Some variation is starting conditions for people is both unavoidable and acceptable, but huge differences between two people's conditions simply based on whoever they happened to be born to is not at all acceptable, it is unjust and a waste of valuable resources towards fixing problems that affect people who live in conditions that are unacceptably poor.
Do you believe that, within a merit based society, poor people won't exist?
Do you also believe that a genuine merit based society would be fair to everyone who lives under it?
---------------------
Let us consider a hypothetical genuine merit based society and how it handles personal wealth.
Does it create a line of minimum wealth that all individuals must possess at any given time, and by extension a line of maximum wealth?
If it doesn't, what happens when an individual amasses such wealth that some entity decides is "too much"?
--------------------
Another hypothetical that comes off from the above. How would a genuine merit based society be governed? Could personal freedom of any sort exist within such a society?
Discuss away. I think this is a really juicy topic.
Are we talking merit-based economy only, or everything is merit-based?
Either or. I'm pretty sure a genuine merit-based society cannot help but heavily involve itself within the economy and personal finances anyways, so I don't think one can discuss a merit-based economy without going into the economics of it.
A purely merit-based society would be pretty brutal. What would happen to someone with a severe disability who could not provide for themselves in any way?
A purely merit-based society would be pretty brutal. What would happen to someone with a severe disability who could not provide for themselves in any way?
Merit can be potential, it doesn't have to be realized. A disabled person can be helped in order for them to be able to contribute as well. And very few of them do not have a perfectly decent set of skills in order to fulfill some role, academic perhaps.
The thing about merit is that it is subjective and can easily be context dependent, and so society can decide what it considers to be merit, and which merits counts when.
Let us consider a hypothetical genuine merit based society and how it handles personal wealth.
Does it create a line of minimum wealth that all individuals must possess at any given time, and by extension a line of maximum wealth?
Yes. Wellfare addresses those who don't have enough, and increased tax for those who have more than enough.
Another hypothetical that comes off from the above. How would a genuine merit based society be governed?
Like the one we live in. Society already has a strong basis in merit.
Could personal freedom of any sort exist within such a society?
It would have to, it's part of the giving individuals reward for their merit.
Except in our current system many people get ahead by birth. It is a huge life advantage to be born into money, both in upbringing and in what wealth may be passed on. A purely merit based system would have to address these issues and when you start doing that it looks a little bit like the unholy union of communism and capitalism. I recall strong opinions in a different thread about the estate tax for example.
Merit can be potential, it doesn't have to be realized. A disabled person can be helped in order for them to be able to contribute as well. And very few of them do not have a perfectly decent set of skills in order to fulfill some role, academic perhaps.
The thing about merit is that it is subjective and can easily be context dependent, and so society can decide what it considers to be merit, and which merits counts when.
Friends of mine have a daughter who suffered loss of blood flow to her brain during birth. She can't walk or even stand on her own. Her only form of communication is a set of a few hand signs to signal that she's hungry or whatever. Her mental development is severely limited, and spends her days sitting in her wheelchair fiddling with rubber balls or watching the same few cartoon videos over and over. She requires around-the-clock care from one of her parents, and is simply not capable of making any contribution to society.
What would happen to her in a purely merit-based society?
Do you also believe that a genuine merit based society would be fair to everyone who lives under it?
Yes, by definition.
Merit- "the quality of being good or worthy"
And you find that definition to be perfectly clear, sufficient, unambiguous, and uncontentious?
To piggyback, (assuming a standard 40 hour work week) would the person who finishes a particular week's work in 20 hours (due to inherent ability), and spends 20 hours goofing around, be showing more, less, or equal merit compared to the person who works extremely finishes it in 50 hours, 10 of which should have been their free time?
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I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
Merit can be potential, it doesn't have to be realized. A disabled person can be helped in order for them to be able to contribute as well. And very few of them do not have a perfectly decent set of skills in order to fulfill some role, academic perhaps.
The thing about merit is that it is subjective and can easily be context dependent, and so society can decide what it considers to be merit, and which merits counts when.
How can merit be subjective? The exact worth of something could be debated upon, sure, but the actual fact of whether an action/something is meritorious cannot be. I can't imagine a genuine merit-based society existing otherwise.
Keep in mind, when I write "genuine merit-based society" I mean exactly that- a world wherein an individual's worth is based purely upon their merits.
Now, as Highroller and others have rightly pointed out- the definition of merit is hugely important.
