What is objective competence? The rich reward what they recognize; incompetence is universal.
Unrelated, I have heard from my friends that your homelessness resource site for san diego is still extremely useful, even outside of san diego. Thank you.
Let's say you are playing a free game you downloaded to your phone. You don't have to spend money to accomplish anything in particular, but if you have money to spare, you can spend actual real life dollars on in-app purchases to get past some challenge.
It takes actual skill to get past certain challenges. Rich people can be sort of halfway competent at playing the game and get farther, faster because they can rely on in-app purchases.
Real life is not unlike that.
In real life, rich people are often able to throw money at their problems. Poor people are not able to do the same.
If poor people want a solution, they have to be extremely competent to make that happen. They can't hire a high-priced lawyer or whatever to fix the mess for them.
It gets compounded because rich people will have compassion for the problems of other rich people and hire them out of pity when their consulting business is in a slump. Poor people will be rejected and told their inability to find adequate work is evidence of incompetence and that they don't deserve to be hired.
Once you are rich enough, people will kiss your ass, help you save face, etc when you fuck up.
Poor people generally don't get the same courtesies.
This has been a huge problem for me in recent years. Men on HN are obviously competent if they have a lot of karma. My high karma count isn't considered evidence of competence and my need for an income is me "panhandling the internet."
https://simplicable.com/new/failing-upwards
https://simplicable.com/new/cronyism