Skepticism is fine, but you come across as incredibly sheltered. Also, the very embodiment of the belief system that the article is pointing at.

> This dude's car breaks down and he gives up on university?

That is life-changing when you're in poverty. Fuck, walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Housing is cheaper ten miles out; walk _twenty_ miles in someone else's _disintegrating_ shoes. Carrying books, on a poverty diet.

You don't have to accept the claim as definite fact, but have some fucking imagination.

> Why is his mother filling out paperwork?

As far as i can see from outside America, these things are addressed to the parent. They require proof of financial status, and a signature. The guy is presumably miles away. Perhaps the mother promises to do it, but lets him down. Perhaps she's spiteful. Perhaps she's afflicted. I personally know people whose parents have done horrible things to them.

You don't know, but you reflexively deny. Comes across as motivated reasoning. You earned everything you have through hard work and intelligence, huh? Started from zero, and there's no number lower than that. Good job, achiever.

Maybe this guy is morally defective for not intercepting his mother's mail and breaking into a kinko's at night to forge documents. I suspect he'd face harsher penalties than Gates for that rule-breaking.

I have seen rural poverty in America. I have seen people walking miles to sit in a tin shack for a nurse who comes once a week. I sat my white ass down in my branded jeans next to a woman with goitre. I sat for twenty minutes while i figured out that this wasn't a place i could get travel shots. I had the grace to feel shame - give it a try.

I lived rural poverty in America will attest that the parent poster is making excuses for a life they never lived. And yes, I did have parents who were screwed up enough not to fill out financial paperwork.

(A pity you hadn't "had the grace to feel shame" for breaking the HN guidelines about fulminating and attacking other posters.)

I'm sorry but if you're 200 IQ I think you should be able to handle a car breaking down.

Take three months, work some menial job, save up, go to state or city college. Literally thousands of people without 200 IQ do this every day. Every job I had I've been rewarded for being slightly above average intelligence. People found out I can figure out how to use PowerPoint well, they had me doing presentations. I could follow instructions, don't need things repeated to me. I know now to argue or bite the hand that feeds me.

You're coming off as incredibly sheltered and never been exposed to regular people. You paint these fantasies in your head how it's basically impossible to survive.

This guy didn't start from zero. He started from 200 IQ. That's a huge advantage is my point. No one owes you anything in life due to your natural ability. You have to apply it. Your fantasy stories about rural Americans being helpless to determine their own fate is honestly offensive.