Pre-rigging?

I’ve worked my ass off for nearly 30 years, as has my wife. We are both smart and very hard working and it paid off. My roots are middle class at best. My parents are immigrants and were extremely poor as children but they also worked hard and went from poverty to middle class.

I’m teaching my children to work hard and be good people and contribute to this world.

How pray tell am I benefiting from “pre-rigging”? I’ve made solid decisions throughout my life and sacrificed to be where I am today.

Now I’m being told that my children will be at a disadvantage for college because my wife and I worked hard our entire careers and succeeded. That’s hogwash. Absolute hogwash and I’m furious.

They will NOT be at a disadvantage for college; they will still be at an advantage, because of all the opportunities you have given them. They may be at a slightly smaller advantage than now; is that terrible?

Again, i think this is more like the inner city kid who gets a 700 on the SAT math section vs a privileged kid who gets an 800. They aren't letting in talent less hacks just cause they are poor.

> Take a break from your "I gotta get mine before anyone else gets any!" attitude

Can you please edit personal slights like that out of your comments to HN? They break the site guidelines and undermine your case.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can’t agree with this sentiment of yours.

While I agree that people that had less than ideal childhoods should be given more opportunities to succeed, it shouldn’t be at the expense of those who worked their ass off for their kids, only to see their hard work taken away by government laws.

My own parents and grandparents came from shitty roots. Russia, concentration camp, Brazil, then to the US. My parents worked hard and I had better opportunities because of that.

What if government took that reward away from them? Well, surprise surprise, it did (just in another country in another era).

_you_ have a choice too: either to take the hand that’s dealt you and move forward, or complain about how others had it better because of their parents, or their own actions.

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life due to circumstances as well as choices I made. I don’t blame other people for what happened to me (but I will blame government services being complete shit, especially towards veterans).

This isn’t a perfect world, so don’t complain what others get that you don’t have. Work towards making the world better instead, without destroying what others have worked hard for in the meantime.

You working for your kids doesn't mean your kids worked.

So I guess I didn't work either?

Did you even read the comment? Child of immigrant barely in middle class is not privilege.

Immigrant children are very privileged to have parents who managed to lift their asses and move to another country in search of a better life.

Parents who care is the single greatest privilege a child may get.

There are different dimensions to privilege. For example even the worst-off class born in the US still has some advantages from being a US citizen.

People who work hard deserve the fruits of their labor, regardless of their economic status. I have no problems with economically disadvantaged hard working people getting into great colleges, I have problems with equally hardworking people being disadvantaged because their parents are successful.

But the richer children are inherently privileged, yet you think providing privilege to poorer children is immoral. Why is one acceptable but the other is not?

Wouldn’t you agree that two people who achieve the same score on the test may not have worked equally hard? If someone scored the same as your child, except they didn’t have good security, good quality schools, parents that could help them, etc, I would say that they in fact worked much harder than your children.

And by the logic of “those who worked harder deserve it more”, well I think you see where this is going.

If anything this adversity score IS making things more fair because it’s providing light to the extra challenges someone might have had and thus who indeed worked harder at it.

We don’t know if they worked harder or not. It’s almost impossible to determine if the reason for any particular success is good teachers, hard work, or genetics.

If this score was unrealistically perfect and able to accurately account for every possible detail, maybe. If instead it just does a cheap job of assuming anyone with a certain set of data points is at a major disadvantage, nope.

The test claims to be measuring a students ability to learn in the first place, not just their current knowledge, so why not aim to make that more accurate instead of bypassing it?

So let me get this correct...

The subject area is the SAT, a test, which is imperfect like all tests, with research which indicates that it's actually problematic for such a diverse country like the USA. So a test like the SAT, which boils down to a single number. Yes that's the subject.

And now they're making the results 2 numbers. The test and some, well known summary of information about the student.

And THIS, THIS is the bridge too far?

Honestly, do you even hear yourself? What should a third party think about your words? Perhaps you could help me and provide a back story of how you've been in opposition to the SAT for a long time, and how this just reinforces a flawed test.

But nope, it sure does seem like you're focusing in on how this test might provide opportunities to black and brown people.

But I'm sure that's not that, because it's hackernews, and we are so polite to each other and reasonable.

So, tell me again why the SAT is good, but SAT + adversity score is bad?

Growing up in a zip code is not a challenge. This "adversity score" doesn't measure adversity.

Admissions is generally a zero sum game, so whenever you help one group, you hurt everyone else who doesn't have that benefit.

Well, then every privileged person who gets in is "hurting" someone of lesser inherent opportunity.

They can use that privilege to spread their applications around to increase their opportunities.

Sure, and every non-privileged person who gets in also hurts others who are in the same situation, since they have taken up a spot. The difference is in this case there is an actual policy which is actively punishing people for being in a perceived state of privilege.

You can also give resources to those who aren't in privilege so they are able to succeed academically, and don't need to have their admission average artificially lowered.

Giving resources is also a zero-sum game. When you're giving more resources to those that aren't privileged, you are in effect denying those same resources for those that are.

For example, school admissions. We can provide more funding for underperforming schools, but that is also less funding going towards better performing schools. At a certain point you will have to accept that to help the poor it will mean cutting off certain benefits for more well-off. Then the discussion becomes around how much resources should be shifted around.

No. If I can afford to provide my own resources, I’m okay with this. Just like I’m okay paying for social security but not receiving any when I retire. Those that have more resources can afford to take less than those that don’t have enough resources themselves.