Yes. Wellfare addresses those who don't have enough, and increased tax for those who have more than enough.
This is actually what I wanted to get at-
How do you envision welfare functioning in a genuine merit-based society? Keep in mind, this is a hypothetical world- assume that everyone who is poor at that point is poor BECAUSE of their merit (or lack thereof).
Except in our current system many people get ahead by birth. It is a huge life advantage to be born into money, both in upbringing and in what wealth may be passed on. A purely merit based system would have to address these issues and when you start doing that it looks a little bit like the unholy union of communism and capitalism. I recall strong opinions in a different thread about the estate tax for example.
Indeed!
I don't think a parent could actually raise their own children in a genuine merit-based society. Otherwise the child of a rich man would most decidedly start off in a better position than the child of a poor man.
And that can't really hold in a genuine merit-based society I think.
Do you also believe that a genuine merit based society would be fair to everyone who lives under it?
Yes, by definition.
Merit- "the quality of being good or worthy"
And you find that definition to be perfectly clear, sufficient, unambiguous, and uncontentious?
As I have said, it's a subjective quality to be determined by society. It's morality. Merit here is a more contextual way of saying goodness.
Welfare is explicitly anti-meritocratic. You're redistributing the rewards of merit from people who have demonstrated merit to people who haven't.
No, because the distribution of wealth is otherwise not based on merit, wellfare I used to ensure it is so.
Could personal freedom of any sort exist within such a society?
It would have to, it's part of the giving individuals reward for their merit.
Wait. If freedom is a reword for merit, are you saying that less meritorious people will not be free?
Heard of prison? Again, merit here is not about economic or academic value, it's a utilitarian moral quality.
Merit can be potential, it doesn't have to be realized. A disabled person can be helped in order for them to be able to contribute as well. And very few of them do not have a perfectly decent set of skills in order to fulfill some role, academic perhaps.
The thing about merit is that it is subjective and can easily be context dependent, and so society can decide what it considers to be merit, and which merits counts when.
How can merit be subjective? The exact worth of something could be debated upon, sure, but the actual fact of whether an action/something is meritorious cannot be. I can't imagine a genuine merit-based society existing otherwise.
Keep in mind, when I write "genuine merit-based society" I mean exactly that- a world wherein an individual's worth is based purely upon their merits.
Now, as Highroller and others have rightly pointed out- the definition of merit is hugely important.
It's subjective because merit here is a utilitarian moral quality, meaning that it is dependent on what exactly society wants to be, and from this, the more one contributes to this, the more merit one has, the more on disrupts it, the less. Collective subjectivity is not objectivity.
How do you envision welfare functioning in a genuine merit-based society? Keep in mind, this is a hypothetical world- assume that everyone who is poor at that point is poor BECAUSE of their merit (or lack thereof).
Wellfare makes the genuine merit-based society a genuine merit-based society, it would continue to support those who don't have enough even after the society has entered become actively and practically genuinely merit-based.
Like the one we live in. Society already has a strong basis in merit.
The world we currently live in is most decidedly not based on merit.
So the world we currently live in is not based on the evaluations of goodness and worth? Not entirely, but definitely prominently. I so no sense in a model of society that does not have some idea of people being evaluated in order to decide how they should be treated, on some scale.
I honestly have no idea what this means in relation to my hypothetical.
Controlling how much freedom people have is part of ensuring a meritful society, most importantly in the use of punishments like jail for criminals (which are those who broke laws representing the qualities of merit e.g. not murdering is a merit).
In your hypothetical, can merit be inherited? Does everyone start at the same point?
Whose hypothetical? Mine or the OP's based on my original comments?
At least for my idea, it depends on what you mean by 'inherited' and everyone starts at the same point until they do things to differentiate themselves. For the most part, people will be equal overall.
Are we discussing merit based society or some sort of Brave New World style totalitarian government planned society?
A key problem here is that there is no clear meaning of merit. Are we talking intelligence, power, looks, celebrity? Who determines this? What incentive is there to do anything of worth for society past merely meeting some arbitrary standard?
Also, what exactly about capitalism is not merit based? If anything, it represents pure merit based society, if you consider merit to be providing value to the society as judged by its members. Each market transaction represents this value judgement.
Also, what exactly about capitalism is not merit based? If anything, it represents pure merit based society, if you consider merit to be providing value to the society as judged by its members. Each market transaction represents this value judgement.
