Meritocracy is sexist, though :^)

Why should someone be rich just because their parents were, while others are both because of the same reason. That's reasonable to you?

Okay. Well good luck with that with such unrealistic and unachievable utopian wishes.

I remember you talking about the US being crony capitalist/corporatist, but it seems like you're defending it right here. Do you think it's a meritocracy, or do you not?

Well, the alternative is global warming destroying human civilization as we know it, so I'd say that we don't really have much of a choice.

... yes. Many times people work harder to ensure that their children are better off. Now those children should be punished for their parents hard work over some utopian sense of "fairness"? Life isn't fair. Some people will always be born with advantages over others, whether it's Michael Phelps (physicial advantages), Donald Trump (wealth advantages), or Neil DeGrasse Tyson (intellectual advantages(. That will never change.

There's a false dichotomy if there ever was one.

The joke thing was absurd (kind of amazing something like that can become such a big deal) but I've never liked the guy, his whole debacle with the Vita and 3DS and refusal to admit he was wrong despite the written evidence to the contrary really turned me off to him.

He's kind of an asshole.

You talk as if poor people don't work hard.

That is ridiculously simplistic.