Each Olympics provides a great opportunity to take a closer look at the popular myth of meritocracy, where winners come out on top thanks to hard work and losers simply just weren’t good enough. That the discussion during this most recent Olympics was centered so much around performance-enhancing drugs really drives this point home in a way I have not seen discussed, but I think should be, because we should really stop and question our seemingly unquestioned beliefs of a world that rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving.
The truth behind contests of physical prowess like the Olympics is that they are largely a celebration of genetics. Of course hard work and access to resources are involved too, because genes can rarely be entirely independent of environment, but given two Olympians who worked exactly as hard as each other and with access to identical training and resources, then all else being equal, the gold medal will essentially be rewarding the winner’s parents. It’s one thing if our stated goal is to celebrate DNA instead of hard work, but it isn’t. We celebrate the hard work and skill that goes into winning. Or at least we say we do, but performance enhancing drugs lays bare that lie to ourselves.
Performance enhancing drugs are commonly discussed as providing an unfair advantage, and that we need to level the playing field by doing everything we can to prevent their use. However, the unpopular truth is there are cases where drugs can actually be responsible for a more level playing field, if we care more about hard work that is, instead of how genes work.
Let’s take an imaginary case of two Olympians and let’s call them Bill and Ted. Bill was born with a body whose muscle cells function at a slightly higher level than Ted’s. Bill and Ted both train incredibly hard for years, but Ted puts in just a bit more effort than Bill. In the end, Bill wins the gold medal though, not because he worked harder, but because his parents’ gametocytes together provided an advantage that Ted's effort couldn't overcome. No one really considers sperm or eggs as unfair advantages though, and so in this case, Bill is celebrated as a true champion.
Now let’s imagine an alternate timeline where Ted used performance enhancing drugs, but in a way that essentially granted his muscle cells the exact same abilities as Bill’s. In such a circumstance, Ted has not given himself an advantage at all. He has simply leveled the playing field. Again, both Bill and Ted train for years, but with Ted putting in just a bit more work. This time, because their genetics are effectively identical but Ted put in more effort, Ted wins the gold. This should be considered a meritocratic outcome, but it’s not. Ted is later tested positive for drugs and his medal is stripped away. He’s not seen as a champion, but a cheater.
How odd is it that we can celebrate uneven starting points as equal, and denigrate equalized starting points as cheating? But that’s what we do, day in and day out, not only in the Olympics, but in our everyday lives. There is no level playing field. There is no meritocracy. Every day “winners” are born thanks to sperm, eggs, money, and pure randomness. Every day “losers” start races way behind the starting line, on empty stomachs, without any shoes, with weights shackled around their ankles and their bodies covered in life’s daily bruises, and when they don’t win, we look down on them for not trying hard enough.
To be clear, I’m not making an argument here for the unbanning of all performance-enhancing drugs, because it is indeed possible to go beyond leveling the genetic playing field and into the realm of uncrossable physical performance gaps regardless of any amount of skill and effort. I’m simply pointing out that this argument is more complex than “drugs are bad.” The complexity arises in acknowledging that some bodies effectively manufacture their own drugs, and without acknowledging that, we perpetuate unequal starting points and the great myth of meritocracy.
As a further example, imagine for a moment that it was considered unfairly "performance-enhancing" for an Olympic swimmer to shave their body or a wear a cap. Those swimmers who were naturally hairless, would of course have a genetic advantage, but it wouldn't be seen that way because it was a product of genes that prevented hair, and not technology like a razor or wax. In this case, would you argue that technology could level an unlevel field, or that technology would provide an unfair advantage? What if someone had so much money they could afford the technology to alter their genes to remove their hair? Would that be cheating, or would it be playing by the rules?
We say we want a world where everyone starts on the same starting line, where no one races toward the finish line without shoes or shackles or empty stomachs, but we celebrate the crowning of those with unfair advantages as matter of course. We put our billionaires on pedestals, even when their parents were billionaires, and lie the great lie that they earned it just as if they had started with nothing.
In what world can someone like Donald Trump claim to be a self-made man who started from nothing despite starting with far more than most of us can even dream of ever attaining in an entire lifetime of the hardest work imaginable? This world is the unfortunate answer.
