Why would I want to debunk your proposal? I don't think it's bunk, I just think it would have some undesirable consequences. That's no bar to pointing out the desirable ones!
This is the first time Silicon Valley has been brought up in this discussion, but keep in mind that practices in the US are influential around the world, and the harms from strengthening inequality and substituting credentialism for meritocracy fall predominantly on people outside the US. The discussion has mentioned YC (Boston originally), Rust (Mozilla, San Francisco, previously SV), Microsoft (Washington), Android (SV), iPhone (SV), Instagram (SF), the Zetas (Mexico), Brazil (the movie), the American landscape (much of which is in Brazil, the country), Google (SV), FAANG (SV/Washington/SV/SV/SV, but all with offices worldwide), Linus Torvalds as a student (Finland), Fabrice Bellard (France), Guangdong (China), the ACM (US-wide), the IEEE (also), Triplebyte (SV but kind of worldwide), the SAT/ACT/AP tests (US-wide), Ukraine, Russia, and Canada.
This is the first time Silicon Valley has been brought up in this discussion, but keep in mind that practices in the US are influential around the world, and the harms from strengthening inequality and substituting credentialism for meritocracy fall predominantly on people outside the US. The discussion has mentioned YC (Boston originally), Rust (Mozilla, San Francisco, previously SV), Microsoft (Washington), Android (SV), iPhone (SV), Instagram (SF), the Zetas (Mexico), Brazil (the movie), the American landscape (much of which is in Brazil, the country), Google (SV), FAANG (SV/Washington/SV/SV/SV, but all with offices worldwide), Linus Torvalds as a student (Finland), Fabrice Bellard (France), Guangdong (China), the ACM (US-wide), the IEEE (also), Triplebyte (SV but kind of worldwide), the SAT/ACT/AP tests (US-wide), Ukraine, Russia, and Canada.
I agree that the danger of war in Ukraine was foreseeable; I wrote about it in 02016 https://dercuano.github.io/notes/wwiii-genesis.html https://dercuano.github.io/notes/state-of-the-world.html and 02017 https://dercuano.github.io/notes/2017-sap-allocation.html and George Kennan wrote about it last millennium. But it's also true that it was widely dismissed two weeks ago.
I'm glad we agree on calling for humility! And, yes, Wayne's whole series is worth reading.