🔥Cassandra🔥Stolen for reposting with #AltText.
FYI, I'm muting this now.
But I will once again state my opinion that anarchists and Star Trek people generally need to do better at alt text.
Aby@Cassandra - I see you met some Reply Guys 🙄
@aby Heh. It's really quite surprising how some people choose to introduce themselves to absolute strangers.
Craig Froehle@Cassandra What all goes into "birth lottery"?
@cra1g Are you asking me to explain the concept to you?
@Cassandra I'm curious what people believe is included in that category. Is it just wealthy parents, or is, say, not having a congenital birth defect also included? What about being handsome/pretty? Or smart? Or having one or more personality traits that contribute to one's ability to generate wealth? Just hoping for some clarity.
@cra1g Ah. I don't know what the person who drew it had in mind, but I would interpret it to include all the structural inequalities.
Cykonot@cra1g @Cassandra many of the traits you described are not genetic per se. Did you know that "heritable" traits in the field of sociology include environmental things or simple wealth? That you can't take terms and results from one scientific field and just interpret them willy-nilly with definitions from another?
You said nothing wrong, of course. Just brought to mind that silly story they had us read in high school with the glasses and weights holding down ubermensch.
Ps: gene editing exists
@cykonot I don't think I'm familiar with this silly story.
@Cassandra "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut. It is satire
@cykonot @Cassandra Yep, I realize...I was asking to hear what other people thought was meant by the phrase "birth lottery." It's intended to be rhetorical, clearly, so therefore is open to individual interpretation. And how people understand and react to framing language such as this is rather fascinating.
@cra1g @Cassandra understood. But there's no real qualitative difference in your list. Phenotypic variance is certainly connected to genetic variance, but essentializing these features is misguided. Different communication styles / physical features are preferred in different societies; many qualities are controlled by variations outside the genetic landscape. Plus, even that is now maleable.
Often, people appeal to results to flatter themselves and reify/justify systems which benefit them.
Pattacakek@cra1g @Cassandra
These are really important points that didn’t immediately spring to mind when I read, birth lottery.
These are really important points that didn’t immediately spring to mind when I read, birth lottery.
Piko Starsider 
@cra1g @Cassandra birth lottery encompasses much more than generic lottery: the wealth of your family, of your neighborhood, how easy is to access opportunities, etc. Individual genetics play a part but I don't think it's that important. Except for other people's biases.
Anton Chigurh 
@Cassandra a meme is not a fact, we need evidence.
@Herso_239 If only there were some way for you, person on the internet, to find evidence 🙁
Gid@Cassandra
As my grandma used to say:
Mit ehrlicher Arbeit ist noch keiner reich geworden.
Nobody has ever gotten rich through honest work.
As my grandma used to say:
Mit ehrlicher Arbeit ist noch keiner reich geworden.
Nobody has ever gotten rich through honest work.
Simon Brooke@Cassandra You missed 'blatant criminality'
Sue B.@Cassandra
To sum up, in order to get rich, you have to be either lucky or a thief.
To sum up, in order to get rich, you have to be either lucky or a thief.