It’s the greatest factor of all. I grew up dirt poor with a drug addicted mother. Could you tell me how I could have possibly derived any benefit from blaming life for dealing me a bad hand? My point stands, the only thing I can do to move my life forward is focus on the things I can control. I can’t control how unfair the world is, but I can control what I take away from failure. This concept of privilege is used it such a messed up way. It doesn’t matter where you start out, the only thing you can do to make your life better is take responsibility for yourself. Your argument seems to boil down saying that if you have to try to hard you may as well just not bother because it’s not your fault.

It's rational and correct to tackle underlying causes of inequality. You're correct that the only thing that can be done is to deal with the situation you find yourself it; you're wrong that you "can’t control how unfair the world is". The world will remain unfair unless we all try to fix that situation – and drawing attention to is one of the steps required.

Everybody has responsibility for themselves. But that's not an excuse to shut people down for complaining about inequality.

We're born unequal. We're all born with different levels of physical and mental ability. We're also all born in different circumstances. This is simply the natural state of the world. Advocating for people to wallow in despair over this fact is far more harmful than beneficial. As I said, the only thing you can do to make a better life for yourself is to take responsibility for your life.

The only equality we can strive to achieve is equality of opportunity. Allowing people to compete on equal terms. Although we could improve on this point, we actually already do it pretty well. At no time in my life have I ever been denied an opportunity because I grew up poor, or because my mother was (and still is) a drug addict. I have found many opportunities to improve my life, and I have taken advantage of many of them.

Everything else you can't 'fix'. I guess if you wanted to destroy society you could enforce equal circumstances for everybody. You could tax income at 100%, and redistribute all resources perfectly equally between all members of society, but people would still be born with their own set of natural talents and abilities.

The message that "it's not your fault, it's inequality's fault" is so incredibly destructive and dangerous. The only person responsible for getting your life to where you want it to be is you.

Like I said, it is down to each individual to make the best with what they have. I don't advocate anybody "wallowing in despair", but I do fully support objecting to structural inequality that denies people the opportunity to compete fairly.

The only equality we can strive to achieve is equality of opportunity.

Obviously.

Although we could improve on this point, we actually already do it pretty well.

We do it shockingly badly by almost every metric.

At no time in my life have I ever been denied an opportunity because I grew up poor

I have no reason to think you don't believe that, but it's almost certainly not true. It's completely obvious that this is the case. If you grow up poor, it is harder to access better education, better nutrition, better medical care. These subsequently have an effect on which opportunities one can take advantage of.

I have found many opportunities to improve my life, and I have taken advantage of many of them.

That's awesome! It's the only way to improve one's own outcome. It doesn't invalidate the fact that those opportunities are harder to come by for people of some backgrounds.

redistribute all resources perfectly equally between all members of society, but people would still be born with their own set of natural talents and abilities.

We don't require complete redistribution nor absolute equality of circumstances in order to improve the situation. We can make sure that there are well-funded public schools, so that children from poor backgrounds can receive high-quality education. We can provide welfare systems and education programs so that kids have access to quality nutrition. We can provide universal medical care. We can try to eliminate structural racism or homophobia. There are all good things that are worth arguing for.

The message that "it's not your fault, it's inequality's fault" is so incredibly destructive and dangerous. The only person responsible for getting your life to where you want it to be is you.

Far more dangerous, in my opinion, is the view that unequal circumstances are unavoidable and the best thing to do is to "put up or shut up", as it were. I do not claim that anybody other than yourself is responsible for your own life, but I totally disagree that we should pretend inequality doesn't exist, or that we shouldn't bother fighting it. It's not an excuse for failure, but it's also something that very obviously makes it more likely.

There's a comic I quite like that illustrates this: http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate

I have never in my life been denied an opportunity because of my background. No school ever considered my background before admitting me. No employer ever considered my upbringing before offering me a job.

Again, unless you forcefully redistribute all material resources evenly (which as I’ve already said, doesn’t at all take into account natural endowments), then you’re never going to have everybody existing in an equal set of circumstances.

Inequality of outcomes will always and should always exist. In fact it’s not fair for inequality of outcomes to not exist, as people will never all produce equal value to society.

Furthermore, I went to a well funded public school. It was full of delinquents, but I made the most of my education, which has since served me very well. This was only possible because I took responsibility for myself, which no matter how much you deny it, is exactly what you are advocating against. I don’t know where you’re from, but I live in a society that provides equal protection under the law, and doesn’t allow people to discriminate based upon socioeconomic status. Sure, wealthy people will be able to invest more money into developing themselves, but I have been granted the opportunity to compete with those people on equal terms all my life, and I’ve more often than not come out ahead.

You haven’t substantiated your argument that equality of opportunity doesn’t exist in any way, and you continue to advocate for people to focus on the unfairness of their circumstances, rather than what they can do about it. In life all you can do is play the cards your dealt, shaking your fist at the sky will get you exactly nowhere.

Okay pal, I'll have to stop this conversation here – because I literally advocated the exact opposite of that and it's clear that your views are set, you're not reading what I wrote, and you're unlikely to be convinced. All the best!