However, perhaps the greatest lie of all, is how we even confuse complete randomness with what is earned and deserved. Pure dumb luck can be the difference between a gold medal and never even crossing the finish line because a bee just happened to sting you and you just happened to be allergic to bees. Random variation can be such a powerful and yet largely unacknowledged predictor of outcomes. I think one of the strongest examples of the power of randomness is revealed in a study of judges and their stomachs.
Most of us tend to believe in a justice system where justice is served blindly. The law is the law, right? Well, it turns out that judges vary their sentences according to how hungry they are.
Randomly appear before a judge right before their lunch, and you will end up worse off than had you randomly appeared before that same judge right after their lunch break, on a full and happy stomach. Recognize that and consider just how many lives have been altered based on that pure randomness. How many people got a second chance because their last name put them first? How many people were given harsh sentences because they drew the short straw?
Considering our Olympic analogy again, how many people have won medals and how many never even placed, based not on genetics, hard work, or performance enhancing drugs, but ultimately the luck of the draw?
If we truly do want a meritocracy, we need to stop lying to ourselves and recognize uneven starting lines whenever we see them. If we want the winners of races to be the ones who most “deserved it" based on effort and skill, then we should want to make sure the winners are winning because they should have won fair and square, and not because their competition had no shoes. So how can we do this?
One of the greatest steps we can take toward a more real meritocracy is to provide everyone an unconditional basic income. The only way we can make sure winners aren't just winning because their competition had insufficient access to resources is to make sure everyone has the same minimal access. It's starting line logic. Provide everyone an amount of money sufficient to eliminate poverty as a new starting line from which to race. All income earned above that amount is kept so there are still winners and losers, but the winners won’t win simply because those who could have beaten them were weighed down, and the losers won’t lose simply because the race had beaten them before it even began.
There are other steps we can take to level our playing fields by increasing opportunity, and how to best go about doing so is a great discussion to have. What kind of world do we want? Do we want a world where people can be born with nothing and achieve everything? Or do we want a world where the circumstances of our births increasingly determine the courses of our lives more than any other factor?
Do we want our champions to win on level playing fields? Or do we want our champions to be the sons and daughters of those who own our playing fields?
I offer that the answer to these questions could very likely determine the very fate of our species, for the owners can only own so much before the Olympic Games become The Hunger Games.
Interested in doing more to grow the basic income movement than you can through social media alone? Filling out this survey from the Universal Income Project would be helpful. You can also sign the Economic Security Project's belief statement, join the Basic Income Slack channel, Basic Income Action, and the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network.
Yes, I agree that a universal basic income is a key. Then people can be free to use their creativity and prosper.
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I do not recall one, but have you made a post on steemit about how you propose to pay for UBI?
I've linked to them.
Cost of UBI: https://steemit.com/basicincome/@scottsantens/the-cost-of-universal-basic-income-is-the-net-transfer-amount-not-the-gross-price-tag
Paying for UBI: https://medium.com/economicsecproj/how-to-reform-welfare-and-taxes-to-provide-every-american-citizen-with-a-basic-income-bc67d3f4c2b8
Thank you, more people need to do maths on this subject because leftists keep trying to push for it and it's ridiculous, I also did a post on the subject myself.
It's not just people on the left proposing it, it is people across the political spectre.
There are a few proposals on how this would be funded, I'm not totally convinced yet that they would work completely but I do agree with the OP that we do need it, or at least we need to have a proper debate on it.
The trials that have taken place so far all showed pretty good results, but funding was not an issue there as the tests were small and localised.
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To me, your logic here doesn't make any sense.
To an olympic athlete competition is everything.
To boxers and jockeys competition is everything.
It is about the best you can do.
Making an analogy of the highest in competitiveness
and then comparing it to having your basic needs met
is a rather poor comparison.
The analogy flounders. There is no equality of outcome
when it comes to humans. Even trying to level that playing
field is a futile effort, and what you do then is just make
everything worse. It is by the greatest minds that science
proceeds; It is something that a dozen mediocre minds
can't do.
So, trying to work off of people's desire for fairness (leveling the playing field)
to sell your product is quite repugnant to my eyes.
Everyone's basic needs should be met.
This is humanitarian.
How we should go about that is the question that we are trying to answer.
I thought I made pretty clear here that I'm talking about equality of opportunity, not outcome, by talking about everyone starting from the same starting line, not everyone tying at the finish line. Those are very different, right?
