Complex systems won't survive the competency crises.

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

"In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea that individuals should be systematically evaluated and selected based on their ability rather than wealth, class, or political connections, led to significant changes in selection techniques at all levels of American society. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) revolutionized college admissions by allowing elite universities to find and recruit talented students from beyond the boarding schools of New England. Following the adoption of the SAT, aptitude tests such as Wonderlic (1936), Graduate Record Examination (1936), Army General Classification Test (1941), and Law School Admission Test (1948) swept the United States. Spurred on by the demands of two world wars, this system of institutional management electrified the Tennessee Valley, created the first atom bomb, invented the transistor, and put a man on the moon.

"By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement. During the period from 1961 to 1972, a series of Supreme Court rulings, executive orders, and laws—most critically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—put meritocracy and the new political imperative of protected-group diversity on a collision course. Administrative law judges have accepted statistically observable disparities in outcomes between groups as prima facie evidence of illegal discrimination. The result has been clear: any time meritocracy and diversity come into direct conflict, diversity must take priority.

"The resulting norms have steadily eroded institutional competency, causing America’s complex systems to fail with increasing regularity. In the language of a systems theorist, by decreasing the competency of the actors within the system, formerly stable systems have begun to experience normal accidents at a rate that is faster than the system can adapt. The prognosis is harsh but clear: either selection for competence will return or America will experience devolution to more primitive forms of civilization and loss of geopolitical power."

https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/06/01/complex-systems-wont-survive-the-competence-crisis/


When any standard will do, a low one is just as good as a high one and easier to achieve.


When your goal is to choose people by skin color, religion or economic status, you're most certainly going to discourage those to whom meritocracy still matters. Ironicaly Asians are regarded as "white" in this effort.

I did a search on "Meritocracy" and even at DuckDuckGo, it was just pages and pages of disparaging links towards meritocracy, and the biggest drawback is that it's labeled "Racist." Mayor Pete is saying that Conservatives are targeting the sexual weirdos because of their extremism, and guess what? Parents have been added to the big list of extremist groups for challenging the woke nonsense. The people boycotting Bug Light, Target and the Dodgers and now being labeled as terrorists too (parents again). The woke better wake up. The tail cannot way the dog for long.

The wheels on the bus don't go round and round when they have been stolen and your bus left up on blocks.

 

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

Just read over at Breitbart where The Wall Street Journal (hidden from me: paywall) is warning C-Suite Executives that continuing to go woke is going to cost them their bonuses. Probably an opinion piece since like so many organization, their C-Suite Executives have taken their news division in an increasingly woke, Progressive direction.

Pull Quote:

"Over the past decade, companies have become more vocal on causes such as immigration, voting access, abortion, gay rights and racial equity, often taking stances shared by progressives. Many executives said they felt pushed by employees or customers to express an opinion on issues rippling through society.

"What is changing now, executives and corporate advisers said, is that conservative groups and political leaders are pushing back against companies more forcefully. Consumers are also more openly expressing frustration that companies are airing views in ways some don’t welcome."

 

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

In examining the Competency Crises, I have to think that that is one of the driving factors of all the bad science and flawed, poorly peer-reviewed papers that we have been subjected to in the name of Progressive woke desired goals and outcomes. Running with the lemming crowd and chasing tax dollars has eradicated a lot of the integrity, prestige and respect in the sciences, the last bastion of Competency. Who would have thought that the idiots would have been able to make such great inroads in the hard sciences. Hell, even math has been declared "Racist" just like meritocracy. For example: Using the 1619 Project to teach minority math skills using reparations as the basic post-racial uniting calculus of your education.

 

[RoryN]

It's a multi-post, multi-paragraph crybaby whine about "woke".

There; saved everyone 5 minutes.

 

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

Schadenfreude

Dr. Karen Johnson (see, I told you) [a black progressive ] was let go from her position as the director of Washington state’s Office of Equity....

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as “Going the Full Karen.” And as you can tell from the above statements, this Karen was no whitey-come-lately, bob-haired suburban soccer mom with a Lexus SUV in the driveway, a BLM sign in the window, a Pride flag on the porch, and a “In This House We Believe” sign on the lawn. So at least we’re shattering some racial stereotypes. In addition to receiving messages from God, Johnson also tried to compare her team to “The Avengers” from the movie series of the same name. But, apparently, she also held that some of her “Avengers” were not quite up to speed. According to The Center Square, she said during her interview that her staff “did not have the skill set needed to operate with emotional maturity. Her staff operated like they needed a boss to tell them what to do. They could not operate at the speed of trust with character and competence.” One can perhaps understand why her staff was less than enthusiastic about the job. In addition to her comments, Johnson also frequently demanded that they work long hours, from early morning into the night and on weekends. The Office of Equity had a turnover rate of 29%, and everyone who ran screaming to the exit “attributed their decision to leave, at least in part, to a chaotic, overburdened, and disrespectful workplace culture created by Dr. Johnson.”

