Of course it's the truth. Success does not just fall into anyone's lap, save a very few minority of cases that get trumpeted as-if they're normal. There are no shortcuts. Hard work and persistence are what is required to be successful in this country - full stop. And hard work doesn't mean you sweat more...
There is no system or mechanism in America that prevents a poor child from growing up into one of the nation's wealthiest or most powerful. Are there advantages some children's parents provide - of course - but that does not preclude rising up based on one's own merit. Your children should do better than you... because they build off your life's work.
People like to criticize the American Dream from their couch while watching TV... bemoaning how unfair life is and how the deck was stacked against them. They do this instead of working to better their own future... ten years later and they're still complaining, having done nothing to change their situation.
Look at the most successful people in this country. What do they all have in common?
Opportunity is only available to those who are in the right place at the right time speaking to the right people. If we consider the fact that the universe is entirely deterministic we can see that the ideas of free will and meritocracy evaporate.
Complete nonsense. You literally make your own opportunities - although not all opportunities are obvious when present and some do not reveal themselves unless other opportunities are taken first.
How do you think the "right place, right time" people get to the right place and right time? It's not an accident - it's years in the making for most people. Some never even realize they're in the right place or at the right time, and miss opportunities. That's just how it goes...
The people we're talking about do not seek opportunities, do not make themselves ready for opportunities and do not posses skills to capitalize on opportunities. This is why they sit at home complaining about life instead of studying harder and working harder or building their own opportunity. They literally expect one day something grand will fall into their lap and they'll be the next billionaire. Life doesn't work that way...
Having both a mother and father at home while growing up is one of the premier biological indicators of future success. Wealth helps, sure, but it's very easily lost if you grow up without perspective.
Is a cell deterministic? Is the physics on which cells operate deterministic? From my understanding, yes
What does that mean for neurons? Those must be deterministic, which means that the complex organisms which cells create are also deterministic. Their behaviors is entirely deterministic
Sufficiently complex systems take on a life of their own. A rock rolling down a hill is deterministic. That same rock rolling down the hill a thousand times, has a statistical distribution pattern.
That's ignoring the trees for the forest and saying that forest growth and death patterns are entirely inexplicable because the system is too complex.
Psychologists use statistical models because we lack the full understanding of the brain, but that doesn't mean that behavior can't be predicted if we did have a full understanding.
Saying that the rock rolling down the hill has a distribution pattern completely ignores complexity. Did it have the same exact starting point each time? How strong was the wind blowing and in which direction? Did a pebble move out of the rocks path from the last run?
If all conditions of the rock rolling down the hill are exactly the same that means that the rock will take the same path each time. Differences create that statistical distribution.
There actually are systems that prevent people from becoming successful and it, at least partially, has to do with quality of education for poor people in certain areas. It isn't explicit, but the purpose of a system is what it does
There is no system or mechanism in America that prevents a poor child from growing up into one of the nation's wealthiest or most powerful. Are there advantages some children's parents provide - of course - but that does not preclude rising up based on one's own merit. Your children should do better than you... because they build off your life's work.
People like to criticize the American Dream from their couch while watching TV... bemoaning how unfair life is and how the deck was stacked against them. They do this instead of working to better their own future... ten years later and they're still complaining, having done nothing to change their situation.
Look at the most successful people in this country. What do they all have in common?