[thoughtexplorer]

Make no mistake, anyone born into an advanced country is privileged. We are very privileged and lucky compared to someone born in the Congo.

Beyond that it seems rather meaningless to attribute success to privilege over a multitude of other factors. It helps, but it's not the main component. Indeed those with the most privilege tend not to do so well. Consider rich kids who turn into generally unsuccessful adults. Clogs to clogs in 3 generations. The opposite of success.

Meanwhile you have people like JayZ who started among the least privileged (relative to the country) becoming one of the most privileged.

As for Gates, he had the drive and interest to spend his time learning how to program and explore business while he was a kid. While most of his peers were likely using that time to watch TV or party. That's an essential difference and no amount of privilege is going to bridge that.

[zorga]

> Make no mistake, anyone born into an advanced country is privileged.

Privilege is not binary, being born into a rich family gives you a massive amount of privilege that being born into the lower class doesn't regardless of how we compare with other countries. So your point here, is rather missing the point entirely.

[Jach]

Privilege is a useless (for non political purposes) lens to view people through, so don't even grant the idea of privilege by birth country.

[WaddyJones]

>As for Gates, he had the drive and interest to spend his time learning how to program and explore business while he was a kid. While most of his peers were likely using that time to watch TV or party. That's an essential difference and no amount of privilege is going to bridge that.

Dude his drive and interest was solely determined by his physical appearance aka the fact that he considered himself ugly. If gates could choose he would have been a good looking tv watching party chad. But he was an uggo so he statusmaxxed instead.