What role has luck played in your financial success

[Jamesqf]

That may explain your blind spot.

Not my blind spot, but the blind spot of the people who think initial conditions completely determine outcomes.  IOW, that anyone born into a standard middle-class family in the developed world will deterministically (barring some catastrophic accident or windfall) be successful, and those born into less optimal conditions will deterministically become failures.  Reality is that (to speak somewhat mathematically) the starting conditions simply define a zero point, and success or failure should be measured relative to that point.  So it's perfectly possible to be born with all the supposed advantages, yet become a miserable failure.

Essentially,  the question is a math problem.   Trying to understand it from anecdote or from personal experience clouds judgment.

OK, I do understand math.  Formulate it as a math problem, figure out how to post it (I can easily cut & paste LaTeX), and I'll have a look.   

Put another way, Lake Wobegon,  where all the children are above average, is a fictional place.

I don't see the relevance.  Surely what all the posters are saying about their success being due to their advantageous starting conditions equates to "all the children are perfectly average".

(And as an aside, I've never really understood the problem with there being a community in which all children are above average.  It's simply a matter of selection, in the way that say all MIT students are above average in math, or all professional basketball players are above average in athletic ability.)

For starters, I gave you many a chance to explain yourself better.

Sorry, but I think the problem is not my explaining, but your lack of comprehension, real or pretended.

PS: Reflecting on your comment about the PC thread, I begin to think I may have done you a wrong in supposing that you were pretending to a lack of comprehension in order to create an argument.  ('Trolling', IOW)  I now suspect the lack may be real, since it should be obvious that what I've written on that thread re correct use of words has been simply to poke holes in the argument that PC terms like 'Native American' spring from a desire for accuracy.

[PKFFW]

Sorry, but I think the problem is not my explaining, but your lack of comprehension, real or pretended.

We are both writing in English and come from English speaking cultures.

When using the English language, it is incumbent upon the speaker/writer to make their meaning clear.  If there is misunderstanding the fault is with the speaker/writer.

However, misunderstanding is clearly not the case here as it was entirely clear what you stated and when you were challenged on it you decided to attempt to change the meaning of what you stated.

PS: Reflecting on your comment about the PC thread, I begin to think I may have done you a wrong in supposing that you were pretending to a lack of comprehension in order to create an argument.  ('Trolling', IOW)  I now suspect the lack may be real, since it should be obvious that what I've written on that thread re correct use of words has been simply to poke holes in the argument that PC terms like 'Native American' spring from a desire for accuracy.

So in other words, when it suits your purpose you will insist upon very clear definitions in order to make your point and poke holes in other peoples arguments but when that doesn't serve your purpose you will insist on using "ordinary language" (being code for "whatever I want to change my meaning to whenever it suits me") and resort to calling others trolls.

[Insanity]

2) Effort still matters.  Things just don't happen. To be successful you have to put in the work.  Who puts in that work and why are a completely different question.

Now you've managed to completely confuse me.  Why does one person do the work, and another, whose circumstances are pretty well identical, not do it?

Just for thought, consider the evolutionary advantages of the simplest sort of 'free will', defined as the ability to take non-deterministic actions in response to stimuli.  If you have predators that can learn*, then any prey animal that responds in a completely predictible way to threats is highly likely to end up as food.  So if free will is possible at all, it should be selected for by evolution.

*And predators which can learn are likely to capture more prey, so there's a feedback loop.

That was worded pretty poorly.  I apologize. 

There are essentially two people:
1) The one who works because that is the way they are now "programmed" to respond to that given stimuli
2) The one who makes the conscious decision to do the work.

EDIT: The point of this statement was to demonstrate that the work needed to be done, regardless of whether it was done because of free will or a conscious decision to do the work, not a statement of belief in one over the other.