Unfortunately that world runs on nepotism and schmoozing and 'prestigious accolades' (aka you have to start off rich) and I am too autistic and too lowborn.
I could go into an entire schpiel, with cited data and sources, showing that meritocracy is near nonexistant in the US, but uh... this is one of those uh, bell curve memes with the caveman and wizard on both ends, and neurotic normie in the middle.
You do enough data analysis and one day it hits you that 90% of people cannot or do not read data, and then you realize you have to craft a narrative device if you want any hope of anyone actually absorbing what you're saying lol.
If its any consolation to you... I have ideas for someday making a very comprehensive immersive sim type game... but at the scale of Kenshi, not your traditional imsim that is basically a series of small levels with choices.
Maybe someday I will get some of this working before the actual real world apocalypse/mass economic collapse, rofl.