When we talk about finding the next generation of leadership,
the people who govern us, who manage trade, who decide court cases,
we tend to imagine this pure meritocracy.
Especially in systems built on these huge, rigorous tests like the civil service exams in China, which are famously competitive.
And the sheer scale of it really dictates that perception of merit.
I mean you look at the recent figures,
it's something like a record-breaking 3.7 million young people sat the annual exam just last November.
3.7 million.
I mean that's a staggering national bottleneck and it's designed on the surface to filter for the very best,
most intellectually capable to get them into the core state apparatus.
The system has to select based on merit.
That is the common perception,
that you get one of these civil service jobs through sheer intellectual firepower and just sticking to the rules.
It's sold as the ultimate proving ground for talent.
You're ensuring the stability of the world's largest bureaucracy.
But today we're diving into a question that just completely undermines that whole idealized view.
It really does.
It forces us to ask this really uncomfortable sociological question:
what if a process that's designed to pick the most capable
also sort of inadvertently selects for certain negative character traits?