Can promotion become the dominant force driving pervasive ineptitude ?
Following promo0tion a person is likely to regress to their baseline competence, losing that extra something that prompted their rise. That baseline might be above or below the degree of competence demanded in the new high-level job. If in a particular workplace the staff who are promoted consistently fall short in this respect, promotion can become the dominant force driving pervasive ineptitude.
Yes it can but only when they feel either confident in their position and or can easily manipulate others 
Sounds like it could be that way in a lot of cases. Isn’t this similar to that Murphy’s Law variation " In a promotional system people will rise to their level of incompetence". - therefor dooming the company to having mediocre employees across the board.
In your proposition it sounds as though enthusiasm and drive are the victims. I don’t see that happening after every promotion as a person who is still excited about the job may have higher aspirations. But eventually if they get where they want to be, or close to it, or reach a level that requires more skill than they have… then the ambition could start to evaporate.
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Sounds like someone had established spiritual dominance through contemporary logic and the only way to quell the notion of ineptitude is to pass it on down.
Those kinds of naturally cancerous memes are a challenge that, I guess, naturally weed out the feeble minded from tomorrow’s discoverer of what goes on below the Planck scale.
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Yes it can but only when they feel either confident in their position and or can easily manipulate others
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Yes
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