[famousactress]

Awesome story.

We don’t get to choose what country we’re born in or what socio-economic status...

It bums me out how few people (at least, in the US) seem to recognize this. It's such a lottery, and there's a big difference between pride and entitlement. The world would probably quickly get much closer to an actual meritocracy if this particular lottery ran closer to once-a-decade or so, instead of once-per-lifetime.

[jacques_chester]

The birth lottery is stunningly important.

Out of the several billion people I could have been, I was born in Australia, to intelligent and kind middle class parents.

Really. My biggest single stroke of luck was to be born where I was born. Everything else is going to deeply path-dependent.

[pm90]

Couldn't agree more. Although I was born in India (which is not a developed country), I still think that I was lucky to be born into a middle-class college educated family. In India, there are kids who still die of hunger . From a very early age I realized that I could have just as easily been born into one of the many millions of poor families that make up half the country. It was indeed a pretty big stroke of luck