[WalterBright]

It is not minuscule. For middle class people, the route to millionaire status is very doable. Live below your means, and regularly invest the difference.

For poor people, the route is to learn a valuable skill, move into the middle class, then apply the above.

[lordnacho]

That just moves the goal posts by a level, doesn't it? What's the chance you have a low stress upbringing that allows you to work towards such goals? Parents who are supportive and believe in that middle class dream, teachers who don't give up on you when you misbehave, enough comfort to not have to focus on immediate concerns?

[WalterBright]

You can blame your parents and teachers up until age 18, then it's on you.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Nonsense.

You can't rationally compare the life chances of someone whose parents are billionaires - with access to that network, and the best schooling, and discussions about investing over dinner - with someone born in a shack without a book in the house.

An incredibly tiny number of people will be able to do well from a near-zero start. And most will do it by being aggressively self-serving narcissists.

Everyone else is going to have a much tougher time.

[WalterBright]

Migrants who walk a thousand miles to get into the US come with nothing, yet they on average do rather well here.

> without a book in the house

Everybody has a supercomputer in their pocket with access to millions of free books.

[lordnacho]

> Everybody has a supercomputer in their pocket with access to millions of free books.

And which ones should you read?

[WalterBright]

"Siri, which free books should I read?"

[throwawaysea]

That’s for the person to figure out. If they’re hard working, they’ll sacrifice [some leisure activity] to research which books to read.

[lordnacho]

That's one of those statements that's useful as an attitude, not so useful as an explanation.

I'm sure people can think of ways your parents influence you after the age of majority.

[WalterBright]

The point is you have a choice, and you're old enough to know if following your parents' advice is a good idea or not. At 18 it's time to grow up and take responsibility for your life.

[lordnacho]

Have you never someone who thought they had to please their parents well into adulthood?

On one hand, yes, on paper you are free when you are 18.

On the other hand, you can't be free without some sort of confidence that you'll be ok if you don't do what your parents say. And if your parents are the domineering kind, they'll have made good use of your first 18 years to keep you in their orbit.

Real life is complicated, not everyone has clarity, especially at that age.

[WalterBright]

It's their choice, not their destiny.

Young people reject their parents all the time. A pervasive issue in parenting is the kids refuse to listen to the parents. Movies about it are quite popular - see "Dirty Dancing", "Saturday Night Fever", on and on and on.

I'm not buying the lack of agency of young people. It's just another excuse for choosing the easy way.

If you are not where you want to be in life, have you done anything today to move towards that goal? If you've done nothing, then choose better. It's your life, not mine. Complaining about not being a billionaire's son is a waste of your life.

If you're in the US, of sound mind and body, and over 18, there's never been a time in history with more opportunity for you. If you refuse to see it, nobody can help you. But just think about all those migrants with nothing walking thousands of miles with the hope of getting into the US.

What do they know that you don't?

[anoncake]

Who you are depends on your upbringing, so no, it's never on you.

[WalterBright]

> it's never on you

People are not robots.

For example, you chose to type your message. The computer did not drag your hapless body over to the computer and force you to type it in.

[anoncake]

Yes, they pretty much are. Extremely complicated, organic, robots. But that is not the point. Your choices depend on your personality and abilities, which in turn depend on your upbringing and experiences.

[WalterBright]

If I followed you around for a day, I could point out all the choices you chose to make and could have chosen to do differently.

[throwawaysea]

I think you’re getting close to arguing that there is no free will and that everything in the universe is therefore luck or randomness. Perhaps one way to look at it is that even if humans philosophically are robots, the ones who sacrifice more (via hard work) deserve different, better outcomes.