one nuance to this: when one says "meritocracy" in reality what you're really doing is subscribing to a core-dev "web of trust" (since @david @ManiMe nerd sniped me on decentralized web of trust stuff recently)

if this web of trust (who vouches for who and what they agree on) could be visualized, it might be easier to see what flavor of bitcoin you're getting into (knots, etc) which would have a different web of trust wrt. engineering decisions

how bitcoin evolves is determined by which economic nodes subscribe to which WoT... i think this is the most accurate definition of what bitcoin is and what its future trajectory is?

I currently trust the existing core devs who have made what bitcoin is up to this point, since they have the most experience. luke's WoT is a lot smaller and therefore it's not really safe to join IMO.