[twblalock]

On the contrary, the view that life outcomes are due to circumstances and luck leads to the denigration of success and competition, abdication of responsibility for one's life choices, and ultimately to really bad economic policy that will make everyone worse off.

We now see this kind of thing even infecting our education system, and it's driving a lot of liberal people to the political right. Look at how Asian American voters acted in the recent San Francisco school board recall, for example. (Also: try telling those people that their success in our society is due to luck, even though they came here in poverty and were discriminated against every step of the way...)

[epgui]

On the contrary, the only way to be successful while not putting in a lot of hard work, is to start off from a very fortunate place.

The idea is that we want the system to be more meritocratic, and that a good place to start is to acknowledge that it's currently not as meritocratic as we tend to think. That's what the "meritocratic trap" is: thinking we have meritocracy when we don't.

[throwabro789]

> even though they came… in poverty

That was always reductionist. Many emigres from China, Japan, Korea, USSR states, the Middle East and India arrived with high education levels. For 20th century society, where war could blow up or seize all your assets, education you ship with you in your brain is wealth that matters. Lots of uneducated people left behind in those countries, they just died or their life sucks now.

[epgui]

Indeed, and access to education is in fact one of the biggest barriers to vertical mobility in the US.

[jschveibinz]

Can you please provide some data to back up this assertion?

It is true that life situations (poverty, lack of parental assistance, safety and security, cultural roadblocks, etc.) are impediments to successful participation in school.

But is “access to education” a a demonstrable problem? Many states offer very low cost or free access to community college higher education.

[epgui]

There's about a million different ways you could do a PhD on this subject: data on this question is not missing.

Some search queries I recommend (just as a starting point):

- "Factors in access to education"

- "Access to education causal"

- "Access to education in America"

- "Access to education world data"

- "Access to education developing countries"

- "Public education and vertical mobility"

- "Relationship between education and innovation"

- "Relationship between education and health"

- "Public health and economic productivity

- "Access to education and marginalized groups"

[jschveibinz]

Here is a website for the ACLU that you can use as a reference. If you believe that any child is being denied access to education, the ACLU is a good place to go to get assistance in getting justice:

https://www.aclu.org/other/your-right-equality-education

[throwabro789]

This is also really reductionist. “Good spots” were scarce in China, Japan and the USSR too. You could be (1) Asian in China, (2) cognitively capable (3) but still part of the group of 19 kids who didn’t get the 1 spot that 1 kid did. And you were fucked, and you didn’t emigrate.

The “racial or cultural superiority therefore black kids are fucked” thing you’re really believe in is stupid. It’s unactionable and nobody gives a fuck about that perspective. There are like a handful of legitimate ways to address the scarce spots for everyone not just high achievers, but the racial and cultural superiority people don’t spend even one iota of their time or one cent of their dollars making the good schools bigger. It’s a profoundly immature point of view, and its immaturity should give you insight for why people don’t like you.

[epgui]

I don't think the reference you provided makes the point you think it makes. The ACLU states that their mission is to fight for better access to education. Nowhere do they say that their job is done.