I don’t know how to write this without being too defensive, but the place where you think other peoples’ opinions come from seems incorrect and is borderline insulting, mainly bringing them down to prop yourself up. Maybe it’s not your intent.
To me, this sounds like a shared opinion based on personal experience.
I’m from a working class background and arrived at a different conclusion in my own experience. But I get lumped in with people raised upper middle class just because I couldn’t possibly have such opinions. Granted, this is why I try not to be defensive about it: who I am doesn’t really matter (nor should it for anyone else) when we’re discussing ideas.
He didn't say they must come from there.
I’d love to see some data.
Of course if you work at the kind of companies that only hire people with a top CS degree then you might be led to believe that.
In my experience though it’s not the case. The majority of people in my office grew up lower middle class.
My parents were cleaners and although we were often tight on money we were miles away from extreme poverty.
Can you confirm whether you grew up in an environment of extreme poverty?
As I bring up often, my parents were fishermen. They could hardly afford a home and hardly afford to put food on the table or the immense medical bills we were saddled with.
Bringing up my past and my opinions was enough to get them riled up because they simply could not understand where I came from or the things I had to deal with due to poverty. I don't know how else you think I should explain this other than the fact that we had two very different circumstances growing up.