Poor people should get slower internet speeds, American ISPs tell FCC

Re: Well, if they don't think it's fair...

@Kiwi, I'm a bloody awful christian, 90% agnostic, but I'll still be putting my name on the local night shelter roster this weekend, cos it's gonna get bloody cold, and rough sleeping when cold is awful.

Wakefield Baptist Church for the win: they actually *do* stuff.

Re: Well, if they don't think it's fair...

Wow, what the actual fuck?

I presume you meant "Wow, what the actual facts?"

Even just having a parent who only worked part time, so could help with your homework. Or even bother to check that you'd done it.

So, you thought your homework was you mommas job? I begin to see that by "society" you actually mean "wet nurse".

Luckily I'm in a country that does university entry entirely on merit.

Not really, since everyone gets a gazzillion A*'s now anyway, admission isn't entirely on merit, its mostly on an aptitude test and a willingness to borrow the money to pay the fees.

All the people who I know who went to Russel Group universities (that's the UK equivalent of Ivy League, albeit started a thousand years before) had a parent who'd been to one.

And yet I went to one and was the first person to go to any university in the history of my very blue collar family. The world is bigger than your little group of mates.

So somehow in this merit based environment, only the offspring of previous elites gets to go to elite institutions.

I've already demonstrated why that isn't true. My dad wasn't even elite in the pub darts league.

If we had anything resembling a meritocracy then society would not look the way it does.

Sure it would. My family connections could have set me up with a bar job if I was lucky, and my family wealth might have stretched to a weekend in Ibiza. Off season.

Of course, this does mean that if you have succeeded then it's not down to you, but more down to your good luck/choice of who your parents are and what country you are raised in.

And yet it isn't. If it were, then I'd be cutting up pieces of steel for a living and earning about half of what I pay in direct taxes. I know you want to be right about this, but you just aren't. If you're not succeeding, then it IS your fault. It's not your parents to blame here kiddo.

Being wealthy allows you to take far greator risks, since the cost of failure is much lower.

Yup, and those greater risks may one day make me rich, but getting wealthy didn't require anything but hard work and willingness to understand how capitalism works, rather than sitting comfortably in my parents house ranting about how unfair life is and how only the rich get ahead. It was bullshit when I was your age and it's still bullshit now.

ence why certain schemes are in place to ensure only those who don't need anything as crass as a paycheque can enter certain industries.

Bollocks. Name one. Just one.

anyone who argues that we exist in a meritocracy either thinks that we're pretty terrible at doing stuff (hence why our experts are shit) or has very limited experience of the world

And yet I'd wager good money that I have seen more of the world than you and lived in it a longer time. If you're this whiney when you're confronted with reality, god alone knows what you're like in your bedroom at your folks gaff. Do you actually believe any of the nonsense you've written?!

Your successes and failures in life are your own. If you want more success than failure, then step one is taking ownership.

I don't want the part that you created entirely yourself. Just the parts to cover all the things that you did use. Courts, roads, police, fire, education, that sort of thing.

So why then are 'you' taking so much?

I don't use the courts. I don't use the police. My fuel tax pays for the roads 5 times over. I don't use the fire service. I paid for my own education, thanks.

I don't mind paying for those things, but those things are a tiny fraction of my taxes. Mostly they're just wasted on welfare, public sector pensions, diversity nonsense, and administration. I've previously provided links where even the public sector think they only get 70p of value per £1 spent - that's 30p of waste that the people spending the money know they're wasting. Likely, in the real world, it's double that.

I don't just want what you earn, but tax on what you have!

Good luck. As soon as Corbyn announced he wanted to nationalise 10% of the FTSE, I moved most of my assets abroad. You can tax my house, sure, right along with your own. But much of my money is now permenantly beyond your reach. It's greedy small minded children such as yourself that discourage and render pointless the notion of hard work, personal success, and bettering yourself. Why bother when some whingey child will sinply steal it from you "because parents"?

Personally I think income taxes are a disincentive to work, since you are rewarded far more for capital gains etc.

I agree with the first part - income taxes are a disincentive to work - I've dropped nearly half my working week now trying to avoid them. And yet, still I make more from income than capital gains. Though, I'll never pay any CGT due to it not applying to offshore entities holding my assets. And you can look in the mirror for the reason I've done that.

But yeah, we don't live in a meritocracy. Within a certain group, maybe, but a meritocracy of white people isn't a meritocracy :D

Oh, so you're a racists then? White skin is not a disability or a birth defect. There's nothing about what I've done that a black person hasn't already done. It's not a race issue. Hell, most of my teams aren't white, many of them aren't men, but all of them, all of them, have taken personal responisbility for themsleves. And that, that is really all that sets them apart from you.

Re: Well, if they don't think it's fair...

Who will put in the most effort? Who is most likely to be hired?

Even in your ludicrously conviluted example, the best candidate will get hired.

4 interviews in just one day is unlikely. Preparing more than 60 minutes in advance is always possible and often desirable. I've never driven or been driven to an interview in my life. I've always used public transport. Always. It simply isn't a barrier to success.

If that is really all you have, then you have nothing. Well, you seem to have an accountability problem, but other than that, you got nowt.

You also have to cook your own meals, do your own house cleaning and so on, and still be prepared for whatever work opportunity comes along.

A neat description of my life as it happens. Wealthy is not rich. If you don't understand the difference, then you're going to need some schooling.

Rich people never have to work again and can fund their lifestyle from passive income. Wealthy people can fund a lifestyle from passive income, but not their current lifestyle. I make more than minimum wage from my investments, but I have no desire to live a minimum wage lifestyle, and my dividends aren't far enough ahead of minimum wage to run the risk of their never being cut.

You have someone else to do your cooking and cleaning. Your time and mental energy can be devoted solely to your job.

No I don;'t and no they aren't. You're making sweeping assumptions based on incorrect emotions. Look at what I wrote.

I do my own cooking and cleaning (and the wifes ironing as it happens). Most of my post work mental energy is spent on raising my kids. The two hours free time I have a night are spent on hobbies, side projects (which do spin out cash as an after thought), relaxing, fitness, reading, and eating the occasional pizza in front of the TV. Probably the same as most others lives.

Who has the better opportunity?

We had the same opportunity (state educated in a crap school), paid for my own education post school, and worked my ass off to get where I am and own what I own. My car is probably older than yours because I funnelled the depreciation I would have had froma newer car into buying shares that pay enough now in dividends that I can buy a decent car using their income.

That's without looking at other things like having family who know someone and so on.

My family connections might have stretched far enough to get me a job on the factory floor. That's if I was lucky and my dad called in every favour he was ever owed.

It's easy for people like you to see others success as undeserved, or inherited, or to imagine that it's come at your own personal expense. But none of that is true. None of it.

I don't begrudge them that, but the effort they've needed to put in just to get to an interview has been far less than mine.

I've had to put in no less effort than yourself. I'm not an orphan, but then, I don't work in the factory that employed my dad. I work for a bank, hundreds of miles from the nearest person I knew when I moved here and took the job.

And in many cases, their dad has been sitting there with them saying "If you give my son a job, I'll make sure my firm sends you some business" or "We'll up your discount by another 20% for the next 5 years". Not even close to a level playing field.

Imagine that if you prefer it to reality, but that is not reality. Yes, I'm sure it does happen on occasion, but almost everyone I see around me (my office is open plan in one of the big towers) is entirely self made. I know none of their parents, and none of them know mine. We're her on our own personal merit. And the first step to joining us if to take ownership of your own current self made situation. If you want to change, then do so. But pack in blaming me for it if you don't.