Nature and Nurture-- How much of your success is your own?

I am the sole creator of my failures and success.

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you were born with a lower IQ, and with irresponsible/absent parents, where would you have ended up?

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My IQ could hardly be any lower and I would still be able to function. My father died young and otherwise I would have ended up a lowly pathetic broke-dick handyman. Which is what I am

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nature v. nurture

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As a younger man and student I was all about nurture/environment. I'm at about 90% nature/genetics now.

This is a good question. I think there are times when nature overrules nurture and times when nurture overrules nature.. Sometimes they balance each other out and sometimes both of them do not play a factor.

What about people who become successful despite growing up in a shitty environment and parents who are not educated (but someone can lack education and still have the potential to be intelligent). So I think experience plays a factor as well. People can experience a certain life, realize there are ways to get out of their situation and decide to work hard to do so.

In other words, I don't think it is one or the other and I don't think both have to exist in order for someone to become successful.. But one or both can exist and play a factor in one being successful.

I think how one is raised has more bearing on the outcome of his/her life. There is no replacing good parents

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For the vast majority of people, our lot in life is set the moment we are born.

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I'm sorry, I can't believe this.

Under your theory, I should be dead of an overdose in a ditch somewhere just after highschool, assuming I even graduated (my sister didn't).

And I'm not special.

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I'm sorry, I can't believe this.

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Most people don't.

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Under your theory, I should be dead of an overdose in a ditch somewhere just after highschool, assuming I even graduated (my sister didn't).

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But you didn't. Why do you think that is?

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This literally means nothing.

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I am saying, I think there are instances when nature plays a bigger role in someone's success than nurture and vice versa. Sometimes both can play a factor (I said balance each other out, I should have used better wording). And then I think there are situations in which neither one exist.. As in. There are other factors that play a role in someone's success.

Does that make more sense?

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I think in some areas, mostly in the free world, people are given more opportunities to control their lives. We, as a community, try to see to that and I think we do a pretty decent job of it overall.

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The vast majority of people, even in the free world, live close to where they were born, have mostly the same beliefs as their parents, are in the same social class as their parents, etc

And the ones that don't, had external influences, mostly again, not controlled by their own will, influence those decisions to change beliefs or move up in class or move away, etc

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But that wasn't all you on your own. That is you having the intelligence or awareness to see that you wanted nothing to do with it. You didn't create your own intelligence.

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This seems like you are inching towards saying there is nothing anyone can ever do to contribute to their own success