Yes, everyone's basic needs should be met, and doing so helps races be more equal, just like someone showing up to a race that hasn't eaten in two days is going to be at a competitive disadvantage to everyone who has eaten.
To me, you did not make it very clear. In fact, I would say you deliberately muddied the line between opportunity and outcome. If you did not mean to you would probably have started talking about the special olympics, not the olympics.
In the highest levels of competition, the field is separated into groups that are competitive. Else, the 300 lb Sumo wrestler just sits on the 150 lb Sumo wrestler. Boooorring.
And humans need that competitiveness. It is a great thing to help humans grow.
Now, UBI is more aptly compared to the special olympics. The best and the brightest are not those who benefit from UBI, they are the ones who will be paying for it. It is the bottom rungs of society that really need it.
It also serves as a great safety net for society. Especially those in the middle where they just need a little boost to make it.
And, we should stop talking about UBI, as to how it would benefit the world, we should start talking about providing minimum housing, food and clothing to all people.
And then discuss if UBI is one of the best ways to provide that.
"The best and the brightest are not those who benefit from UBI, they are the ones who will be paying for it"
Everyone who makes any sales will be paying for it to some extent. As for net-payers: In the long run, the best and brightest might also be paying for it (as net-payers) if we introduce it, though owners will always be participating in paying the thing, while the brightest people sometimes happen to first have to be born and grow up and figure things out and have to have access to economic opportunity, before they can start paying for it. Owners of the Land, economic opportunity, can skip all of that process, and still pay for it.
You could be a genius, but on the roadside in africa, there's not a lot of economic opportunity.
Today, technology allows for much greater non-merit based concentration of economic opportunity by factors of having come first, bringing us closer to that metaphoric circumstance. Network effect and increasing effectiveness of economies of scale DO right now, create a circumstance where the brightest have to sell out everything they could be doing, to the highest bidder. Which happen to be established companies, meaning owners benefit. Notice that across all industries, the industry leading companies have managed to increase gap between marginal cost of creating another product/service, and the sales price, which is not true for the 'second in line' companies in the respective fields. (interesting breakdown of two papers, one of em pointing that out.)
So today, it is for owners to (net-)pay. If we make owners pay, then, eventually, maybe the brightest of the people will be able to (net-)pay too, in the long run. But we don't know how much of it. With current economic trends, it's going to be less and less the brightest people doing the work who pay, and more and more the people owning things, that would pay.
Either way, seems sensible to make those who now hold the greatest economic opportunity for no factor of individual quality pay the most. This is for the brightest people to benefit from, as they rarely are the same people, neither today, nor in a setup where individual inheritance and gifting based on relations of love, not merit, is the dominant form of distributing Land, economic opportunity.
You could propose to abolish patent protection entirely, use usufruct and methods outlined in the Charter of the Forest for physical Land use, and somehow overcome the network effect, and maybe without redistribution, the brightest might come out ahead 'naturally'. But that's basically asking for the abolishment of capitalism and somehow doing something about the network effect in some way. UBI is a useful measure to get the brightest people into a position where they can command economic opportunity, without turning our economics upside down.
With all that in mind, I think it really wouldn't be wise to focus on the notion that "people need food and shelter so let's give em that". That's not what this is about in the current business climate, and probably even moreso going forward. It's about ensuring the naturally, potentially increasingly monopolizing forces on the market are managed for the benefit of all who care to add something with their unique skills, for a mutual benefit. It's about a nonforfeitable guaranteed stake in the Land, economic opportunity, for everyone.
"And, we should stop talking about UBI, as to how it would benefit the world, we should start talking about providing minimum housing, food and clothing to all people.
And then discuss if UBI is one of the best ways to provide that."
In the context of slavery/freedom, we shouldn't focus so much on this whole 'taking care of people' thing and focus on UBI being an important first step to provide access to economic opportunity, to the Land, to all the people, so they can put it to some good use as they see fit. That is central to sense of agency, to sense of freedom, to recognizing importance of acting responsible. I mean who'd care to act responsible if at no point, having responsibility? E.g. if everyone is "provided for"?
Everyone having this income that is worth something in a good amount of Land access, in economic opportunity, would probably indirectly lead the overwhelming majority of people having food and shelter, the people who today are increasingly threatened to not have those things due to systematically losing access to the land by the fact that our currency system requires self-indebting to people who you owe nothing, if you want to access the land.
