"Meritocracy," In-group alignment, and Tribing Up

There has been talk among RW Twitter recently about the dire need for "meritocracy" in present-day America, and its supposed lack being at least partially responsible for our present society's ills. Most of this commentary is written from the POV of (self-identified) talented White men, whom I would humbly lump myself in with.

These talented White men are frustrated because they feel that they have been boxed out of opportunities that would have otherwise been available to them if "meritocracy" still held sway in American society. It's very true that White men - especially talented White men - have been and continue to be discriminated against in American society. But this has not been because of a lack of meritocracy. On the contrary, it has been because of meritocracy being so deeply woven into the American system.

Let's start with a definition of 'meritocracy': "A system in which jobs and positions go to the most qualified individual, based on what they can do rather than on what they are." The second portion of this definition is especially important to understand. In a meritocratic system, individuals are selected based on some property(s) which make them the most qualified (net effective) means to achieve some other end. People are instrumentally valued as a means, rather than valued as an end; either individually as an end, or as a part of an integrated whole - a group of aligned human individuals who understand themselves collectively as an end.

The United States is already deeply meritocratic. In fact, it's the most meritocratic country in the entire world, and it's not even remotely close. It's the main reason why the country is so materially wealthy. But how can this be if it discriminates against its own White men, who are undeniably a valuable reservoir of legitimate talent? Surely there is a contradiction here?

A recent tweet of mine on the matter

It turns out there is no contradiction. The apparent contradiction is due to a confusion about what "meritocracy" is. Most people do not have the above precise definition of meritocracy written out in their heads. In its place, they carry a vague notion that "meritocracy" means something like: "More "talented" (according to their subjective POV) people get better outcomes, because they are "talented" and therefore (intrinsically) Good People." It's actually a moral precept in their minds, rather than an abstract value-neutral optimization principle. In this particular case, this notion translates to: "Meritocracy means that White men should get better outcomes because (I think) they are intrinsically (more) valuable people."

Unfortunately for us talented White men, that's not actually how the world works, as the above screenshot explains. Yes, it's true that there are a lot of currently underutilized talented White guys who would be very useful in various jobs and positions in our society. But it's also true that there's an unlimited supply of foreigners who can fill our academies, white-collar jobs, and blue-collar jobs just fine, and will happily and eagerly do so for a fraction of the price that we are willing to fill the positions for, and with less leverage than we would command in those positions. And this isn't even getting into outsourcing. In the aggregate, do these foreigners perform at a lower level than White men would? Yes, I think it's fair to say that. But the foreigners are a more qualified (net effective) means to achieve some other end rather than just performing their job duties in a vacuum - and that end is making their employers (and the stockholders of their employers) money.

The situation becomes even clearer if you substitute AI (or even pre-AI industrial machinery) for foreign labor. It is not "anti-meritocratic" to spend 1/10th of labor costs on an LLM rather than an experienced White programmer, or on an industrial machine rather than an experienced White craftsman. It's the opposite: it's the essence of meritocracy. And with a bonus: like deracinated foreigners, these labor inputs have no political consciousness and therefore won't politically organize to attempt to protect their own interests over the desired end of making as much money as possible.

There are other parts of the equation (immigrants-as-consumers, immigrants-as-voters, money printing to fund consumption, subsidize "market" wages, and push up asset prices, etc) that fit into the overall understanding of the American system and how and why it's hostile to White men. But I'm not going to go into detail about them here because it would take too long. Intelligent and informed readers can probably fill in the blanks themselves (if not, just ask an LLM).

As a talented (or even untalented) White man, you need to understand: you are a threat to the system, which really is genuinely meritocratic. It will never "deal you in." You implicitly or explicitly understand America to be for "....ourselves and our Posterity," as the Constitution says. But this isn't how everyone else sees it. They see America is a collection of unaligned individuals and groups who are loosely organized around the general principle of "everyone is trying to make as much money as possible." You and your political consciousness are and will always be a threat to that. You want individuals to be selected for jobs and positions as part of a collective end in itself: the good of a homogeneous, aligned (White) in-group society. For yourselves and your posterity. You want the opposite of meritocracy.