Inheritance of money and social standing, both in a positive and negative sense.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Are we discussing merit based society or some sort of Brave New World style totalitarian government planned society?
A key problem here is that there is no clear meaning of merit.
Merit- "the quality of being good or worthy"
And what the qualities of goodness or worthiness are is determined by society, because that's the most meaningful standard.
Also, what exactly about capitalism is not merit based?
Not much. As I have said, society already has a strong basis in merit. Biggest thing is inheritance, which is not balanced enough to be merit based (which is where this whole thing came from- my objection to great variation in inheritance and subsequent support for the estate tax).
That definition pretty open ended, to the point of meaning nothing. Which is the problem. Who determines the content of this? By what process do we assign merit?
Concerning inheritance. I read you to mean that you agree in general that capitalism is largely merit based. Speaking of inheritance, there are a lot of implications to abolishing this that I would probably need a book worth to explore properly.
The implication is a government that has power to confiscate property at point of transaction at their determination (it can't purely be death, otherwise people get around it). Then how that property is disposed of once confiscated is a big question. That governing power necessarily has a huge effect on warping how transactions occur. Those who are influential in the process of directing transactions, confiscations, and redistributions become a central focus of people looking to be "meritous." There are surrounding issues of incentivising certain behaviour depending on the outlays and the direction that effort is aimed at to satisfy merit.
Can you see where this is going? It is impossible to cultivate a merit based society when you setup conditions in which assignment becomes more and more arbitrary in the hands on an all powerful governing structure.
I mean, all of these sterile discussion of merit and goodness sort of ignores basic facts when it comes to human nature. Even stuff as basic as parental concern and the instinctual drive for most people at a biological level to make things as good as possible for their children seems an afterthought. In fact, much the contrary, it's been suggested we have to limit the impact of parenting because it isn't equal. Do you think it is more beneficial for society to preclude people from exercising one of the strongest incentives there is?
In the strive to make all men equal, you will find that you can only make all men equally miserable.
To make a analogy to knowledge. Should we think it unfair that we know more than our fathers did, and therefore to make all fair and equal burn down the products of their labours so that we might start again at their level? Progress in a society requires building upon what we have already accomplished. This is no less true with capital.
That definition pretty open ended, to the point of meaning nothing. Which is the problem. Who determines the content of this?
Society in general, by democracy.
Concerning inheritance. I read you to mean that you agree in general that capitalism is largely merit based.
This is correct.
Speaking of inheritance, there are a lot of implications to abolishing this that I would probably need a book worth to explore properly.
I don't wish to abolish it, I think it should be regulated within acceptable limits.
The implication is a government that has power to confiscate property at point of transaction at their determination (it can't purely be death, otherwise people get around it).
Whether this is made true and to what extent is up to, and would remain up to, society at large. A strong foundation in democracy is extremely important to preventing corruption or dangerous extremism.
What I advocate is still a capitalist democracy, just one more socialist than countries like UK, US and Australia, something much like some European countries. And my political opinions are not strongly established either, it's not an area in which I know enough to be particularly confident.
Point of observation to European countries. They've been able to support vast social redistribution models in no small part because they have had to spend little or nothing on military defence. Since WWII, America had formed the backbone of Western society's protections from aggressive foreign powers.
As I have said, it's a subjective quality to be determined by society. It's morality. Merit here is a more contextual way of saying goodness.
It's not, actually. Merit means worthiness, which doesn't exactly help those of us asking what exactly it means to be worthy of merit. "Worthy of worthiness" is not helpful.
Now, moral goodness is a merit, but it's not the only quality that could be considered meritorious. Suppose merit is determined by one's ability to perform higher mathematics. Or warrior ability.
So we need to establish what merit means, exactly.
As I have said, it's a subjective quality to be determined by society. It's morality. Merit here is a more contextual way of saying goodness.
It's not, actually. Merit means worthiness, which doesn't exactly help those of us asking what exactly it means to be worthy of merit. "Worthy of worthiness" is not helpful.
Now, moral goodness is a merit, but it's not the only quality that could be considered meritorious. Suppose merit is determined by one's ability to perform higher mathematics. Or warrior ability.
So we need to establish what merit means, exactly.
As I have said, it's a subjective quality to be determined by society
Emphasis added.
