Osias Jota

This recent quote from an early PayPal exec is absurd: “If meritocracy exists anywhere on earth, it is in Silicon Valley.”

It's pretty common for successful people to imagine that their success is solely the result of merit. It's more satisfying than pointing to all the external factors that have contributed to that success. The trap is in being satisfied. Satisfaction in their meritocracy causes companies, industries and cultures to calcify, to harden themselves against new ideas and new people.

CULTURE is something we create, and culture works against pure merit. That's because culture creates insulation and connections and histories that count at least as much as the pure horsepower of merit.

HEAD STARTS get compounded. Early success gives people the resources, confidence and connections that can be used to create later success. 

LOCK IN means that organizations and ideas can succeed far longer than they would without it. You don't give up on a social network or smart phone merely because one element of it isn't the best available one. It's easier to stick than to switch.

And of course, lock in goes way beyond operating systems. It includes worldviews, friendships, momentum of all kinds.

At the philharmonic, the first chair violinist might believe the job came solely as a result of merit, through blind auditions. But the combination of culture (going all the way back to the age of 5, combined with access to teachers, combined with the tenure that comes with many roles) means that even at these rarified heights, merit alone isn't the guiding force. On this day, is this violinist actually the very best violinist in the world? (And defining merit gets super difficult once we mix it together with vague measures of effort and potential).

And so, in Silicon Valley there is a deeply ingrained culture that rewards people who understand it, that play by certain rules and have access to various resources that seem out of reach to many. A great idea, powerful work ethic and good design are rarely sufficient on their own. And lucky people who are bold enough to dig in often find that early effort leads to a head start, that they can choose to compound, which, in the most legendary cases, leads to a lock-in a market that can last for a decade or more. 

And of course, it's not just Silicon Valley. It's the breaks I got along the way, the resources that let me do my work and the ability to post this blog daily, it's the farmer who was born with access to a better piece of land, it's everywhere where we build a culture, a system for creating utility, a network. And it works. Until it doesn't.

For me, the huge hurdle we face is, "seems out of reach." In cultures and economies with rapid change (and the Valley certainly qualifies) there are huge opportunities, but too many people talk themselves out of reaching, aren't thirsty enough to take a leap. Part of that resistance comes from the industry itself proclaiming its meritocracy as opposed to actively opening doors and selling people (hard) on finding the thirst, the desire to leap.

[If someone is looking for a true meritocracy, where the deck is reshuffled and the best weighs in first, check out pumpkin growing].

       

Twitter, plagiarism, and multiple discovery

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Bacteria, like all living things, needs iron for a variety of biochemical functions. Humans and other higher order organisms have plenty of iron; we limit bacterial access to it as a means of defending against bacterial infection. So when we need to transfer iron throughout our bodies, we keep it tightly sequestered in a protein called transferrin.

In order to infect us, bacterial pathogens must try to wrest that iron away; they have specialized transferrin binding proteins (Tbps) to do just that. Recent work demonstrates that transferrin "is engaged in ancient and ongoing evolutionary conflicts" with one of these Tbps, TbpA.

By comparing the genetic sequence of transferrin across twenty-one different primate species, researchers found that transferrin has undergone positive evolutionary selection in a manner often seen in molecular arms races between mammals and viruses. Fourteen of the sixteen rapidly evolving sites identified in transferrin are in amino acids that form direct contact with TbpA from bacterial all-stars like Neisseria meningitidis, which causes meningitis; Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which causes gonorrhea; and Haemophilus influenzae, which can cause pneumonia.

Dentre as tantas bizarrices televisionadas mostradas aleatoriamente e em versão compacta no excelente Um dia na vida (2010), de Eduardo Coutinho, vê-se um recorte de um desses programas em que mulheres passam por uma "transformação completa". Numa das imagens, são mostradas mulheres que, após serem maquiadas, penteadas, vestidas e submetidas a procedimentos estéticos, beijam o espelho e choram compulsivamente. Há comoção do público. Uma mulher que, segundo a legenda, sentia-se muito feia e, por isso, acreditava que jamais iria se casar, finalmente "conquista a beleza".

Esses programas frequentemente atribuem essas "transformações" ao resgate da feminilidade. "Olha como ela está bonita", "Veja como agora está feminina!" são frases que levam a plateia à catarse. 

O conceito de beleza feminina obedece ao rígido princípio de uniformidade. É preciso não ter nenhuma deformidade na aparência. Pele sem estrias, sem celulite, sem manchas, sem depressões, sem rugas, sem linhas finas, sem poros evidentes (!). Dentes perfeitamente alinhados. Sobrancelhas sem pelos fora de um arco milimetricamente formatado. Cabelos sem frizz. Unhas sem cutícula. Peitos e bundas ascendentes e firmes, orelhas e narizes pequenos. Barrigas alinhadas à virilha. 

Campanhas publicitárias, cada uma à sua maneira, naturalizam a ideia de que se deve ser "bonita". E que a beleza é acessível a todas a partir do consumo. Algumas empresas fazem isso sob a alegação de que todas somos iguais, todas bonitas. "Bonita", penso sempre, é um termo que traz toda essa carga de uniformização. Se a genética não a tiver "presenteado" com um corpo "uniforme", será preciso dar duro. Ter disciplina. Comprar cosméticos e dermocosméticos caros. Visitar incansavelmente a dermatologista, a esteticista, a academia, o cabeleireiro, a manicure, a nutricionista. Tudo isso para ser "bonita"; para ser "feminina".

Quando alguém diz "todas as mulheres são bonitas" com ares humanizadores sempre dou uma coçadinha de cabeça. Dizer que "todas as mulheres são bonitas" é reforçar a ideia de que a beleza é o principal ideal a ser perseguido por uma mulher, de que uma coisa está condicionada à outra. Desse modo, século após século, "como você está bonita" se torna a característica mais relevante que uma mulher pode querer ter. Não quero com isso dizer que "ser/estar/se sentir/parecer bonita" não possa ser uma sensação bem-vinda; o problema é essa constatação ter uma carga tão opressivamente protagonista que qualquer coisa que não parta da ideia de "você é bonita" gera a ideia de não pertencimento ao feminino.

Todas as pessoas têm os mesmos direitos, mas as pessoas não são iguais. Não são tampinhas de garrafa produzidas em série. Um adjetivo não é comprovação de gênero, não é passaporte para a existência. 

Toda mulher - independentemente do sexo de nascimento - é uma mulher.