"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],#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],#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],#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],#50072083)

it's literally just this not flame

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