Playing the Career Game
Thu, Aug 31
In today's lecture, we'll be discussing the meritocracy, the idea that success in society is organized around demonstrated abilities and merit as opposed to heredity or some other arbitrary criteria. Specifically, we are interested in how the meritocracy manifests itself in higher education and the tech industry.
We have four main in-class learning goals. By the end of the lecture today you will:
- Be familiar with several possible origins for the rise of the meritocracy in the tech industry.
- Understand the arguments made in favor of the meritocratic regime, as they relate to economic productivity and personal well-being.
- Understand the arguments made against the meritocratic regime, as they relate to personal well-being, the integrity of communities, and overall human flourishing.
- Know that it is possible to think about alternatives to the meritocratic structure.
The slides for today's lecture.
Read This:
Paul Graham on creativity, time, and success in technology: Hackers and Painters
Daniel Makovits on the social cost of the meritocracy: How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition
Arthur C. Brooks on the choices we now make in life: 'Success Addicts' Choose Being Special Over Being Happy
Coraline Ehmke on what happens when the meritocracy and open source software collide: The Dehumanizing Myth of the Meritocracy
A proposal for a different set of values and principles in open source software development: The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto
There's a lot of great recent writing examining different aspects of the meritocracy. Remarkably, nothing has changed as of yet when it comes to achieving professional success. If you're interested in a deeper dive, take a look at these optional readings:
Paul Graham: How to Work Hard
Jospeh Reagle: Naive Meritocracy and the Meanings of Myth
Alice Marwick: Silicon Valley Isn't a Meritocracy. And it's Dangerous to Hero-Worship Entrepreneurs
Timothy B. Lee: The Capital of Meritocracy is Silicon Valley, Not Wall Street
Blake Smith: The Woke Meritocracy
Megan Garber: The Perils of Meritocracy
Kristen Dalli: Being More Educated May not Make you More Satisfied with Your Job, Study Finds
Ross Douthat: The Real White Fragility: Does the White Upper Class Feel Exhausted and Oppressed by Meritocracy?
David Brooks: How the Bobos Broke America
Do This:
Reminder: Writing Reflection 00
Writing Reflection 00 is due 9/5 at 5pm. a See the assignment's page for the instructions.
The instructions for Project 00 have Been Released.
The project for this unit on tech work will be the production of a Podcast that summarizes your group's dialogues over the course of the next several weeks. Review the instructions that have been posted on the Project 00 page.
The group assignments are now finalized. View the group assignments here.
This project is due Thursday 9/28 at 5pm.
Next Week's Dialogue Group Meeting
1. Assign the the Facilitator and Scribe roles to two members of your group.
2. Find at least one hour to meet with your group to discuss the prompt of the week: What does the future you want to see look like? This is the Ice Breaker activity to get the group acquainted with each other, set norms, and introduce individual perspectives.