So if meritocracy is bad for talented White men, what should we aim for instead? To help answer this, I'm going to use a podcast by 'The Students' that I listened to recently that can be found here. If you don't want to listen, the tl;dr is that it's a couple of White (well, one is Jewish) San Francisco intellectuals talking about how they "made it" in the SF scene and their recommendations for like-minded (talented, intellectual) people who want to do the same.

The entire theme of the podcast is that San Francisco is uniquely desirable because it's the only place in America that is "actually a meritocracy," and so they recommend it as a destination for talented people. But we've already established that all of America is a genuine meritocracy. So what exactly are they referring to when they say that SF is a "meritocracy" and claim that nowhere else in the US is....?

The answer is that they're "guilty" of the same (unconscious) conflation described earlier in this essay, where means are confused with ends, and "meritocracy" becomes a moral precept that describes the common good of facilitating better outcomes for one's own kind. This becomes especially clear during the portions of the talk where they describe the details of how one "makes it" in San Francisco: you put yourself out there, you demonstrate that you're A Fellow San Franciscan and Aligned with them, you make friends and patrons, and then the friends and patrons hook you up with jobs and opportunities because you become accepted and valued as One Of Them. This is described as "meritocracy"(!!). But it's literally the exact opposite of meritocracy. They are describing people being selected and included as ends rather than as means. SF people aren't hooking you up with opportunities because you can adequately perform the duties of a particular job at the lowest market price. They're hooking you up because you getting that opportunity is perceived as good for you, as a person, and therefore by extension good for the collective in-group.

Your first reaction to reading the above paragraph might be that I'm criticizing these people. Not at all! This is extremely healthy and pro-social behavior. I couldn't applaud these people more. This is how a healthy and functional in-group works. And it's how talented White men need to think about the world and about ourselves, too. We need to tribe up as aligned individuals in one geographic area, just as the San Francisco Tribe did.

The San Francisco Tribe didn't start out as a bunch of AI-wealthy professionals. They started out as a ragtag bunch of people who had shared interests in computers, tech, philosophy, and LessWrong "rationalism" epistemics, among other things. They all moved to the same geographic area and through network effects and aligned efforts they were able to grow San Francisco into a cultural and economic powerhouse in their own image. Even if the LLM boom didn't come along, their rise would have been inevitable. They are talented, ambitious people who understand each other as an aligned in-group and act in a collective interest.

Talented White people need to do the same. Some of you may be familiar with "The Butler Plan" - if not, you can look it up. This same idea has been around for a long time already. The San Francisco Tribe successfully executed The Butler Plan marvelously. There's no reason why we can't do it too. In theory, it should actually be easier: Politically self-aware White people share a much tighter alignment by virtue of shared biological and cultural traits, compared to San Franciscans who are aligned only by certain somewhat abstract preferences (I'm actually not at all convinced their alignment will hold in the long run, especially as the conflict and stakes of the AI Age heat up).

I'm not going to suggest the particular location for us to congregate, although the original Butler Plan still seems as good as any. But I can tell you, the talented White guy reading this, that I am 100% sure that this is our best shot. The American meritocratic system is never going to sufficiently reward you based on what you can do. But other people who intrinsically value you for what you are will.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072015)

edit: I actually read it and it's insane. need to address IQ and phenotype if we're talking about meritocracy imo.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072021)

We aren't talking about immigrants when we say we want more meritocracy.. we know they are going to be used to crowd us out and they'll all vote Democrat. they suck. in the long-run they're not meritocratic even if they can Engineer things cheaply for 1 gen. Like they make the overall country suck more (India sucks so a country will suck if they populate it).

your OP reads like it's the perspective of an Indian or some strange kind of admixture.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072064)

people having a really hard time understanding this is the whole reason i wrote this essay

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072083)

it's literally just this not flame

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072101)

i did my best to explain how/why people get confused about this in the essay and how to understand it correctly. but ultimately it's a leap of understanding that an individual has to make themselves. i had a hard time understanding it at first too fwiw

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072093)

it's not. it's much more important for the system to keep white men marginalized to prevent them from politically asserting themselves

https://x.com/TheRealKitty019/status/2088824876014465352

also, there is a lot of this. look at the original tweet, read this person's complaints, and realize that this is what "meritocracy" looks like. boomers hiring useless women in their 20s as sex objects literally is Meritocracy. they don't need or want "talented white men" in these jobs. they want white men to be locked out of contention so they can do what is in that picture

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072113)

there is no real consideration by anyone for long-term consequences. no one cares about "the national debt" or long-term corporate health. it's all just printed money and short term profits

white men want to do things like "pay down the national debt" and "invest in the future" and "reshore manufacturing" because they are the only ones who actually care about the long term future of "america." but all of this stuff would be a disaster in the short term. so they have to be marginalized

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072146)

If meritocracy means meritocracy, it means Women should be Banished to the kitchen

If it means the best QOL LONG-term, it means fewer minorities.