Merit here is entirely based on what society considers to be good- that's what it means. If having money is considered to make one good, then it's a merit. If not having very much money is considered to make one good, then it's a merit. It doesn't matter what the thing is, merely how society values it. That's why I have been pushing the notion that society already is and should be largely if not entirely based on merit, because I'm using the term to describe the one of the fundamentals of society.
So if you want to know what is meritorious, you take the society in question (which could be all of human society) and examine what the most prevalent values are, not just in terms of what is common, but what is deeply rooted. You could also simply take your own values. Or only those of people you like. Naturally, because this is a subjective quality, there is no such thing as a definitive list of merits, the list varies contextually.
I just want to talk about a merit-based society in general, but to start it off I'll respond to the post that made me make this thread to begin with-
Do you believe that, within a merit based society, poor people won't exist?
Do you also believe that a genuine merit based society would be fair to everyone who lives under it?
---------------------
Let us consider a hypothetical genuine merit based society and how it handles personal wealth.
Does it create a line of minimum wealth that all individuals must possess at any given time, and by extension a line of maximum wealth?
If it doesn't, what happens when an individual amasses such wealth that some entity decides is "too much"?
--------------------
Another hypothetical that comes off from the above. How would a genuine merit based society be governed? Could personal freedom of any sort exist within such a society?
Discuss away. I think this is a really juicy topic.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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Either or. I'm pretty sure a genuine merit-based society cannot help but heavily involve itself within the economy and personal finances anyways, so I don't think one can discuss a merit-based economy without going into the economics of it.
This creates the question of what "merit" means, exactly.
Depends on what "merit" means.
And what "merit-based society" means, for that matter.
No
Yes, by definition.
Merit- "the quality of being good or worthy"
Merit can be potential, it doesn't have to be realized. A disabled person can be helped in order for them to be able to contribute as well. And very few of them do not have a perfectly decent set of skills in order to fulfill some role, academic perhaps.
The thing about merit is that it is subjective and can easily be context dependent, and so society can decide what it considers to be merit, and which merits counts when.
Yes. Wellfare addresses those who don't have enough, and increased tax for those who have more than enough.
Like the one we live in. Society already has a strong basis in merit.
It would have to, it's part of the giving individuals reward for their merit.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Friends of mine have a daughter who suffered loss of blood flow to her brain during birth. She can't walk or even stand on her own. Her only form of communication is a set of a few hand signs to signal that she's hungry or whatever. Her mental development is severely limited, and spends her days sitting in her wheelchair fiddling with rubber balls or watching the same few cartoon videos over and over. She requires around-the-clock care from one of her parents, and is simply not capable of making any contribution to society.
What would happen to her in a purely merit-based society?
Welfare is explicitly anti-meritocratic. You're redistributing the rewards of merit from people who have demonstrated merit to people who haven't.
Wait. If freedom is a reword for merit, are you saying that less meritorious people will not be free?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
How can merit be subjective? The exact worth of something could be debated upon, sure, but the actual fact of whether an action/something is meritorious cannot be. I can't imagine a genuine merit-based society existing otherwise.
Keep in mind, when I write "genuine merit-based society" I mean exactly that- a world wherein an individual's worth is based purely upon their merits.
Now, as Highroller and others have rightly pointed out- the definition of merit is hugely important.
This is actually what I wanted to get at-
How do you envision welfare functioning in a genuine merit-based society? Keep in mind, this is a hypothetical world- assume that everyone who is poor at that point is poor BECAUSE of their merit (or lack thereof).
The world we currently live in is most decidedly not based on merit.
I honestly have no idea what this means in relation to my hypothetical.
Indeed!
I don't think a parent could actually raise their own children in a genuine merit-based society. Otherwise the child of a rich man would most decidedly start off in a better position than the child of a poor man.
And that can't really hold in a genuine merit-based society I think.
As I have said, it's a subjective quality to be determined by society. It's morality. Merit here is a more contextual way of saying goodness.
No, because the distribution of wealth is otherwise not based on merit, wellfare I used to ensure it is so.
Heard of prison? Again, merit here is not about economic or academic value, it's a utilitarian moral quality.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
It's subjective because merit here is a utilitarian moral quality, meaning that it is dependent on what exactly society wants to be, and from this, the more one contributes to this, the more merit one has, the more on disrupts it, the less. Collective subjectivity is not objectivity.
Wellfare makes the genuine merit-based society a genuine merit-based society, it would continue to support those who don't have enough even after the society has entered become actively and practically genuinely merit-based.
