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Nytimes.com have an article on the concept of meritocracy. What caught my attention is the following line:

Part of the problem with meritocracy is that it homogenizes in the name of diversity: It skims the cream from every race and class and population, puts all of the best and brightest through the same educational conveyor belt, and comes out with a ruling class that’s cosmetically diverse but intellectually conformist, and that tends to huddle together rather than spreading out to enrich the country as a whole.

A concentration of talent that huddle together in my humble opinion will impose a certain level of negative impact on geographical area from which these talent were drawn from. On the other hand, there is always the concern of groupthink happening in these meritocratic group.

The article also remind me of the TED talk by Alain de Botton titled: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success over.

To quote the talk:

… if you have talent, and energy and skill, you should get to the top. Nothing should hold you back. It is a beautiful idea. The problem is, if you really believe in a society where those with merit to get to the top, get to the top. You also, by implication, and in a far more nasty way, believe in a society where those who deserved to get to the bottom, also get to the bottom and stay there.

In other words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental, but merited and deserved. And that make failure seem much more crushing….

I do recommend the talk to anyone interested.