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Comment by patanegra | Hacker News Reader

It might come over as appalling, given the whole culture has shifted towards: "Nobody is dumber! Every child deserves a medal."

Which isn't true, and never was. I get why we do that with kids in Reception and Year 1. With young adults, like University students, the fact of inequality of potentials of individuals, is just a fact anyone has to live with.

I am clever, but I am a fat, average looking guy. So that's what I have to live with. David Beckham is not so smart, but he is sporty and looks great. He uses his innate talents, and I use mines. Nobody is discriminated by being different.

The system has been built by those with means. And those with means more often than not are clever, hard-working people. That's how you get successful in the first place. And when you are born with great talents, you will go up too. That was the point of aristocrats being replaced by bourgeois, and now people in tech growing no matter where they are from.

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I understand what you're trying to say, but I think you're making a false equivalence between socio-economic disparity and innate talent.

Imagine the same person, cloned. Clone A is born into an economically challenged household; while clone B is born into an upper-middle class household.

Now consider whether both clones would achieve the same results at A level.

One could expect the child born into the poorer household to experience more challenges, and perhaps achieve worse results as a consequence.

In this instance, how would it be appropriate to call clone A thick or less intelligent than clone B?

When you are a talented child born into a bad family, your success is to go from £1 to £10M.

If you are a talented child born to a millionaire, your success is to go from £10M to £1bn.

If you are a dumb child born to a millionaire, you go from £10M to £1.

You probably assume that people with the same skills should have the same absolute outcomes. I don't. There shouldn't be glass ceilings for talented ones, so a son of a carpenter has a right to become a billionaire, or earn a Nobel Prize in science, or apply his talents in any field. But I don't think there exists any socioeconomic system that would deliver more equitable results and had more pros than cons, especially compared to the current system.

You've lost me on your reasoning, but I would like to state that I wholly disagree with your politics.

Describing a family that doesn't have money as 'bad' is outrageous.

By bad, I mean being in a bad situation.

I don't say people are evil for not having much money.

I grew up in a family with very low income (my dad was earning about £12000 per year, when he retired a few years ago, my mum about £6000, I am from Central Europe, so things are a bit cheaper there, but not much). He worked shifts, and my mum worked 1.5 jobs.

Yet, I was able to achieve everything I wanted.

Maybe you should re-read what I write to understand it better.

I see your point, I really do. We all have the ability to achieve, and there shouldn't be a limit on that potential.

However, that's exactly what the class system in the UK does. The potential of oeople born into lower classes of society is actively limited.

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