I mainly agree with what you’re saying - though I do think we should strive, at a societal level, to better raise opportunity for the less fortunately born. And

I mainly agree with what you’re saying - though I do think we should strive, at a societal level, to better raise opportunity for the less fortunately born. And despite much nihilism, we’ve actually been doing that for a long time now (universal education, public access to roads, electricity etc., less gender discrimination - the list is almost endless). We just have further to go. Genetics means I'll never be a pro athlete. I play sports but no one has (or ever will) give me spotting 'opportunities'. My sporty friend can't draw, and no one us offering her the opportunity of a gallery show. I do want to pick this out. I’m of the belief that a lot of political arguments are because people simply don’t understand each other. I think this highlights something. I don’t (and I don’t think this is unusual) mean by ‘equal opportunity’ that everyone should be just e.g. allowed to be a pro athlete or artist simply because they decide to do so. I mean that they should have the same opportunities to do it if their innate talents mean that they could do it. I don’t think that anyone means, by ‘equal opportunity’, that we should e.g. abolish qualification requirements (or entry requirements) for med schools - just that kids should all be able to become a doctor if they have the talent and do the work. Now, many people have the talent but don’t even have the opportunity to do the work. Again, we’ve come a long way on this over the past few hundred years. To use the med school example, there are obviously thousands of good doctors nowadays that would never have even been allowed to try to be a doctor in centuries past. On the other side, I pretty much agree that differences in the circumstances of someone’s birth, family etc. probably mean we’ll never achieve equal opportunity fully. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still strive for it though.