Well, whether something is popular is not indicative of merit, for one. For a meritocracy promoted by humanity must be based on the evolutionary strengthening of our evolution. Merit, therefore, should be a measurement of how we, as humans, improve the strength of our renewal to prolong our longevity on earth. Anything else yields the opposite.
Building evolutionary strengthening is a long-term objective in consideration of our collective interests not so popular with a vile-maxim of selfish interests currently promoted by those pursuing the rat-race for money.
We have not implemented meritocracies in our current operating-systems of humanity because they require a subjugation to evolutionary principles we currently ignore. So, instead, we have purpose-built oligarchic systems promoting a hollow pretense of merit, and in light of the absence of principles above are quite easy to spot.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free (Goethe), and subjugation to a meritocracy that does not instead yield enslavement to a stifling oligarchy destructive to humanity.
