zlacker

>>tysone+(OP)
It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Similarly, if you are born to very well off standards, even if you're a dope and spend money from Dad's inheritance on cocaine, sure, you won't be successful but you'll still have a net of some kind. You can always improve your lot, but where you start has a large impact on how much of phase space you can reach, so to say.

I think the mentality is shifting a little as millenials and gen z are slowly letting go of the meritocratic myth, but blaming internal motivations more than context is a problem in the American conception of the world we still suffer from as a nation. The inability of us to accept that our actions are not the only determining things in our lives seriously limit our ability to fully comprehend the world and how it really works which leads us to thinking ideas like work requirements are actually sane rather than completely counterproductive.

>>noober+kH
> the meritocratic myth

I've been around to see people over decades, and how their decisions affect their lives. Meritocracy is not a myth. Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices.

This isn't the Soviet Union where one is assigned a career, a job and an apartment.

I've seen immigrants arrive here with nothing and become millionaires. That's why everyone wants to come to America. The opportunity is here.

>>skooku+PQ
What you've seen is irrelevant, when on the whole the lower and middle classes suffer due to lack of a social safety net and an extreme form of capitalism. There's a large amount of news articles which describe the situation of labour in the US.

If things keep going like this, those millionares will soon have to build their own fortress cities to keep all the undesirable and disgruntled poor people away.

The fact that poor people come to the US doesn't prove anything either, 99,(9)% of them will never be millionares, just like most people won't.

>>blub+hT
I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth.

Where I am, the good and the bad, is nearly entirely the sum of my choices. For example, if you floss or not eventually has a large effect on your health. Ditto for the amount you choose to drink, smoke, and exercise. Where you choose to live, who you choose to marry, who you pick for friends, what you do with your free time, do you work to excel in school or do just enough to squeak by, what major do you select in college, it just goes on and on.

>>skooku+bU
When one US citizen can barely make ends meet, it's reasonable maybe to tell them to try harder.

When millions can barely do it, the political and business classes fucked up and they need to fix it. That's the point of goverment, they can tackle systemic issues.