[facepalm]

"Well, kids growing up in poverty without the right role models are pretty close to being "actively prevented from programming""

Not really - they can still get a computer for 300$, head to the nearest library and get started.

Yes, there are bad fates - perhaps they never learned to read and so on. It's really possible someone never gets the chance. But as I said, programming is then really the last skill that can be blamed for being unattainable, plenty of other professions that would be way more forbidding.

" If you believe people should always work to make the world better, than trying to maintain the status quo is pretty bad"

But wouldn't people be forced to try to have merit, so they would automatically work on improving the world?