With the universal income, people are made free to exactly not provide their work to each other. That's what the UBI affords us, to refuse to provide work that is not perceived fair (or meaningful) to provide. If you think someone's gotta work for you, make a point about it in the immediate circumstance that would also work on an economically similarly empowered being like yourself. I think that's what the free market is supposed to be about.
The ability to say no, the ability to command Land, these are differences between a slave and a sovereign. Between one who holds responsibility and one who is made to act regardless of his (potential) concepts of what needs to or needs to not be done.
Sorry, I am not following you. It sounds like you agree with me, but still would prefer UBI, because it gives you money you can choose where to spend.
As a builder of houses, would it be easier/cheaper for me to build you a tiny house over a couple of weekends or pay $400 to you every month so that you could rent a room for the rest of your life?
As the person who needs a place to live, do you prefer the tiny house or the room that you rent? Does either provide better shelter?
The ability to say, "take this job and shove it" is the same as your ability to feed, cloth and house yourself for the near future. Whether it is UBI, or to have those things directly provided is pretty much irrelevant.
So, what reasons do you have that you prefer UBI over the basic needs?
Just a reminder that the brightest and best are still screwed by giving em tinyhouses. They still need to make themselves dependent on owners of industry winning ventures, selling out everything they could ever create, if they want any customers whatsoever if we simply let usage of the Land further concentrate by non-governmental, but instead technological factors (and traditional private inheritance/gifting based on non-merit, but instead Love relations) such as the Network Effect and Economies of Scale. (edit: that are improving in applicability, efficiency at a terrific pace thanks to automation/deep learning)
We can already see that in action by the circumstance that across all industries, the industry leading companies have managed to increase gap between marginal cost of creating another product/service, and the sales price, which is not true for the 'second in line' companies in the respective fields. (interesting breakdown of two papers, one of em pointing that out.) (While mass labor is increasingly in low wage menial services that just aren't profitable enough to automate just yet. However, everything learned from building deep learning neural networks for developing self driving cars, is quite clearly useful for building neural networks for any of that, I'm pretty sure.. It's a pretty flexible technology.)
It's humanitarian to provide people the opportunities to actually compete without having to beg yesteryear's winner (edit: or really just the CEO in charge of making sure the owner/shareholder is making maximum profit or that the company is retaining maximum capital for buying whatever that might ever be conceivably useful for the company to stay ahead.) "oh please mister let me work for you for next to nothing, all the customers can't be arsed to change platform because the marginal utility of my slightly improved platform isn't worth the hassle"
And short of abolishing the open internet, I don't really see this tendency of "winner takes all" stop. Sure, we also would do good in weakening patent/IP laws and introducing tinyhomes for everyone. Not trying to contest that notion.
All I do is demand for people to get the money they're owed due to the way the economy is increasingly structured. Not trying to make your demands any less valuable.
But if all the people have more of the money they're owed, rather than less people having it who had a lot of luck on their side, then that can only mean more opportunity for whoever that only has their labor to sell.
I'm also not saying that this must happen by today's government. It could happen by any form of governance we chose to uphold for our Land relations.
I'm also not trying to say that governance is very democratic today. I do see that a lot of it takes place to further enrich owners. That is another problem indeed.
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Obviously, we can't start at the same line, but we could find a way to give others a chance. The playing field will never be level in light of the analysis with Olympic athletes; what should be desired is a situation where everyone has access to the basic essentials. 'Winning the race' is and probably will always be for those who are able to break the norm or just have the right parentage.
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I am a fan of UBI and seeing the current capital split between workers and shareholders I think we need it, the sooner the better.
On a different note, I would pay to watch an Olympics style event where anything goes, all enhancements allowed; mechanical or chemical.
The foundation for UBI is already in operation. See http://www.vivaco.in. The ICO was in May of this year, and was a success. It is being built already and is close to launch. When VIVA.cash launches, everyone will have access. I don't know exactly when it will launch, but I believe it is late this year or early next year.
IMHO, the last thing a UBI program needs is the government to operate it. This would, again, give more power to the government and less to the people. VIVA is giving the power back to the people, with many projects built upon a scalable block chain style ultraledger fabric - built by the people for the people.