It's getting so that I'm running out of snarky things to say about some of these God-awful Atlantic pieces that keep showing up on HN. They're like cockroaches.<p><i>...In other words, as Hayes argues in his book, America isn't truly a meritocracy. Sure, the Civil Rights movement, feminism, and equal opportunity laws have helped to remove many of the barriers to success...</i><p>A <i>merit</i>ocracy, by definition, is some sort of social hierarchy based on merit -- you take a test, you gather in the most bottle-caps, you beat your classmates at arm-wrestling. Whatever. Things like the Civil Rights Movement deal with correcting historical and societal injustices. Instead of something you <i>do</i>, you are being judged, at least partially, by something you <i>are</i>. This is done for the betterment of society.<p>Don't want to argue social engineering, but viewing somebody by what they are is 180-degrees away from viewing them by how they perform in some kind of merit-based system. For the author to juxtapose these two concepts in his mind as one being an example of the other is just.......sad. Perhaps his premise was more about the matter of how he felt various social ideas that are supposed to create a equatable social result such that more minorities or women succeed but instead create additional stress. That's fine, but that's not a meritocracy.<p>The article goes downhill from there.