Indians smashed canadas COL into a million pieces and ruined everything. ‘nuff said.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072174)

think about what the US (or any other country) would be like if it was the only country on earth, with no one who exists outside of the country. there would be no potential mass immigration. countries would end up at some equilibrium where they internally selected for merit (long term common good) because they'd have no other choice

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072193)

i also strongly suspect that AA and DEI would not exist to nearly the same degree, possibly not at all, if it wasn't for the possibility of importing foreign labor. firms being forced to find all their labor domestically would cause the market and therefore the political apparatus to behave in much more labor-friendly ways

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50072224)

you guys are doing the thing where you have a vague idea in your head that "meritocracy" necessarily means "selection for the people who i personally think are the most valuable." that's not what it is. it's selection for people who are the best means to an end. colleges do have a coherent set of criteria that they use to select admits to meet their end (having the most desirable student body possible). they just happen to value niggers, women, etc disproportionately highly and white men disproportionately little

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50073099)

i think this is true to some extent. although especially after the trump admin successfully sued them for anti-asian AA, they seem to have shifted to generally pretty academically meritocratic admissions for everyone *except white men*. so the exclusion of white men seems to be motivated by the collective understanding that white men are their political enemies, rather than by considerations about marginal benefit to the in-group

you see some of the same thing in the private sector too. for example, shitlib female HR departments exhibiting preferences for hiring other shitlib women. this is clearly done because of in-group consciousness. there is definitely some of that going on in managerial capitalism (compared to profit-motivated hiring selection)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50073158)

These are Words. They have precise Meanings.

“Merit” is another Word. It also has a precise meaning. Use the words that already exist. You don’t need to change the meanings of Words or use the Wrong Word for No Reason or bc you’re trying to rationalize your cognitive dissonance at being anti-white while still purporting to believe in meritocracy or whatever.

Aristotle distinguished desert from usefulness. Distributive justice, champ. Hayek distinguished merit from value. Even rational-basis review distinguishes whether a classification serves an end from whether the classification is itself meritorious.

Btw, under your own definition your Posts lack Merit btw bc we all think that they suck.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075114)

People think that it's objective. It's not. It's subjective and context-dependent

An Olympic athlete has more merit than a mathematician in the context of hiring for an NFL squad. A mathematician has more merit than an Olympic athlete in the context of hiring for an actuarial position

Do you agree or disagree with this?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075779)

I think that my definition of meritocracy is strictly more precise than your definition, or the popular definition, while maintaining the same directional definition in spirit. And I think that using my definition of meritocracy enables one to model the world more accurately and predict the future better

My definition is especially better once you take into account other factors like compensation. If one doesn't use my definition, and instead uses the popular definition of "meritocracy," you end up with objectively incorrect conclusions like "the restaurant isn't run as a meritocracy because the owner prefers to hire waitress #1 who is 90% as good at waitress tasks as waitress #2, but demands only half of waitress #2's salary." Which isn't true. "Meritocracy" doesn't imply some kind of Platonic Ideal where The Best People just Automatically Get Selected For Their Desired Outcome because they are The Best. It's an optimization principle

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075835)

Same thing with lawyers. Lots of successful lawyers suck at lawyering but are good at networking, managing, etc. If you hired a guy with a big book you wouldn't say that's merit based, because merit refers to his aptitude as a lawyer. Pete Campbell in Mad Men wasn't hired on merit, it was because of connections.

