Addendum to “Targeting Meritocracy”

A 317-word addendum revisiting his earlier pro-meritocracy post through the conflict/mistake lens he developed afterward. The original argued from mistake theory (government solves problems -> want the smartest, most competent people -> meritocracy is tautologically right). The conflict-theory objection he'd missed: if officials serve class interests, and an Ivy-League funnel routes the meritorious into the upper class, then staffing government with the meritorious just seeds it with upper-class people serving upper-class interests. Closes with a durable, oft-quoted epistemic heuristic: if people seem slightly stupid they probably are, but if they seem colossally and inexplicably stupid you likely differ on a fundamental, unexamined assumption — poke at it.

Quality 60 · Strong. Strong, low end (60). Short and derivative of two prior posts, but a clean, genuinely illuminating application of the conflict/mistake frame plus a memorable, portable closing heuristic. Brevity and reliance on already-published ideas cap it at the bottom of Strong.

Claude’s paradigm shift 42 · Moderate. Moderate (42). Applies his own just-published conflict/mistake distinction to one case; little new at publication beyond the specific synthesis.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Minor (2). The conflict/mistake vocabulary saw real adoption in rationalist and online-political discourse, but the parent post carries that impact; this addendum is a minor footnote to it.