[david_w]

At least some of life for some people is luck in the real sense that undeserving people (Joe Biden's son, say, merely to cite one example) are lifted up thanks to who their parents are.

Bad luck is when you're effectively ruined by the age of 5 thanks once again to who your parents were. The only way out for someone that fits this description is to adopt a self-reliant, goal directed attitude.

Self-reliant, goal directed behavior is essentially what people not born lucky or ruined do to improve their position in life.

What society can do to help is communicate clearly that the virtues of persistence, resilency, self-reliance and goal directed behavior are "cool" or in sociological-speak, society's normative values.

Unfortunately, since Rousseau and Marx, we have birthed a counter-culture that is determined to do the opposite. It's determined to place the locus of control over one's life outside of the individual and onto a nepharious "society".

Marx personally was an unhappy, deeply defective, and cruel personality. His philosophy stems directly from this. It attracts people who share his defects- namely people filled with resentment, envy, a desire to extract revenge for perceived slights and a lust for absolute power.

The hope is that eventually, through CRISPR and other techniques, that as a side effect of improving human functioning the well-spring of such people will simply dry up.

Until then, we have to do battle with a philosophy which preaches the diametric opposite of what we know leads to human flourishing and happiness.

[cwhiz]

Life is full of luck and for every Hunter Biden there are 100 children growing up in failed homes. I didn't say luck and privilege don't exist but I absolutely do not agree that as a nation we have institutionalized racism. I can't even believe it's such a controversial statement to get downvote bombed.

Poverty rates are disproportionately high among black and hispanic citizens but as a percentage of total population they are absolutely dwarfed by white poverty. What is the reason that so many white Americans are living in poverty? Is it perhaps possible that it is a similar reason that black and hispanic citizens are living in poverty?

Poverty rates are always written as a percentage of the population of that race but if you rewrite them to be a percentage of US population a different narrative starts to emerge...

~2.7% of Americans are black people in poverty. ~3.0% of Americans are hispanic people in poverty. ~6.5% of Americans are white people in poverty.

We have problems of economic opportunity in this country. Writing it off as racism is missing the elephant in the room.

[david_w]

I agree with you which is why I got downvoted too. People with nothing better to do in their lives than get paid to downvote on public forums. My solution I guess is to leave this forum and find one that doesn't enable downvote brigades the way this one does.

Supposedly, commentors here have something of value to offer, otherwise it would just be a news headline site without commentors. I am taking whatever value I have to offer and going elsewhere. I suggest you do the same. Sure, HN will turn into a political echo-chamber but it's really that already, right? I had 10% of my karma- whatever that is and whatever it's good for- disappear in an hour when I proferred the opinion that I didn't blame Trump for the virus.

You get a result like that - people telling you that that should NOT be your opinion and here's the punch in the face to teach you that lesson- and you know the forum is already a lost cause.

Gab has a browser plugin that will let you comment on any website, including this one and not be censored. Also there are scrappy alternatives to Reddit, saidit I think is one, where its not a groupthink party.

It's just a period of time we're living through and technology will catch up with it.

Historically, problems had to go on much longer than people reading about them later realize they did before corrective action was taken. This is no different.

For all the busy-beaver downvote-assassins on HN- way to waste the days and hours of the prime of your life, fighting the losing battle against freedom!

You go girl!