We both agree that a role might include things other than the fundemental duties of that role. And that a candidate can be legitimately the best choice even if they're not the best at doing the specific job they're hired for. But "merit" is used to describe aptitude in doing the job. Otherwise, why is there an explict distinction between something being merit-based or diversity-based? You and I both understand what someone is saying when they say "hired based on merit."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075898)

I don't think there is. Many positions literally have quantitative scoring systems that include a candidate's "diversity rating" as one of the criteria for them being selected. It's just another input in the "meritocratic" process

They are not actually being selected for 'being the best at X task.' They are selected as means to some other end that can be defined more precisely. "Desirable member of student body," "wage employee who can make the most money while meeting diversity criteria," etc

This only disappears when the candidate is treated as an end, as completely aligned with the same end as the selector/judger. Which is why I choose that as the distinction between "meritocratic" and not

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075923)

You know damn well if someone says "He was accepted at Yale based on merit" or "He was promoted based on merit" what that means. You can argue that it should include other things and organizations are altering its meaning, and that may all be true and maybe the definition in this context will change someday for those reasons. But that doesn't change the fact that right now it means what I'm saying.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075939)

URMs (and Women) taking jobs and positions of authority is just contributing to this country’s Ruination as institutions, Cities, and companies that actually need to make things such as Car companies continue to suck and fall into Ruin.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075849)

What if a person did believe that diversity is valuable to an organization?

BUT IT DOESN'T!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075912)

Although I agree that this expands "merit" beyond how it's commonly understood. If an NFL franchise's goal is to make money, signing a popular player that is less talented than other options because he'll sell more jerseys wouldn't be understood as merit-based. That player might be better at advancing the team's true goal, but an NFL team is ostensibly in the business of winning games, and so merit means aptitude in playing football, not marketability.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075136)

But there is a small, yet vocal, segment of white dudes who basically are mad that they can't get ahead doing whatever niche thing they think they should get ahead in. They don't actually adapt to the market in any real way. "It's not fair that I can't get ahead by [insert not very useful thing here.]"

Strangely, or perhaps not, there are a lot of these types in the DSA. People who could very easily improve their own lives with some simple choices, but who would rather try and completely re-orient society from their shithole studio apartments in Brooklyn as a means to ignore their own poor decision making and wasted effort.

A lot of these people have a very strange view of what it takes to actually become successful. Yes, as cowgod has pointed out - phenotype (and clique) are a part of it. But a lot of these people don't ever move beyond "I'm smart and can work hard" (in their view, at least) and towards "I use my efforts in alignment with what delivers value in the actual market" (not just the market as it exists in their minds.)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075869)

Which is why I wrote the section at the end about how you can ***actually*** get good outcomes for your intrinsic qualities: by joining an aligned group of people who see you as an end, not a means. That is what these guys really want. It's what all people want. But they're not going to get it from "meritocratic" Western society, which will never treat them like that

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075882)

I don't even mean "go into the trades" (which is also kind of a meme given it is NOT for everyone), but a lot of these guys are just so convinced of their inherent greatness (despite nothing to show for it) that they won't go work for a Fortune 500 HVAC distributor or some shit.

After all, they Know How The World Works, so why would they stoop so low as to get a job in an actual useful field when they can instead complain online to strangers about how underutilized they are?

If anything, many of them just seem to *think* they want sinecures at Big Tech type firms that go to URMs. As though that would make them any happier.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075919)

This is why actual CEOs like Elon can't stand the Lazy White Guy Engineer and would rather hire a super study azn. He's lamented about how guys who worked for him 10 years ago got rich and retired. White people don't want to work fundamentally. If you could get rich and do nothing like RSF most people would. But immigrants have a drive in them. They don't really know about the good life so they keep their foot on the gas. All of these F500 companies rely on jeets and chinks to do what a white guy won't. It's bizarre pretending like we're all super hard working. We're not. We need jeets to run shit so we can go on vacation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075943)

These same guys triumphantly declare Capitalism to be Morally Good And Necessary btw. And sneer at "Socialists" for being Stupid and Evil

Really makes you think!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50075960)

1). The cost of their credentials is less, allowing them to bid down wages. They can obtain college degrees and advanced degrees for pennies on the dollar at IIT or wherever and then apply for jobs against Americans who have to service tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans.

2). Their pay as a % of retirement COL is way higher than Americans, so the opportunity cost of leaving their job is higher than an American’s. Their savings in a year will fund two or three or ten years of coasting back in their home country, whereas the same $ savings will buy an American a few months.