What I’m not okay with is adjusting scores and denying opportunity because of economic class warfare.

You seem to be in the minority in that regard.

Those that have more resources have historically spent significant amounts of those resources to ensure that they pay in as little of them to anyone else as possible.

>Punishing those in privilege is how you achieve equality.

Tall poppy syndrome. Destroying things does not create things. You can drop a nuclear bomb on silicon valley and punish lots of privilege. It's not going to achieve any notion of equality.

Not talking about destruction. Only redistribution.

Equality of outcome, which should be avoided as much as possible.

This logic is ridiculous. No one should be punished, how about that?

So if you make $125k/yr and I make $75k/yr, equality can only exist if you give me 25k? Should America all just average our salaries and call it a day?

I think you'd be shocked how many people in America actually do think that's a good idea.

If I made $125k a year, that'd be almost double my current salary. I could spare the $25k, then, if you were struggling.

Could you do the same in the reverse situation?

Do you donate your extra money to charity or do you save some for your future? If you have the privilege of being able to save some money for your future, shame on you! There are people starving and you’re amassing your wealth?

What is "Extra Money?" I'm doing my best not to drown in debt. I've calculated it, and I can retire when I'm 142.

Wow... And there you go.

Wow punishing those in privilege creates equality. The logic “progressive” american politics is pursuing is truly scary and broken.

Hating the rich is hate.

If you really loved the poor you would think how to help them lift themselves up. Holding down the top both doesn’t work and is deeply unethical.

College board should provide free tutoring and review classes based of their adversity score instead.

I can’t image this scheme won’t be challenged in courts. Especially the keeping secret the score, imagine if your credit score was kept secret and this will effect their lives more than credit score.

As I have said in other comments, next we need an Unattractiveness Score as we know physical traits have high correlation and causation to success and wealth, clearly a privilege and creating inequality.

Tax credits for the ugly. Mandatory minor face disfigurement for the overly beautiful or handsome.

Very scary developments. America is under true threat to its future with this politics.

Would you please not do flamewars on HN? It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can kinda see why you say that, my best guess is if I delete references to politics and progressive, american etc, then you might see it as less an issue.

The comment I was replying to was pretty absurd wording of punishments.

Anyway it’s always a little hard to know exactly how to interpret the guidelines as there is quite a bit of subjectivity.

I do apologize.

>If you really loved the poor you would think how to help them lift themselves up

I know! Let's give them a bit of advantage in getting an education.

Oh, wait.

Does anyone honestly believe the only way to provide that advantage is to fake their score? That kind of lazy thinking is what needs an adversity score to be considered good.

>For those in power, equality feels like oppression.

This is a classic Kafka-trap, and I see this rhetorical payload delivered more and more these days.

"If you have a problem with changing the status quo, then you're in power and thus deserve to have the status quo changed on you."

Or it's:

"If you have a problem with changing the status quo, in a situation where the change would make you lose something, take extra time to examine whether it was justified for the status quo to give you that thing in the first place."

Which is good advice.

If the status quo systematically oppresses one group and benefits another, the beneficiaries of said system will perceive any change to the status quo that would reduce the oppression of the former group as an unfair attack.

I mean if we reversed this plan and said students from rich areas get bonus points on their SATs, wouldn't poor areas call it an unfair attack? Does that somehow prove that rich kids are systemtically oppressed? This vague statement is not some kind of proof of oppression, it's just wordplay.

But it's not systemic oppression. The system doesn't try to keep poor people poor or uneducated. Do poor people have it harder? Yes, but they have many of the same opportunities available to them. The modern world is rich in information that is freely taught. College is signaling in large part, but there are plenty of opprobrious right now where skill beats signaling.

I'm not sure about ascribing desires to 'the system', but let me do so. The system does try to keep some/many people poor and uneducated in many different ways. If you want the most egregious examples, look at how we treat(ed?) blacks and Native Americans ... the system decreed blacks could be slaves up until one generation ago; the system decreed they would get way less legal rights up until 2 generations ago; the system decreed they would not get loans for housing up until at most one generation ago; the system currently harrasses them and puts them in prison ... many features of our school system seems designed to keep poor people uneducated.

Many times it is harder to see what is currently going on; so, if you want a more blatant current example, right now, the system is keeping undocumented immigrants poor and uneducated on purpose.

>The system doesn't try to keep poor people poor or uneducated.

The system doesn't have motives. Individual behavior can give rise to systemic oppression with no top level design goals needed.

If we take a look at Black people specifically:

Black sounding last names are half as likely to receive callbacks for job interviews. Black people are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and receive longer sentences for committing the same crimes as White people. It's harder for Black people to find housing. Its even harder for them to rent vacation properties.

Black children even receive harsher punishments for the same infractions in elementary school.

All of these things put together mean that yes, they are systemically oppressed, and the system is currently keeping them poorer and less educated. Exceptional individuals will overcome this oppression, but reinforcing feedback loops ensure that if something isn't done to break the cycle, it will continue, and as a class Black people will always be at a disadvantage.

Cute device to hide behind without actually defending unfair attacks.

Nope, not going to play this ridiculous game. And this is a game. I don’t know how or why the modern left started employing the rhetorical tactics mastered by Lenin but here we are.

I suspect this is what is taught in college these days. I would add punishing people for hard work seems to be more of a Stalin thing.