[inglor_cz]

"I realize this is a bit petty"

It is, and very American-centric. Plenty of innovative people are born in poorer countries with much less resources at their disposal. Indeed quite a lot of American top scientists are immigrants from not exactly rich places.

Of course, even they are sort-of privileged by the fact that they weren't born blind, on in a period of outright war, or didn't get cancer at the age of three. But this is already stretching the meaning of "privilege".

Katalin Karikó, one of the main brains behind mRNA, grew up in shabby Communist Hungary and her lab equipment at her home university was likely worse than what a median high school in the U.S. has at its disposal. (There wasn't much convertible currency east of the Iron Curtain to buy top stuff, and not enough capacity to manufacture it locally.)

[honkycat]

Sure, there are geniuses that can spawn out of anywhere that occasionally rise out of bad situations. They are notable because they are EXCEPTIONS to the rule.

But there is massive inequality and poverty in the United States. Here is an example: In my home town, the poverty rate is 12%-13%. In the US state of Georgia it is 17%. In the Czech Republic, which has about the same population as Georgia, it is 10%.

So your assertion that "her lab equipment at her home university was likely worse than what a median high school in the U.S." is questionable. There are plenty of people living in horrible conditions in the US. Our scores in mathematics are 30th amongst developed nations.

Our cities are full-to-the-brim with a homeless population that we have abandoned to the streets that our cities and citizens do not have the wealth to address due to all of the money going to 1% of the population. In fact, our homeless population is almost to 0.2% of the total population, coming in at around 500k people.

Also, the assertion "other people have it worse" is not useful. I can be critical of our current society and also realize I have a privilege living where I do. I can see the impoverished system I grew up in, compare it to the opportunities afforded other people, and say: "Hmm. Maybe we can improve society somewhat."

[inglor_cz]

I am from the Czech Republic. Our inequality is better than American, for sure, but we seem to be on the same track. Especially the gypsy ghettos are fairly bad. Not as bad as the worst places in the U.S., but shockingly bad for the middle of the EU. In neighboring Slovakia, some of the mud hut villages look like a mixture of the Middle Ages with rural Nepal. So I am not really sure if the better numbers aren't result of some creative statistics.

I still believe that Karikó's equipment was fairly bad, because I was alive in the 1980s and I remember the shortages of everything. Late stage Communism was all about stuff shortage. Either something was really plentiful (but usually of questionable quality), or very hard to acquire. This included school equipment. The first home computers spread some 10 years later than in the West and we regarded them almost as godly objects.