Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by yterdy 923 days ago
You're conflating individual decisions with social structures that determine opportunity systemically.
1 comments

The US has all the opportunity able-bodied adults need.
Incorrect.
Viewing life that way leads to a diminished life, a self-fulfilling prophesy. The good news is one can always change one's frame of reference.
There are a lot of people who fail to self-actualize entirely due to environmental differences. Starvation, hypothermia, robbery and petty crimes, unemployment, destruction/loss of property, social rejection, discrimination, self-doubt, and even a lack of respect is enough to prevent someone from enjoying life fully.

Accepting the hardship of reality is the only way you can realize deterministic change. Making blanket statements about "opportunity" in the US will have you immediately proven wrong no matter what you claim. Your opportunity is not the same as a Puerto Rican's which is not the same as an impoverished and sickly rural teenager in Montana. Changing your frame of reference is not any easier than it is to stop looking foreign or get a bunch of money really quickly.

I've said repeatedly "of sound mind and body and living in America". I see no reason to change that.
No one is going to argue that the world isn't your oyster as a tall, fit, cis white man (many people's definition of "sound mind and body"). However, the rest of us deserve a chance. That we're not always able to get one is not an in-born character flaw.
It’s possible that viewpoint is the correct one at an individual level while also being the incorrect one at a societal level, if the goal is a meritocratic society.