So the world we currently live in is not based on the evaluations of goodness and worth? Not entirely, but definitely prominently. I so no sense in a model of society that does not have some idea of people being evaluated in order to decide how they should be treated, on some scale.
Controlling how much freedom people have is part of ensuring a meritful society, most importantly in the use of punishments like jail for criminals (which are those who broke laws representing the qualities of merit e.g. not murdering is a merit).
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Art is life itself.
Whose hypothetical? Mine or the OP's based on my original comments?
At least for my idea, it depends on what you mean by 'inherited' and everyone starts at the same point until they do things to differentiate themselves. For the most part, people will be equal overall.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
A key problem here is that there is no clear meaning of merit. Are we talking intelligence, power, looks, celebrity? Who determines this? What incentive is there to do anything of worth for society past merely meeting some arbitrary standard?
Also, what exactly about capitalism is not merit based? If anything, it represents pure merit based society, if you consider merit to be providing value to the society as judged by its members. Each market transaction represents this value judgement.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Art is life itself.
Merit- "the quality of being good or worthy"
And what the qualities of goodness or worthiness are is determined by society, because that's the most meaningful standard.
Not much. As I have said, society already has a strong basis in merit. Biggest thing is inheritance, which is not balanced enough to be merit based (which is where this whole thing came from- my objection to great variation in inheritance and subsequent support for the estate tax).
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Posting from a mobile, so excuse any typos.
That definition pretty open ended, to the point of meaning nothing. Which is the problem. Who determines the content of this? By what process do we assign merit?
Concerning inheritance. I read you to mean that you agree in general that capitalism is largely merit based. Speaking of inheritance, there are a lot of implications to abolishing this that I would probably need a book worth to explore properly.
The implication is a government that has power to confiscate property at point of transaction at their determination (it can't purely be death, otherwise people get around it). Then how that property is disposed of once confiscated is a big question. That governing power necessarily has a huge effect on warping how transactions occur. Those who are influential in the process of directing transactions, confiscations, and redistributions become a central focus of people looking to be "meritous." There are surrounding issues of incentivising certain behaviour depending on the outlays and the direction that effort is aimed at to satisfy merit.
Can you see where this is going? It is impossible to cultivate a merit based society when you setup conditions in which assignment becomes more and more arbitrary in the hands on an all powerful governing structure.
I mean, all of these sterile discussion of merit and goodness sort of ignores basic facts when it comes to human nature. Even stuff as basic as parental concern and the instinctual drive for most people at a biological level to make things as good as possible for their children seems an afterthought. In fact, much the contrary, it's been suggested we have to limit the impact of parenting because it isn't equal. Do you think it is more beneficial for society to preclude people from exercising one of the strongest incentives there is?
In the strive to make all men equal, you will find that you can only make all men equally miserable.
To make a analogy to knowledge. Should we think it unfair that we know more than our fathers did, and therefore to make all fair and equal burn down the products of their labours so that we might start again at their level? Progress in a society requires building upon what we have already accomplished. This is no less true with capital.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Society in general, by democracy.
This is correct.
I don't wish to abolish it, I think it should be regulated within acceptable limits.
Whether this is made true and to what extent is up to, and would remain up to, society at large. A strong foundation in democracy is extremely important to preventing corruption or dangerous extremism.
What I advocate is still a capitalist democracy, just one more socialist than countries like UK, US and Australia, something much like some European countries. And my political opinions are not strongly established either, it's not an area in which I know enough to be particularly confident.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Now, moral goodness is a merit, but it's not the only quality that could be considered meritorious. Suppose merit is determined by one's ability to perform higher mathematics. Or warrior ability.
So we need to establish what merit means, exactly.
Emphasis added.
Merit here is entirely based on what society considers to be good- that's what it means. If having money is considered to make one good, then it's a merit. If not having very much money is considered to make one good, then it's a merit. It doesn't matter what the thing is, merely how society values it. That's why I have been pushing the notion that society already is and should be largely if not entirely based on merit, because I'm using the term to describe the one of the fundamentals of society.
So if you want to know what is meritorious, you take the society in question (which could be all of human society) and examine what the most prevalent values are, not just in terms of what is common, but what is deeply rooted. You could also simply take your own values. Or only those of people you like. Naturally, because this is a subjective quality, there is no such thing as a definitive list of merits, the list varies contextually.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)