This is pretty dense with metaphors and generalizations, with roughly zero ties to any specific instance, which will always be a mix of these generalities and context-dependent perturbations, often with the specifics overwhelming the generalities.
I disagree that the specifics will necessarily overwhelm the generalities. In this model, we presume that the presence-or-not of a credential has a meaning that would not be overwhelmed by the specifics in any given situation, else it would not exist. People have to come together and decide to use the credential; After so much time has passed for groups with and without them, there have been enough observations to determine whether noise would overwhelm signal, here.
If people use them, we merely conclude that there must be a reason for that.
So as not to be accused of asking for examples without trying to come up with some myself, it seems like higher education is a case that you’d use for this theory. But I don’t think the model applies very well—there is certainly a fair bit of credentialism and disdain for outsiders, but there’s also a lot of symbiosis with “industry” in terms of actual output and value-capture of ideas.
Doctoral-level degree programs mainly, but even more so for licenses that are legally required to perform the work in most jurisdictions.
I don’t assume that it applies literally everywhere for all forms of work, either. And my model wouldn’t work if it did. But it has to be significant enough to matter. Computer science is an area where having a degree is not always required—to work in industry—and that makes it a healthier field, IMO. But you do need one to be a psychiatrist—and that’s one of the areas I would recommend looking if we were curious about fields which might be more liable to produce / propagate more harmful views.
This is just wrong. Ability to have direct output is not ONLY dependent on ability, but also on opportunity and context. If that is sufficiently gate-kept, there will be plenty of high-ability persons who never prove themselves.
This is only more true in proportion to how much that particular field is optimized to be dependent on gate-keeping itself, or on which success is more directly defined to be success at passing through gates. The less this is the case—such as in computer science, as we mentioned above—the more one can more directly discern for themselves their own skill. In theory, it should be possible for one to determine how skilled they are at any given task by assessing the value of their own output.
Maybe if I were to make a scale between Meditation <---> Psychiatry, I would say that this scale represents the same underlying task (mental health), but on the left side you have the task optimized for reliable self-assessment, and on the right you have the task optimized for gate-keeping. If you define your skill to be dependent on whether or not you have a psychiatric license, then only in that case would you consider there to be high-ability persons who “never prove themselves.” But this requires you to accept at face-value the signal that the credential represents—which, as I said, is why it exists—but, keep in mind also that it is an artificial pseudo-signal.
I disagree that the specifics will necessarily overwhelm the generalities. In this model, we presume that the presence-or-not of a credential has a meaning that would not be overwhelmed by the specifics in any given situation, else it would not exist. People have to come together and decide to use the credential; After so much time has passed for groups with and without them, there have been enough observations to determine whether noise would overwhelm signal, here.
If people use them, we merely conclude that there must be a reason for that.
Doctoral-level degree programs mainly, but even more so for licenses that are legally required to perform the work in most jurisdictions.
I don’t assume that it applies literally everywhere for all forms of work, either. And my model wouldn’t work if it did. But it has to be significant enough to matter. Computer science is an area where having a degree is not always required—to work in industry—and that makes it a healthier field, IMO. But you do need one to be a psychiatrist—and that’s one of the areas I would recommend looking if we were curious about fields which might be more liable to produce / propagate more harmful views.
This is only more true in proportion to how much that particular field is optimized to be dependent on gate-keeping itself, or on which success is more directly defined to be success at passing through gates. The less this is the case—such as in computer science, as we mentioned above—the more one can more directly discern for themselves their own skill. In theory, it should be possible for one to determine how skilled they are at any given task by assessing the value of their own output.
Maybe if I were to make a scale between Meditation <---> Psychiatry, I would say that this scale represents the same underlying task (mental health), but on the left side you have the task optimized for reliable self-assessment, and on the right you have the task optimized for gate-keeping. If you define your skill to be dependent on whether or not you have a psychiatric license, then only in that case would you consider there to be high-ability persons who “never prove themselves.” But this requires you to accept at face-value the signal that the credential represents—which, as I said, is why it exists—but, keep in mind also that it is an artificial pseudo-signal.