> folks overcoming challenges just to be on the same playground as everyone else
This has the same energy as "Kids raise money to buy classmate a wheelchair" news articles, where sure it makes you feel good to see people doing good in the world, but completely ignores that the system we live in keeps certain people down on purpose.
"But why does the machine even exist?"
That's the main objective of the education system. To teach you that.
If you are supposed to be "kept down" succeeding or god forbid excelling will be met with either resistance or extreme punishment.
Sometimes covertly but many time overtly behind closed doors and with small groups of people.
That's what makes it so pernicious. No one is being targeted and being kept down "on purpose." It's a failure to correctly orient priorities and to see that the balance of tax money is spent on improving individual citizens lives and outcomes.
> It's great to see people being able to pivot their careers later in life.
It'd be even better if we just paid them what they were worth so they didn't have to put a bunch of effort into moving sideways across the labor market like this.