, but the next one you make taste different, capitalism have not much use for your “merit”.
But if you can produce 200.000/hour soda bottles, where the taste is very inferior but still good, capitalism has a job for you.

20.000 slaves is better than 4 artisans. Slaves are easy to train, easy to replace, they produce a measurable quantity of work, they are easy to extract more work with more whipping. They have not bargaining power how wealth is distributed. They build pyramids, stuff that is just the same work repeatedly.

4 artisans are hard to capitalize, one of them can be sick and maybe that reduce the workpower from 100% to 5% or 75% or 0%. They all can agree to ask for a raise, so the next day you have to pay 25% more. They have bargaining power to decide how wealth is distribute. They build small palaces and crafty cathedrals.

For capitalism, slavery of ignorant people is better than high skilled artisans.

5172

Well, to be clear, I’m describing a system where hereditary wealth is a determinant in whether an individual develops meritorious behavior patterns, which then lead to success. That is in fact still a meritocracy.

Actually, value IS in fact determined by price. They are in fact the same thing. This may not be the thread for a discussion of value theory, but whatever, this thread’s trash anyway.

In fact, nearly all economists agree that market failures exist: situations in which the values assigned by the market are not what they should be.

While there are certainly events which can be described as “market failures”, the issue is never really that the prices determined by the market are “wrong”. Because such a statement presumes that there is some other “right” value which the market does not reflect. But that assumption is wholely unsubstantiated. It’s an imaginary notion which is totally impossible to derive. How are you determining what that “correct” value is? Why is that determination better than the market’s? There are no good answers to these questions, which is why all non-market-based value theories fail miserably at determining value.

For instance, the market assigns a high value to methamphetamine cooks, because they make a product that millions of consumers are willing to pay a lot for. And it assigns low value to basic science research, because few consumers want to pay for it themselves.

And you think that’s incorrect? Why?

Those meth cooks are providing a service that millions of people want. While you, personally, may not find value in their services, your personal opinion is not omniscient or more valid.

But the market does not have the final word, so these failures are identified and corrected using another, more final standard of value.

Again… what is that “more final standard of value”? You’re making a common mistake here in presupposing that there is some sort of inherent value in objects.

Second, capitalism is a system of allocating resources. But meritocracy, like democracy, aristocracy, and theocracy, is a system of assigning power to leaders. The purposes are orthogonal, because a market can choose its leaders however it wants. In a public company, leaders are chosen because of their popularity, using democratic (or oligarchic) means. In a family run business, leaders are chosen through nepotism. And in a Silicon Valley startup, they might be chosen because of their ability or credentials (ie meritocracy). There is nothing about capitalism that intrinsically favors the latter.

Well, there kind of is, in that if leaders are chosen poorly, instead of through an ability to effectively run a business, then it ultimately detracts from that business’ ability to operate effectively. This will eventually cause it to lose marketshare to companies which are operated in a more effective manner, comparatively.

5173

Well, Timex, I think many of us disagree with that description. But I get your point.

5174

If we could just classify games according to more granular genres maybe we wouldn’t spend so much time worrying about Doom4 as a game.

Movies have “torture porn”, so how about “gore porn”. Some people like the genre and others don’t but at least it doesn’t have to represent the entire market of games - just like Saw 4 is not representative of all movies.

5175

Stop trying to remain on topic! We finally managed to stop this discussion.

5176

lol… when I started writing that last post about value theory, at first I was like, “Man, this is so far off topic”

But then I noticed what thread it was, and was like, “Oh wait, this is the GG thread? Fuck this thread.”

5177

No it isn’t. Maybe it has meritocratic elements, but the advantages conferred by hereditary wealth or social status are anti-meritocratic pretty much by definition.

5178

Well, no, not really… because you’re talking about ways in which people develop meritorious behavior.
All the definition of a meritocracy relates to is that you are JUDGED based upon that behavior.

Lest someone confuse my intention here, this is really a purely semantic distinction. I do not dispute the fact that, due to advantages that allow some people to more easily develop meritorious behavior, the system certainly has significant elements of unfairness. I think that’s what you’re focusing on, as the notion of a meritocracy often implies fairness, when in this case it doesn’t.

It merely illustrates that even in a system which rewards meritorious behavior, you can still have unfairness and inequality by unequally enabling different people to develop meritorious behavior which they will eventually be rewarded for.

5179

Which is anti-meritocratic. It’s like saying that a democracy that only allows the 10% wealthiest segment of the population to vote is still a democracy.

5180

Well, to be fair to Timex, it’s like saying that a democracy where 55% of the people are not forbidden to vote, but they have soft impediments to it (for example, elections on work days and no day off because of them, and strict polling station times that correlate to work hours) is still a Democracy. Now, if you start stretching this, things start becoming complicated even in some of the countries we live in.

To be clear, I agree with you and I think Timex is stretching the definition to make it fit the randomly shaped hole he sees, but there’s an interesting question here, when defining societies and what political and economic systems they represent, on wether a society is defined by its ideals and laws or by the practical situation on the ground. And I don’t think there’s an easy answer.