The meritocratic ideal ('success = intelligence + effort') assumes that individual silos are independent and that hard work and ability determine outcomes, but this model only works in simple, low-dimensional domains where individual effort directly produces outcomes.
factualpending
Speaker
Scott PageEvidence Quote
“if you imagine the world a collection of individual silos and the... amount of grain in your silo depends on sort of how intelligent you're on how hard you work then it is all kind of about like your ability work hard... but in a complex world [49:24]”
Source
Mental Models for complexity | Scott Page and Shane Parrish | The Knowledge Project #55— The Knowledge Project PodcastCreated: 8/10/2026, 11:30:19 PM
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