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(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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I think about this a lot. There's an extreme luck or privilege that comes from happening to be born kind of "into" or good at the things society happens to find valuable at the current moment (and in the region of one's birth). I benefit massively from that today, and even just a hundred years ago I think my life would have probably gone very differently (worse). Meanwhile folks I know without those aptitudes but with tons of sincere effort just continue to struggle. It feels really cruel and unfair.
ETA: even worse, we never talk about this. I think you're the first person I've ever seen mention it. So most folks who lost that lottery walk around thinking it's their fault somehow. Such a sad thing to me.
It would be quite disheartening if I was the first person to have had the idea, or articulate it in this way, though not totally unexpected. Will search scholarly articles to see what I can find. So far these types of views are only coming from ND lead research, which thankfully appear to be accelerating recently.
I refer to it in my head as "vocational privilege". I've never once heard it discussed (not just the term I made up, the idea). And frankly we're not exactly at a societal moment when many of us are eager to bring new forms of privilege into discussions, I think it'll be quite some time before we're ready to grapple with this, but it's a huge problem.
Both in terms of human suffering but also just in terms of humanity's "efficiency". There's so much more good that could be done if we were able to harness people's born talents better, rather than the square peg round hole nonsense we do with so many folks today.
I am with you... If I had been born in any circumstance that led to me not being exposed to and able to develop software, I'd probably be worse off in 100 ways. Just happened to be born at the time and in the right circumstance that it was becoming very valuable to society, and I could pursue it. Well, it was actually dumb luck I landed on it. I initially thought I'd never be able to or want to do it lol. Any other point in history prior, I have no idea what I would've done. But being this introverted is not suited to most things in life.
It's pretty chilling to think about. The number of things that had to line up just right for you and I and others like us to have decent lives. And the extreme luck that they did. Realizing this, and how hopeless it is for so many others, basically radicalized me. We must find a better way to organize our society, this is an insane way to do things.