Schmedlap said:

Our society has incentivized mediocrity, irresponsibility, selfishness, and other immorality.
Amen brother, and as the father of 5 the idea of social engineering scares the hell out of me. Ken's observation about a meritocracy vs. mediocracy is especially lucent. I think they are well thought of as oil and water. Institutional polices that try and serve both serve neither well, and are confusing. Confusion creates frustration and those that are looking for more clarity, for more opportunity, and who can, based on their potential will leave - sooner or later contingent upon their other interests and responsibilities. Unfortunately, the folks that often leave are the ones who would do well in a meritocracy, while those who wish to amble along find comfort, solace and well being in a mediocracy.

If you think you can get by on a mediocracy, then by all means go for it. The problem is you create the conditions where you are less likely to know how bad it fails you until it already has because the conditions to raise the potential of failure are no longer present; you've engineered it out of existence. National security is probably the last place you want to try to do something like that because the consequences may be final.

Best, Rob