A consistent theme I encounter when observing and interacting with people is the idea that life is meritocratic - the spoils of life go to best person, good people are victorious, talent eventually shines through, “just put in the work”, etc.
It is objectively known that life is not meritocratic, whether it’s career success or the dating; initial advantages, connections, satisficing, luck, power law nature of opportunities (i.e. the Mathew Effect) and more play a big role in determining the outcome. Fitness is merely just one variable in the equation that creates reality. I won’t belabour this any further . Check out Veritasium’s video on the topic, it makes a good attempt at exploring the skill vs luck debate.
So, if the world isn’t meritocratic, why do so many of us believe it to be so? Here are my hunches.
- Logic: At the outset, the simplest reason we think the world is meritocratic is because it seems logical and natural. Of course, X won because they are the best at it. Such an easy to grasp explanation . Winner = Best person.
The way we execute this heuristic in practise is ex post facto rationalising success by mentally assigning talent. We humans are not rational, we are rationalisers . Alibaba succeeds and of course Jack Ma is now the most brilliant businessman of the 21st century. Easy explanation.
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken
- Reductive storytelling: Until now where we can record entire human lives and put them up for universal access, it was impossible to get the full picture of someone’s journey. It is now possible, but we still don’t do it . Due to limited time and attention spans, we rely on stories.
Stories are constructed ex post facto and full of survivorship bias. In hindsight, suddenly all the dots connect, and it looks like a lovely fairytale. We edit out all the unsavoury parts that don’t fit the narrative arc.
This is also related to our desire for myths. As evidenced by the popularity of religion and narrative franchises (games, movies, TV shows, cartoons, etc.), we humans really want stories of heroes, villains, cute companions all coming together neatly in thrilling narrative arc.
- School system: OK now I think we’re coming to the real culprit. The school system is a communist and religious utopia. Everybody wears the same clothes, is treated equally, and has to follow the same rules . Talk of greed, violence, sexual attraction is banished, instead a toy model of the world is fed to you.
Using David Epsteins framework, we can see that school is kind domain with clear rules and immediate feedback. Life, however, is a wicked domain plagued with invisible rules and delayed feedback.
For 20 or so years (if you are fortunate enough to get an education), you are coached into playing games in a kind domain leaving you badly underprepared for the real world. That’s why many people get a belief shock about the weirdness, ambiguity and cruelty of the real world . Many never take their blinders off and continue operating naively like they are in school.
- Human desire for fairness: Related to our desire for myths, we humans have an innate and universal sense of fairness (this is not a social construct, it biological and programmed in our genes). We want things to be nice, fair, and beautiful . We want a utopia. We want everyone to have a fair shot, we want the world to be meritocratic.
However, the idea of the world being a meritocracy is a convenient load-bearing fiction. Just like “All men are created are equal”, it is something that is
- Objectively not true
- We wish was true
- Used as an assumption by many social/political/legal structures
Reality is that the universe is indifferent, nature is cruel, power law dynamics exist, and you can violate every law except for the second law of thermodynamics.