I thought it was interesting that Winslet declined to apply the term “nepotism” to her actions… even though it’s obviously nepotism. She said she dislikes the term “nepo baby”.
It’s like when people say, “I’m not racist, but… [racist opinion]”. I guess they must feel that “racist” simply means “evil person”, and so they’re reluctant to apply the label to themselves.
It reminds me of villains in Atlas Shrugged trying to wiggle their way out of using “such words” to describe their own actions.
People’s refusal to accurately label their own actions can entrench those actions by preventing them from being corrected. Atlas Shrugged talks about pretending “that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict ‘It is.’" And that nepotism will not be nepotism so long as you dislike the term nepo baby.
That TikTok also got me thinking about another issue:
I think directing, producing, and starring in a movie because one’s child wrote the screenplay is nepotism. But I wonder where to draw the line?
Leaving one’s wealth to one’s children is also ~nepotism (IMO). Despite that, I think that most people approve of conventional inheritance, don’t regard it as nepotism, and regard it as unfair to the adult children if one doesn’t do it.
Some celebrities have pledged to bequeath their wealth to charity instead of their children. (Comments on articles about it suggest that most people disagree with those celebrities.)
I also disagree because I think that most charities are not very effective. But I’d agree if those celebrities bequeathed their wealth to a worthy individual (like ET or a scientific genius who needed funding to solve aging).
That said, I’m not sure where to draw the line between optimally supportive parenting (a little bit like TCS) and ~nepotism (in a very broad sense of the word).
Though in the Winslet case, it’s not just her personal nepotism. Apparently a lot of Hollywood requires connections and is not open to (let alone seeking out) undiscovered greatness. I imagine most of the upper echelons of the “World…We Live In” is like that (to quote the title of this thread).
As ActiveMind pointed out, one reason for this is that “there’s a lack independent judgment”. Though, as ActiveMind also pointed out, that may be hard to solve without doing something like “revolutionizing education”.
Me too.
My first thought was that it could be overwhelming because presumably they have thousands of applicants (and thus thousands of potential debates). But then it occurred to me that they could save time by recycling arguments for why they reject certain people (i.e., use ET’s library of criticism idea).
I wonder if ET’s thousands of forums idea is relevant. If fans love a screenplay and want it to be produced, they could debate it on such a forum. Ditto if they think a certain aspiring actor/actress is great.
At first glance, I’d say no because someone’s opinion about you isn’t necessarily the same as sharing private info about you (tho it’s tricky cuz their opinion could be based on private interviews and private work).
I doubt many people would like these opinions to be public (just as many people don’t like criticism, especially if public). Maybe people could opt in to radical transparency? Perhaps an opt in system could work for salary too.
If cultural norms change enough, then I don’t think so. I doubt Olympic organizers have friends/family who feel mistreated because they’re not allowed to participate in the Olympics lol. Because Olympic sports are more objective, people intuitively see that nepotism is ludicrous. It reminds me of this from ET:
Debate ought to work more like an imaginary boxing league
Perhaps this could be partly solved by distinguishing between refuted and non-refuted evaluations. For example, if someone has a well-explained negative evaluation of me, and I’m unable to explain why they’re wrong, then it may not be unreasonable for hiring managers to want to know about that.