I would consider it fair. Because if I lived in that world, and there was something I wanted to succeed, I would never be in a position where someone else could succeed at it easily while I struggled with transcendent efforts and might ultimately fail anyway.

Not all goals are created equal. Some are more difficult others less so. Many would still struggle.

Also even among those with the same goals, some will get lucky, and gains are likley to snowball over time into ever greater differentials.

I might live in that world and not choose to self-modify for higher IQ, for example if I preferred to expend my self-modification energy on being more generous or more fun to party with, and I might end up with less money or fame or books published than someone else who chose intelligence, but I could have chosen differently if I'd wanted to.

I sympathize with such a position. I feel I would ideally like it if as many people as possible could acheive what is sometimes called self-actualization and pursue their other (differing) values.

However this leaves us with the many difficult questions of how to keep such a situation in equilibrium with ever greater Malthusian pressures (due to the lightspeed limit) and ever greater power differentials. I have been for the past year or so toying with the ideas of voluntary compacts enforced by self-modification (basically I agree to change myself so I care deeply about not altering the terms of this agreement, which naturally means that in the future I will try my very best to preserve this value and hopefully keep the terms).