This article caught my eye, not least because I have a (very) fraught relationship with my ~elite educational~ background and IQ score. But I wanted to add something to this understanding of assessing meritocracy based on a variety of factors and context-dependent usefulness, it's something I wrote about a while back actually, and that's turning our whole notion of meritocracy sideways.

Meritocracy, as we typically conceive of it, exists on a kind of graph where a Y-axis of "power/money/esteem/privilege" is allocated based on an X-axis variable of "individual person's merit." But this isn't the only way to imagine it. You can also have a meritocratic competition for the best method of allocation. So rather than the competition space being built on the question "what individual has the merit to deserve these resources and opportunities?" it can be built on the question "what system of resource and opportunity distribution has the most merit?"

Then, rather than attempting to compare individuals with entirely different skillsets, abilities and contexts to employ them in, we can explore the more useful question of what our system itself values. I see this arising now in the U.S. with the difference in value systems of self-proclaimed democratic socialists versus the individualist value system of modern capitalism. The fact that we're these more meta-level debates about "what kind of economy is best for our country" gives meritocracy a whole new meaning.

Cheers for writing, that was a good read as usual