# "Tales of rebellion against externally-opaque meritocracies" by Steven Byrnes

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/lesswrong-curated-popular-5643401/tales-of-rebellion-against-externally-opaque-meritocracies-by-steven-byrnes
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/lesswrong-curated-popular-5643401/tales-of-rebellion-against-externally-opaque-meritocracies-by-steven-byrnes.md
Podcast: [LessWrong (Curated & Popular)](https://stenobird.com/podcast/lesswrong-curated-popular-5643401)
Published: 2026-08-30T16:16:16+00:00
Episode link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2037297/episodes/19724546-tales-of-rebellion-against-externally-opaque-meritocracies-by-steven-byrnes.mp3
Audio file: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2037297/episodes/19724546-tales-of-rebellion-against-externally-opaque-meritocracies-by-steven-byrnes.mp3
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Duration seconds: 976

## Resource

A basic problem in metascience / intellectual progress is that it's hard to tell, from the outside, whether a group that you disagree with is: “A self-dealing cabal enmeshed in groupthink”, versus“An externally-opaque meritocracy”, i.e. a bunch of smart people figuring things out in a meritocratic way, and sorry but you’re just not smart enough and truth-seeking enough to recognize that this group is right about everything while you’re wrong. You just can’t tell those apart from the outsid...

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