econ, disability
i think a lot about "meritocracy"
i think a lot about how the "meritocratic" promise of our society is "if you work hard enough you can give yourself all the opportunities you like"
i think about how, even if that were true (it's not), disabled people who can't hold jobs are permanently barred from those opportunities for something over which they will never have any control
"meritocracy" indeed
econ, disability
@typhlosion years ago a then girlfriend talked about her Welsh family coming here for the American Dream of owning land. Years after that a Chinese-Jewish friend mentioned that the American Dream was going from dirt poor to rich. At that point I realized my family’s concept was also rooted in money, that if you were well off enough people would see that you worked for it and prejudice would go away.
*None* of these are possible however.
a literal cat 
econ, disability
@typhlosion@awoo.space the realization i had when thinking about meritocracy as a concept before is that the underlying principle of a meritocracy is that some people are inherently worth more than other people and like. fuck that.
econ, disability
@InspectorCaracal meritocracy is only just if your metric for merit is based on something you're fully in control over
i haven't thought of any examples yet
econ, disability
@InspectorCaracal oh also if your system of merit isn't just transparently a way to get everyone to hold up existing prejudices
econ, disability
@typhlosion@awoo.space I don't think there's a single instance that doesn't rely on judging one person as having more value than another because that's what the merit part means
re: econ, disability
@typhlosion There's a _reason_ the phrase "disabled libertarian" only gets 350 hits in a Google search... and if you filter out two people, it goes down to 44.
re: econ, disability
@zebratron2084 holy cow
re: econ, disability
@typhlosion Yup! I've shut down a LOT of arguments with right-wingers with that one. :D
econ, disability
we need to wake the fuck up from the american dream