[ndriscoll]

Personally, I believe in case 4: the gatekeeping is imagined. Maybe I just haven't perceived the changes and haven't noticed myself losing touch, but I was a B student who graduated from the local state university in the early 10's, and I've done fine. In fact, I've done far better than I could've imagined as a kid. My estimation is it's maybe people who are already in good careers that have created a bubble for themselves where they think their kids' only options are to go to Stanford or live in poverty.

I'm not seeing the issue with case 3 though. Our "competitive" social system isn't about being sporting or "fair" (in some cosmic sense where we consider counterfactual universes to try to distill some idealized metric for intrinsic "goodness" of each person). It's (ideally) about people's actual merit. What can they contribute? What do they contribute? The real world is full of people that have needs, and it makes sense to reward and appreciate people who help meet those needs.

If you had upper-class parents who had plenty of time and resources to raise you to be kind, thoughtful, wise, knowledgeable, strong, and driven, then congratulations! You're actually a great person. We should reward that because we want to see more of it.

[portaouflop]

It’s all luck and randomness - that’s why both of you fail to come up with any rational explanation.

You can be upper class and get all the best resources etc and still be a piece of shit human being that has a net negative impact.

You can be dirt poor and not have any education or even hope - and you can become one of the most influential people on the planet.

[ndriscoll]

Yes, there is an element of randomness. I was addressing the idea that if someone is nominally a great person, then it "doesn't count" as much if they were lucky enough to have good genetics or mentorship or circumstances or whatever, which is nonsense. The only reason to care about circumstances is so that we know what to encourage more of to shift that probability distribution (evidently I don't think "money" is the critical factor here).

[clayhacks]

We should look at statistics, not your anecdotal case. I’m sure there are plenty of people like you who are pretty smart, but perhaps not a genius. Statistically that is an outlier and most people are doing worse than their parents.

Having the qualities you’ve listed does not automatically entitle you or earn you rewards. Frequently there is extra buffer with having generational wealth to help give leg up and extra chances to do better.

[ndriscoll]

What does it mean to say statistically people are doing worse than their parents? By what metrics?

Educational attainment has been increasing for decades so it's hard to believe that it's become significantly more difficult to get in. The school I went to has an 86% acceptance rate, for example. It's also hard to believe that going to a state school is going to doom you. There just aren't enough ivy graduates for that to be practical. The BLS stats also indicate that getting a math/engineering/CS degree is a pretty solid choice and is more likely than not to bring you success (e.g. the median personal income with those degrees is a decent amount higher than the overall median household income. Want to have a single-income household? You can do that while living better than average).

If comparing to one's parents, obviously the bar is different if you come from lower vs. upper-middle classes, which is sort of my point. My B performance put me in a much better position than my parents. I could've done a decent amount worse and still met that bar. The child of an MIT-graduated engineer has a higher bar to meet, but that's not actually necessary to do okay in life.

I didn't imply that having these qualities will automatically reward you. I was addressing the idea that if we can tell ahead of time who will "amount to something", those people are somehow less deserving of their success, which is ridiculous. My teachers identified that I was likely to be successful starting in kindergarten, but I've still had to spend the rest of my life consistently showing up and doing the work. I'm sure I also could be more aggressive about chasing career success, but I'm happy not to. If others want to do that, good for them. Maybe they had engineer tiger parents that taught them not to be such slackers, and now they can be rewarded for that. If they're happy then that's great.