3). The co tract for their labor breaks heavily in favor of their employer. They can’t leave their job without getting sent back home. They have next to zero negotiating power. Americans can get fired but they can jump jobs without fear of getting deported and starting from zero.

It’s overall a deal that heavily favors American corporations and lightly favors foreign workers at the expense of domestic laborers.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076165)

I do wonder genuinely if there just aren't enough Americans who want to do some of the fucking awful IT "work" these people do. Plenty of white people will work for Accenture or EY or whatever, but who the fuck wants to work at the company *they* outsource to for "code" development.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076197)

The irony is that there is a lot of money to be made in that insanely mundane shit. But it's boring as shit compared to whatever shiny thing of the moment everyone is chasing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076217)

Unless you're independently wealthy you've got some price you'd accept to do mindless drudgery. It's just more than the guy whose alternative is poverty in Mumbai because your alternatives are much more appealing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076232)

But I told myself I would rather work on the oil pipeline than work 1 day in biglaw. I'll never be cut out for it, champ. Swinging a hammer is easier.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076249)

An Indian worker might happily grind that out for an entire career - after all, he is getting a top .1% income relative to where he came from and where he can easily go back to. An American doing such a job would never be able to retire unless he made the bulk of his fortune betting his savings on the stock market, crypto, or sports gambling.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076244)

My POV which may be poorly explained ITT is that a lot of smart white guys who are complaining about meritocracy just ignore vast swathes of the economy and don't take a long enough perspective to their careers. They expect things to either "just happen" or to happen "overnight." Never works that way.

Most success comes from grinding for a long time in one area even when it's not cool or fun to do. Basically it is the opposite of writing bullshit for Twitter/X or Substack. LMAO.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076312)

However, I have to say that I disagree strongly with the idea that white people don't want to work. Huge swathes of the economy are entirely driven by white men. It's just less visible to the popular parts of the internet. Literally thousands of public and PE-owned companies that make or move widgets around are built and led by white guys.

It's just that in the case of a handful of top top companies, they can basically just have their pick of the top GLOBAL talent. Musk can hire whoever the fuck he wants...this isn't the case for the $300m logistics company.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076137)

IMO the most underrated and arguably hard to find skills combine:

1.) Being able to sense where the tides are shifting to; and

2.) Being willing to make decisions around these senses

A lot of people can opine on #1, but few are willing to make decisions with imperfect information in such a way as to take advantage. Because being mediocre instead of Wrong is seen as better than taking a chance and being right in a big way.

It's also why dudes who swing for the fences and miss bigly consistently get capital to go and try again.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076211)

1). You equivocate between meritocracy and economic efficiency. Many people equate the two, but they are actually quite different. There is definitely a case to be made (and you are making it) that businesses are behaving logically within the economic conditions presented to them, but I think a lot of the “meritocracy” proponents are trying to argue that it’s against the long-term interests of a society to underinvest in its most talented members. Eventually it turns into a “Camel Xiangzi” economy.

2). You ignore many real-world examples of economically inefficient non-meritocracy. For example, state and federal governments require a certain percentage of contracts to go to “Disadvantaged Business Entities” (“DBEs”) and “Minority Business Entities” (MBEs”). This is economically inefficient; these businesses generally supply inferior products at a higher cost.

3). You ignore the rationale trumpeted by the anti-meritocracy crowd. Many people in, say, university admissions committees truly believe they are the gatekeepers to a higher quality of life, and they have a moral obligation to correct some historical wrong. They are proudly anti-merit in their choices, revel in punishing people whom they view as being in the wrong tribe, and society harvests no economic benefit as a result of their choices. It’s purely a deadweight loss.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076220)

This is actually the overall point that I was trying to make with the essay, even more so than the breakdown of what exactly "meritocracy" is in practice. White men in the US think there is still an "American society" with a real common good that "we" are all invested in. This is not true. All of their erroneous assumptions and expectations surrounding "meritocracy" are based on this false model of reality

Businesses and institutions will never adjust their operations to favor talented white men because it is holistically better for the collective interest/common good of "society." There is no American society or body politic anymore. The last section of the essay is my personal suggestion for how a body politic made up of aligned white Americans could be formed, along with an example of another group who successfully utilized this strategy in practice

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5893826&forum_id=2...id.#50076242)