For those who don't know, the Varna system, also known as the caste system has long been justified as the 'natural order' of a scholar's child being a scholar, a warrior's child being a warrior, a tradesmen child being a tradesman and the lowest class of a menial worker's child being a menial worker.
The fact that so many are willing color the discussion with - observable trends seem to suggest this is a natural fact of life is only elementary is both disgusting and unsurprising.
My kids saw a whole lot more of "how technology works" and mathematics during elementary school than most kids. A lawyer's kid probably heard a lot more of argument, rhetoric, and legal reasoning than mine did. They still could do something completely different-- the lawyer's kid could go do technology and my kid could grow up to be a lawyer-- it's just a somewhat less likely outcome.
And what would be the likelyhood of the child of a single mom working 2 unskilled jobs to be either of those? Like I mentioned in a different comment, Systematic barriers exist without being consciously built and are then perpetuated as just the natural way of things.
And, what you're saying is a bit orthogonal to what was discussed here: attaining social mobility for everyone doesn't need to erase familial proclivities towards certain professions. In your eagerness to speak harshly to everyone else here, I think you're missing that what others are discussing is not what you're attacking.
Indeed, uh... I left a tech career where I averaged making 7 figures a year to run youth programs and help kids from non-engineering backgrounds-- including a large share of disadvantaged kids-- into having many of the same kinds of advantages my kids do in being able to imagine an engineering career and learn basic skills and the details of the path at an early age.
So, please don't lecture me about systematic barriers. You don't need to tear down family traditions and passing down of skills to greatly reduce inequity: you just need to ensure that everyone gets a reasonable chance at a path upwards. Some can show up in my programs and become engineers and mathematicians; others can go in someone else's speech program and become marketers and lawyers; other, more fortunate people, can lean on familial upbringing; and yet others can choose something other than the path of least resistance and do something less probable.
This entire thread of conversation began with my highlighting the parallels of how the Varana system, supposedly of divine origins, accepted and prevalent, even today in Silicon Valley[1], is not dissimilar to what the original article and the parent comment spoke about.
Though sure, please do go ahead and argue the things that I allegedly said.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=silicon+valley+caste+system&t=fpas...
It's not a social justice or caste issue to have a probability distribution that says, say, within the trades, that a plumber's kid is more likely to be a plumber than an electrician, and vice-versa of an electrician's kid, when the two professions are of equal status.
If there's a whole lot of people below the class of tradesmen who have no real path to moving up-- that is a social justice, class, or caste issue. But surely not all manifestations of not-quite-equally likely outcome are social justice, class, or caste issues.
> Though sure, please do go ahead and argue the things that I allegedly said.
Seriously, the rush to sarcasm/abrasive language is not helpful to actually figuring out what you're arguing or to having a productive conversation.
If you are dedicated to education, there is plenty of opportunity to succeed. It’s sad that some bloodlines don’t make it out of poverty easily, but that’s just how the world works. For those that make the effort, it’s very available.
Right, right, my mistake, this is nothing like the Varana system.
Systematic barriers are seldom built consciously, yet they exist and without conscious effort to break down continue to be perpetuated.
From the point of view of opportunities/privileges available to an individual, is there really a difference between the caste system and a class system?
Not so for socioeconomic class. My grandfathers milled steel and mined coal. They made sure their kids became the first generation in the family to attend college. My parents became teachers and made sure their kids focused on education and we all attended “good colleges” and have built careers. My generation is saving for college while the kids are still in diapers.
That’s still systemic advantages from the family, but it’s marked change in economic class in just two generations, which is IMO dramatically different from the Indian caste system. It still matters who your parents are, but in a significantly different (and I think more fair) way.
It amazes me when people think the current socioeconomic structures are fair.
You do realise that most people here, including perhaps you are, economically speaking, closer to being poor than being part of the 1% rich, right? The economic gap between those you might consider poor and yourself is a rounding error magnitude of the gap between yourself and the super rich. This is not an accident.
God forbid, but you and your kids are perhaps one or two medical, legal or natural calamities away from that few generations of advancement you talk about.
I don’t care that someone has well over 5 orders of magnitude more wealth than I have. It doesn’t materially negatively affect my life in the least and, on the contrary, their inventions make my daily life better by wildly more than any negative impacts their houses, yachts, airplanes, or rockets could possibly have.
I’m here to spend my life energy and time pursuing the things that are important to me: raising and loving my family, doing work and hobbies I find stimulating, traveling and learning about the world. Bellyaching that I’m not a literal or figurative monarch is not among the ways I choose to spend my time and energy.
Wait, are you under the impression that people with extreme wealth typically got it by inventing something?
It's called capitalism because the owners of capital reap most of society's economic rewards. Which is in the form of more capital.
IOW, the rich get richer.
The optimal wealth investment strategy to grow a large pile of money into a larger pile over the long term is pretty simple too (rebalance your portfolio annually, buy and hold), and attempts at a 'smarter' strategy tend to fail pretty miserably.
The American story used to be rags-to-riches-to-rags, but not anymore. These days once you've reached 'riches' your descendants are fairly likely to stay rich, and laziness on their part (ie. leaving the money pile on autopilot) is actually an asset (eg. Donald Trump would be a wealthier today if he had invested his inheritance and just left it alone).
Conversely, it is harder than ever to go from rags-to-riches in the first place.
You do not benefit from the wealthy in society pulling the ladder up behind themselves.
My parents are not intellectual in the least. The career advice I received from them growing up was all bad. Lucky for me I ignored them.
Now take one kid getting bad career advice and another kid getting good career advice from mom and dad.
After thousands of iterations the asymmetry is going to be huge.
Sorry that doesn't line up with the institutional victim mentality.