I've taught programming to kids from very poor classes of society who grokked it and excelled at it. But, guess what– a lot of them will be stuck working at McDonald's because they can't go to college, or because even if they could go to public universities their family didn't understand why they should spend 4+ years not bringing in any money when they could work at McDonald's right away.
I've also taught/privately tutored CS students from some of the US's best universities. The range in intellectual capacity between the two groups is shockingly consistent. I've had students who attended Stanford who would have been put to shame by some of my "first of the family to finish high school but can't go to college" students.
If Bill Gates hadn't been born to lawyers and bankers, data says he would likely be part of the "average schmucks on the subway".
Successful people consistently underestimate how lucky they are.
> Successful people consistently underestimate how lucky they are.
Meanwhile mediocre people consistently attribute other people's success to luck. As luck would have it, they are both right and wrong. I am a high school dropout who never went to college, yet I sold 2 companies in the last 2 years. Is my success just a matter of luck, or am I that much better than the average population. Maybe the answer is that neither are that important. What I can say for sure that I work harder than the average population, much, much harder. And that's my general problem with those who champion socialism, they never seem to want to work as hard as I do. Among ditch diggers, there are always a few men leaning on their hoe handles.
Well the solution seems to be pretty simple then- if everyone worked as hard as you did, we wouldn't have to worry about poverty, unemployment, and so on! :)
I have another real life anecdote of my own. My younger brother and I grew up more or less under the same conditions barring our individual personalities. Yet he is way smarter than me, he is about to finish college in two years, while I just got into college this season. I don't even know how well I will do, I might fail this semester who knows. We have already had two very different life trajectories and they might diverge further, even though we are brothers.
Some decades ago the per capita income of South Korea was on par with some of the poorest nations in the world. Today South Korea is a rich nation. Japan was devastated after the WWII, but it experienced an economic miracle afterwards. China was an under achiever in the last century, but in the next decades it will become a superpower. We can talk all day about how equal we are, but not everyone thrives equally, even under the best of conditions.
I can not but held the believe that among individuals, families, nations and ethnic groups, there are innate differences. Differences that are deeply rooted within our genes, we're all thinking beings but not everyone can be Newton, I sure can't. Of course you may beg to differ with me, after all individuals tend to distort the reality to their views. I might have a distorted view of reality, though I doubt it.
I've also taught/privately tutored CS students from some of the US's best universities. The range in intellectual capacity between the two groups is shockingly consistent. I've had students who attended Stanford who would have been put to shame by some of my "first of the family to finish high school but can't go to college" students.
If Bill Gates hadn't been born to lawyers and bankers, data says he would likely be part of the "average schmucks on the subway".
Successful people consistently underestimate how lucky they are.