[Can we say competency crises in the equity office? ]

 

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

It's a multi-post, multi-paragraph crybaby whine about "woke".

There; saved everyone 5 minutes.

Another Progressive "Deep Think" reply.

PS - WHere's the serious charge of Racism?

 

[IrezumiKiss]

It's a multi-post, multi-paragraph crybaby whine about "woke".

There; saved everyone 5 minutes.

 

[Chobham]

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Just from the demographic perspective there aren't enough X'ers to replace the boomers that are leaving the work force and the X'ers are the last generation inculcated with the precepts of meritocracy. The Millennials and the Y'ers are thoroughly steeped in the 'entitlement' mentality, the generations of the "Participation Trophies."

Universities nationwide are lowering, and in some cases doing away with, entrance requirements. This in turn has put enormous burdens on the professors. They now have to lower their testing standards or run the risk of being labeled as 'racist, and/or being accused of practicing discrimination thereby lowering the quality of the product they're churning out. A sign of this is the fact that graduates of Tier I schools, such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. are now being subjected to a thorough vetting process before employment whereas in the past the mere presence of the degree was all that was needed. The offshoot of this is that graduates of Tier II schools that still hold to some standards are getting shots at top level entry positions.

Then, of course, is the growing proclivity of employers to offer positions to individuals due to their possessing some attribute that is totally unrelated to their ability to function at an acceptable, let alone superior, level in their assigned job. This does not bode well for anyone.

It's no secret that Musk laid off a ton of engineers when he took over Twitter. He made the cuts by asking one simple question, "What have you accomplished in the past year?" As far as anyone can tell those cuts were made on the basis of performance and no other unrelated attribute. There are other companies in certain sectors that still operate on those principles giving some hope for the future. Maybe the trend will catch on before it's too late.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

Americans love sports. Sports are a true meritocracy. Except for what is now happening to women's sports were the playing field has been equitably re-leveled in favor of letting men knock women around.

Now, some people might suggest that women's sports has a significant number of Lesbians who lean a little more progressive and we have some recent examples of aging Lesbians on their way out of their sports arguing that the men should be allowed in, in the name of the culture wars to deny competent women their opportunities to excel in athletics.

We see the military decrying how "the haters" are refusing to enlist in the new, woke military. A more "inclusive" military where excelling matters less than kowtowing to the new social norms where what you look like and identify as is more important than being a soldier at arms.

We see parents labeled at terrorists because they refuse to accept their children be indoctrinated in transgenderism and the most recent attack on parents by AntiFa when they tried to protest in California was reported as the parents being the trouble, insisting that they instead of the Left, the terroristic hard Left and antiFa not be the ones to raise their children.

The hidden gem, unreported by MSM outlets, is that those parents were traditionally Conservative Armenians and Muslims who in the past supported Democrats, because that's what minorities do in order to fight white supremacism and oppression, and their policies, but are now being forced to give that a rethink as the radical element of the party they supported are telling them that they must not only surrender their way of life, but their children.

So, basically what the Left is arguing for is Idiocracy over Meritocracy.

And Rory and Izzy have just proven to be perfect examples of the Progressive/egalitarian/incompetent Science that would have us water our fields with Brawndo because it has electrolytes...

 

[VinnyVeritas]

Target, Anheuser-Busch and the Dodgers are getting hammered by catering to the insane clown pose that is the logical ridiculous logical outcome of a Civil Rights movement that was so successful that the only battles that it could fight were on the extreme margins, even if it means normalizing mental illness and traumatizing children and terrorizing their families.

As competency is attacked, incivility becomes the norm of the day, the mark of the movement, the purview of The True Believer (Eric Hoffer). If you don't go along to get along we will go to war with you. But, that very vocal, very mean and very Socialist minority, is just that, a minority. A child with a stick attacking a hornet's nest and the woke are waking up the hornets (majority) to fight back.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

There's a reason that the US keeps falling behind "the civilized countries" in education and innovation.

There's a reason that we have to worry about China's emergence.

Meritocracy vs Idiocracy.

