Luck is really what drives a successful career and life:
- Lucky to have been born in the right place
- Lucky to have the right skin color
- Lucky to have the right sex/gender/orientation (and for those to match up in the "right" way)
- Lucky to have the right family
- Lucky to have an outgoing and/or extroverted personality
- Lucky to have an interest in a skill that's in demand
- Lucky to be in the workforce during a time when that skill is in demand
- Lucky to be in a location where that skill is in demand
- Lucky to have been hired amid the dozens or even hundreds of other candidates applying for your desired position (this is less of a problem now, but was a huge problem just a few years ago when labor demand was nowhere close to being higher than labor supply)
- Lucky to have been hired by a company that actually wants to give out raises
- Lucky to not have been laid off or otherwise terminated for circumstances beyond your control
The list goes on and on and on. I certainly think we should care about the implications of personal success and well-being being driven heavily by luck rather than actual merit. The case where someone is starving in Africa is indeed a case of "wrong place and/or time", and we as a species really ought to be cognizant of that and try to work toward "wrong place and/or time" being less severe of a problem.
Say we do make actual individual merit the only factor in hiring and pay. Would those "unlucky" enough to have been born a starving child in Africa ever have a chance at getting a high paying IT job? Likely not, as they won't have the education or skills needed to do the work.
I'd argue your use of "luck" in all these cases is wrong. It's more like fortune, and that hiring and pay is tied to both individual merit, and the merit of your ancestors. And when I say ancestors, this is usually as little as 2 or 3 generations. A vast majority of those in the US are descendants of a wave of poor immigrants in the mid and late 19th century. Going back 4 or 5 generations on all sides of my family tree, no wealth of any significance was transferred down, other than work ethic and usually trying to give offspring the best chance they can. It was not by any means perfect, but I was the first in my family to go to college, earn a degree, and be "successful". Note: I'm defining successful as "more assets than debt". I'm not wealthy by any sense of the word but I have a stable income and I'm able to save for retirement and own a home (via mortgage).
If we take that merit out of the equation - what societal pressure or incentive is there to improve upon oneself, and make a better life for one's children?
I'm not really arguing in favor of anything. Just pointing out that personal success and well-being is indeed currently driven by luck, regardless of whether we like it or even realize it. Pretending that the only variable involved is merit or "hard work" is ignorant of the existence of billions of perfectly capable and "hard working" people currently unable to achieve such personal success due to circumstances entirely out of their control.
That problem is currently unsolvable (or at least very difficult to solve, and with no clear solution). I'm certainly not going to assume that I - of all people - have some kind of magical answer there.
It is, however, possible to at least gradually address the problem through whatever hard work it takes to make the next generation a little luckier: folks lending their shoulders for their children to stand on, and their children in turn lending their shoulders to their children, and so on. It sounds like your own ancestors did precisely that, as did mine. Whether we call it "luck" or "fortune" is a terminology issue that is irrelevant to the main point: the playing field is by no means level, and neither of us chose to be born into our respective families.
Agreed. However our parents did choose to have us, raise us, and give us the best fighting chance. Ignoring that ignores their hard work and skills to properly rear children. If in this new system we just give everyone a job and a good salary "because" then what incentivizes anyone to properly rear their children or give them anything other than the minimum the State mandates.
I'd argue that the drive to provide a better life for one's offspring is the fundamental building block of empathy. By society ignoring that capital that someone's parents built up in their children, you risk a change in behavior where parents say, "your life will be great because you will have a job and salary no matter what." Then, the very idea of love and empathy for one's offspring breaks down, and thereby in society as a whole.
Right, and we were lucky that they did so, which is my point. Plenty of people weren't so lucky, whether because of a lack of parents (e.g. orphans), neglectful/abusive parents, etc. Understanding that possibility is essential to understand why the playing fields aren't level.
"If in this new system"
I'm not proposing any kind of "new system", as I already explained. I'm just describing the problem.
"By society ignoring that capital"
I'm not calling for society to ignore that capital. If anything, I'm calling for society to recognize that not everyone has access to that capital by zero fault of their own and (ideally) to provide an alternative means to acquire equivalent capital. Folks shouldn't have to be punished for their ancestors' mistakes (or even non-mistakes).
A lot of this can and should happen through the public education system, but even that's not a given; even for those who have access to public education (which is far from 100%), not all public schools are created equal. It - again - more often than not boils down to luck.
So you're point is that we should give unqualified people jobs that they are clearly not meant for just because they are having a hard time? There are NGOs and state help for this. Of course if I'm having a hard time, I'd like someone to help me, but the first one to help me should be ME. I should do everything that is in my power to help myself, I shouldn't expect help from others.
Don't know if that is what you were asking, but please stay on the topic of the discussion next time.
I never said given unqualified people better jobs, I said give people in the same jobs the same salary (don't accuse me of not staying in the point when you don't understand my argument and them make a claim of something I didn't say, please).
> I'm having a hard time, I'd like someone to help me, but the first one to help me should be ME. I should do everything that is in my power to help myself, I shouldn't expect help from others.
You think everybody has the same opportunities in the world, which is not the case. Sometimes you need external help and you cannot do anything by yourself (maybe you are lucky and will never suffer this, but doesn't imply it doesn't happenn).
I am asking the same question again, where do you put the line to take an action? For you it is clear the jobs are not an issue, if someone have a better salary with the same job position we shouldn't do anything. But when should we start taking action when the luck is harming people? I put the example of the person in africa starving as an extreme to try to help with my argument.
That's a seriously dangerous mindset and one of the main reasons why we are dealing with a burn-out epidemic and generally massive mental health issues.
Some people are just really bad at asking for help, whether it's because they don't want to admit they ain't "perfect" and hurt their pride or because they simply don't realize they are in way over their head.
The result is that many people set themselves up to fail as they refuse to ask for help even when there's plenty of it aviable and they are clearly in need of it because they fear it might devalue their achievements by not having it done "on their own".
So you say that some who is starving if Africa we shouldn't care because he wasn't at the right place at the right moment? If you answer is that it is not the same case where do you put the line? Because your argument for getting things is basically luck.