[Waterluvian]

"I feel happy because we don't have to struggle as much as before"

I know I speak this from a place of privilege, but it's positively heartbreaking when a child has to even be aware of their parents' financial insecurity.

Quite a wonderful story nevertheless.

[john_moscow]

>I know I speak this from a place of privilege,

And that's how our society is shooting itself in the foot. Good financial decisions that lead parents to success should be studied, praised and replicated by as many people as possible. But instead we label them as "privilege" and try to beat them down until everyone is poor.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> Good financial decisions that lead parents to success should be studied, praised and replicated by as many people as possible. But instead we label them as "privilege"

My parents' good financial decisions are definitely my privilege. They weren't my decisions and yet I benefit. My parents' luck is definitely my privilege. The luck wasn't mine and yet I benefit. The way that society saw me as a child because of who my parents were is definitely my privilege. I didn't clothe myself or put food in my own mouth or take myself to school or buy myself books. I didn't choose to be visibly the same as those in power around me. And yet in all of those ways again I benefit. And all of the ways that one does or doesn't benefit from the entirely un-earned circumstance of being born to their parents, their parents also benefited or didn't benefit from being born to their parents, and so on. Hard work is hard work, but it doesn't eliminate privilege.

[john_moscow]

>I didn't clothe myself or put food in my own mouth or take myself to school or buy myself books.

Because you had good parents. And we need to encourage more people to be good parents, rather than punishing the kids that happened to have one. To put it into perspective, genetically, we are still very much close to the stone age people. The only reason our lifestyle is much better than theirs is the knowledge and habits that get passed from generation to generation. If you eliminate that, we're back into caves.

>I didn't choose to be visibly the same as those in power around me.

This can be nicely solved by decentralization. Have multiple different sources of power, let people live near those who they like and trade with others. But instead we are headed towards a dystopian central authority that gets to split people into first-class and second-class citizens.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> rather than punishing the kids that happened to have one.

I promise that recognizing and acknowledging how privileged I am isn't a punishment. Seeing it for the blessing that it is is actually quite nice.

> This can be nicely solved by decentralization. Have multiple different sources of power, let people live near those who they like and trade with others.

This doesn't sound anything like reality to me. Mobility requires resources. Some people are born into resources, and others are not. Did you know that CEOs are taller than average? That within any particular ethnic and gender group, being taller means you're likely to have more power and earn more money over your lifetime? I don't think it's because of any central authority punishing short people.

[eutropia]

Explain to me the good decisions that go into one’s parents being preferentially offered mortgages at favorable rates because of their zip code or skin color?

I would never tear someone down for hard work or taking risks — but some financial factors aren’t equitably replicable. We should be honest about what influences people can and can’t have on their outcomes. Not all success is privilege, but not all success is earned, either.

I don’t think it’s fair to represent efforts to improve equity in our society as “beating successful people down until everyone is poor”

[Robotbeat]

On the contrary, if privileged people believe everything is purely hard work for everyone, then they will be less likely to be generous to others, to help "make luck" for other people. So as a society, we're shooting ourselves in the foot by not acknowledging the role of others.