Equality of outcome.

 

[Chobham]

There's a reason that the US keeps falling behind "the civilized countries" in education and innovation.

There's a reason that we have to worry about China's emergence.

Meritocracy vs Idiocracy.

Equality of outcome.

Lowering standards is NOT giving those that are lagging behind a chance to 'catch up.' It merely allows those that were ahead to begin with an opportunity to be lazy.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

And then you turn college into a right and throw a lot of money at it forcing you to lower standards and eliminate competition, testing, grades, etc.

Dumbing down higher education in the name of diversity and shutting out the achievers to include those unprepared for or just not mentally fit for higher education and when they fail, you don't blame the policy, you find a boogyman like white supremacy/oppression or the male Patriarchy or simply hate/fear.

Then you take and offer all those students of studies programs that never held any promise of paying off with student loan debt forgiveness and pass on the cost of failure to the taxpayer.

We see it in High Schools now, eliminating valedictorians because it hurts the self-esteem of those unable, or unwilling, to make the grade. And those who feelings are hurt aren't told to buck up and work harder, they're given a list of other people (races, religions) and things to blame for them not being co-valedictorians.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

"The word 'infrastructure' has been discredited in recent years. Leftist politicians, the same ones who claim speech is violence, and violence is speech, have decided 'infrastructure' now includes everything from social programs and social justice to woke curricula in public schools.

"But the less exploited and more precise definition of infrastructure is in reference to the physical assets constituting the essential foundation of any civilization: starting with roads, reservoirs, and power plants. The word infrastructure screams 'wonk,' and just the sound of it sends most people scurrying for more scintillating political pastures.

"Our disinclination to engage with what may already be a tedious topic because it lacks the sex appeal and urgency of, say, debating the pros and cons of encouraging third graders to explore their gender identities, has consequences. It means that debate regarding the future of infrastructure, and hence the fate of our civilization, is denied the centrality required to stimulate an optimal outcome."

Edward Ring, American Greatness

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/07/infrastructure-choices-matter/

 

[Chobham]

"Victims" are NEVER at fault. Funny thing though, no matter where they point their crooked little fingers they're still failures.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

And when they vote to oppress and punish those who "victimize" them, they never like the unintended consequences. Ask the sanctuary cities/states who voted for open borders.

Or in a couple of years, ask those vowing to burn down Cop City if they achieved the goals they thought they would...

 

[Chobham]

Arm up and keep your powder dry.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

Arm up and keep your powder dry.

You realize that thanks to the Idiocracy Effect that means sleeves are out of fashion and every man should keep his makeup in his gender-neutral purse.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

But Brawndo is in. Everything in it is good for you!

 

[Chobham]

I just got to wondering how many of these mass murderer's went down that road when they realized that they were failures and decided to lash out as opposed to doing the civilized thing and committing suicide? Just a thought.

 

[Chernosoth]

The solution in progress is we become too poor to afford so many office drones, the lawyers, consultants, secretaries, etc. We will need more skilled workers doing more physical labor as we lose global shipping and most of the manufacturing to rising energy costs. They can learn their skills in apprenticeships, trade schools, community workshops, etc.

 

[Chobham]

The solution in progress is we become too poor to afford so many office drones, the lawyers, consultants, secretaries, etc. We will need more skilled workers doing more physical labor as we lose global shipping and most of the manufacturing to rising energy costs. They can learn their skills in apprenticeships, trade schools, community workshops, etc.

You're right but the path there is going to be ugly and disruptive.

Mike Rowe is the most visible face of encouraging men to get into the trades and the drop in college enrollment among men reflects that.

The nation as a whole is going to learn an abject lesson in 'trickle down economics.' The larger cities are being depopulated of the very workers you spoke of. This is going to have a profound effect on all of those goods and service providers that cater to those workers and the facilities that they use.

This is also going to force a change in what young women consider to be a 'quality' man. *chuckle*

 

[DeluxAuto]

Has Vinny AKA Marcvs mentioned that he's a minority or a Libertarian in this thread yet? If not - does it really exist?

 

[ll74]

I like Mike Rowe. Good guy who understands that trades are losing out on good hard-working people who are t aware that they exist.

This isn't a war of urban versus rural except in the right's head.

 

[Chobham]

I like Mike Rowe. Good guy who understands that trades are losing out on good hard-working people who are t aware that they exist.

This isn't a war of urban versus rural except in the right's head.

That is you projecting. No one has said that it is/was. Skilled trades are required everywhere.