I like a lot of the communities on that instance, but every once in a while I just get hit with a random wave of toxicity by them for no reason. For example, there was a post asking which communities from Reddit do you wish existed on Lemmy, and I answered honestly saying more car related communities as they are one of my hobbies, and I got severely downvoted and got replied to with “there is a FuckCars community” There are other times in the past where something similar happened in a lemmy.ml community, where I said something that was 100% non-offensive, non-argumentative, and non-political but got mass down voted for no reason. I have not had this problem anywhere else however. Does anyone else have a similar experience or no?
If that’s your argument, you should add that you doing better has nothing to do with your individual actions. Otherwise you just sound like a billionaire fanboy.
As someone who “crawled out of a shithole” i can accept that “luck” or circumstance plays a big role. But if you are not born privileged and you grasp what’s important to do better and put effort (and the circumstances allow it) then your efforts are as crucial as putting them in the right place which might be impossible to accomplish for most.
For that reason I cannot agree with dismissing my individual actions.
Of course your efforts can get you into a better place. But it’s also completely possible to put effort in and get screwed over anyways. And it’s possible that someone puts no efforts in but suddenly wins in the lottery. Efforts matter, but they dont guarantee anything.
Nothing to do with your individual actions? Really? So there’s no difference between someone who works their ass off in school / uni and someone who just fucks around and drops out? I get that the children of the richest 1% can fail successfully, but for the bottom 99% you have to have some substance in order to succeed.
Yes you need substance to succeed. But at the same time it’s possible that you work your ass off, but something happens out of sheer bad luck and you fail anyways. While someone else fucks around but out of sheer luck gets the promotion/wealth.
I don’t disagree that systemic factors play a huge role, but individual actions can definitely contribute a lot as well. A family member of mine grew up dirt poor in a developing country but worked their ass off to save money to move to the US, worked their ass off more and is now in the top of their field, owns a house, multiple cars, paid for their kids college, etc. Luck almost certainly played a part (and choosing the right field to go into) and it’s obviously the case that a lot of people who work hard all their life are never able to get out of poverty, but individual actions can definitely contribute to moving up the socioeconomic ladder. It certainly shouldn’t be the only factor, though, as conservatives and the rich want it to be.
Of course you are right and they can contribute a lot in an individual person’s life. But when you look at the statistics, there are numbers on economic freedom of moving into an upper class of where you start with.
And some countries are good in that regard. Some countries are very very bad in that regard.