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> I was lucky. Relatively rich parents, we could move into a good school district, I got to go to a good university, not really worry about money, and now I wor

• brianchu 14y ago
  > But there are also plenty of counterexamples of people who didn't have rich parents, didn't live in good school districts, and did it on their own. I know a person just like that, and she paid for school on her own working fast food shifts at night and full time in the summer, and now has a great job in biotech. $anecdote++; Yes, but those people are playing on "hard" mode, so to speak. More power to them, but it's unreasonable to imply that all people in poor socioeconomic circumstances will be able to do the same. EDIT (reply to below): Like I said, they're playing on "hard" mode. You cannot expect all or even most people playing on "hard" mode to achieve the same things that people playing on "easy" mode can achieve (people like me living in an affluent suburb, whose parents are upper-middle class, who went to fantastic local schools filled with other upper-middle class students, whose parents can afford to pay for college and any educational expense, etc.)
  • Domenic_S 14y ago
    > it's unreasonable to imply that all people in poor socioeconomic circumstances will be able to do the same. Why?
    • ZachPruckowski 14y ago
      Two reasons: First, while it's not entirely a zero-sum game, there's a considerable competitiveness aspect - there aren't enough college slots or scholarships to accommodate everyone getting a good degree from a strong school, and if there were, there wouldn't be enough jobs to hire them into. So at various points, people are going to not make the cut. Do we simply say "well, if you're not in the top X% of the nation you'll have to make do on $10/hour?" Secondly, because we can't simply wave our wands and make everyone 15-30 IQ points smarter. Getting every poor child to be as motivated and intelligent as that anecdote is at least as large a problem as income inequality generally. It's like saying "I've got a cure for cancer, but it requires time travel" - you've just reduced a Very Hard problem to a different Very Hard problem, which is a solid achievement but doesn't actually solve anything. EDIT: And Thirdly, why should the answer be that poor people have to work their asses off to catch up just because they made the wrong choice of parents? It's like a race where some contestants have to carry dumbbells - it's great that they can actually succeed, but it's still miles and miles from fair.
      • Domenic_S 14y ago
        > So at various points, people are going to not make the cut. Do we simply say "well, if you're not in the top X% of the nation you'll have to make do on $10/hour?" False dilemma. The choices are not "either get a good degree from a strong school, or make $10/hour forever". > we can't simply wave our wands and make everyone 15-30 IQ points smarter I'm not sure what your point is here. > why should the answer be that poor people have to work their asses off to catch up just because they made the wrong choice of parents I wasn't arguing that they should, just that they could.
        • ZachPruckowski 14y ago
          >False dilemma. The choices are not "either get a good degree from a strong school, or make $10/hour forever". You're right that it's not yet that stark. Nonetheless, while we need a system which encourages, motivates, and rewards the people who succeed, we also need a system which doesn't abandon the people who don't make the cut. We can't just simply say "well, everyone had a shot" and leave it at that. There are millions of Americans who are working poor, and tens of millions more who are still struggling to get by in the land of plenty. >I'm not sure what your point is here. My point is that just because there are ways out for people who are unusually intelligent and unusually diligent doesn't solve the societal inequity, because not everyone can take advantage of those outs unless they suddenly get a lot smarter en masse. Again, even if we perfect meritocracy and all the incentives, we can't ignore the people who don't have IQs over 115 or whatever[1] [1] - or if IQ is an inadequate measurement, whatever measurement you have for merit.
• mdkess 14y ago
  Of course, there are always counter examples. A stuck clock is right twice a day. And someone always wins the lottery. Stats don't lie though, parents income and education is highly correlated with their childrens' success (and apparently even brain development). So you know one person who overcame poverty - how many people do you know with a pretty typical middle class family who are about as successful? Suppose that we were to play a game - you are given two people, A and B, and the following information about their parents: income level and education level (name of degree/diploma(s) and schools). Do you think that you could come up with a strategy for guessing which person - A or B - will make more money at age 30, that would do better than just flipping a coin? Formal education does offer you huge benefits. I walked out of school into a job paying many times minimum wage - I got the job because I did well on the interviews, but I got the interviews because I have a degree. Is this fair? Probably not, but it is the reality of the situation. And I do feel like I learned a ton in school. Of course, there are problems with the education system, but that's another discussion.
  • Domenic_S 14y ago
    > Stats don't lie though, parents income and education is highly correlated with their childrens' success Is the lesson that parents' education causes this, or that parents who value education/learning produce that type of child? Not to be a "correlation != causation" parrot, but it's worth considering. Maybe being raised in an environment where participating in "the system" (school, college, salaried job) is the norm produces children who are more likely to participate in the system themselves? > but I got the interviews because I have a degree I wouldn't argue against this point on another site, but it should go without saying that here in hacker land this isn't really a thing.
• stephencanon 14y ago
  > But there are also plenty of counterexamples of people who didn't have rich parents, didn't live in good school districts, and did it on their own. I know a person just like that, and she paid for school on her own working fast food shifts at night and full time in the summer, and now has a great job in biotech. $anecdote++; The world is full of examples like this, but here's the thing that is always glossed over: hard work alone isn't sufficient for success. The kid who grows up on the wrong side of the tracks not only needs to do all the right things, they also need to never do the wrong thing, which typically requires both diligence and luck. The rich kid who gets caught with drugs? It's a youthful indiscretion, he gets off with a talking to. The poor kid gets a criminal record, which makes it many times harder to succeed. The rich kid who get pregnant? Her parents pay for an abortion. The poor kid drops out of school to raise the child. The rich kid who slacks off an flunks a couple classes in high school? Parents pay for some fancy prep school to polish the kids academic record. The poor kid is essentially locked out of top-tier colleges. The rich kid who doesn't land the Goldman Sachs internship after junior year? Goes to work at his mother's friend's consulting firm and still has something "good" on his resume when he's applying for the first job out of college. The poor kid works at the supermarket. It's not that being poor means that you can't succeed if you work hard. It's that it means that the deck is stacked against you every step of the way, and that just working hard isn't actually enough even if you do everything right that's in your power to do. You also need to be lucky. If you are sufficiently well-connected and wealthy, however, lots of "minor" things get overlooked and you can be quite successful even if you don't work especially hard and aren't especially lucky.