I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but assuming you're not, why do the highly educated have any greater responsibility than the less educated?
You don't have to sacrifice personal happiness, but yes, if you're in a position where you can do good and if you then choose not to do good I do consider that somewhat unethical.
Working hard for people like us consists of sitting on a chair and listening to music while we type for 6 hours a day. Maybe another 4 hours or so of chatting and planning and sketching out ideas. While the rest of the world is born in a position where the choice is between backbreaking work for 12 hours a day or being unable to feed the family.
Yes, we have the freedom to lounge about even though a billion people are underfed or living in otherwise miserable conditions, but who can in good conscience exercise that right?
President Kennedy gave a great speech about the role and responsibilities of educated people in society. 'Increased responsibility goes with increased ability, for "of those to whom much is given, much is required."' http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/aZ0Im5s0mUqPJlFNs6iO4...
The highly educated do not owe society anything. No one should have a right to my intelligence. If I want to contribute, I can and will, and if I'm smart enough and execute well enough, I will be rewarded, both monetarily and through watching my creation create real value.
This does not mean that sacrifice and discomfort are the only ways to create value. Wile start ups are roller coasters of emotion, I can bet you that Jobs, Gates, Page et al. Have gleaned much more pleasure from their creations then sacrifice, discomfort and pain.
And the only person who can make them do anything is themselves. Larry and Sergey did not bear a responsibility from society to create Google. They did by their own choice.
I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here—nobody wants the rights to your intelligence. But if you take a step back, you can see that every one of us has benefitted greatly from others' intelligent contributions to humanity and we can choose to either keep that wheel spinning or put ourselves at the mercy of others' history-making. If you want to use your tech idols as a yardstick for morality and virtue, you ought to look a little closer.
"I mean, we’re constantly taking things. It’s a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge.” -STEVE JOBS
Some of my favorite quotes, however, are from the mouth of Napoleon:
"All my life I have sacrificed everything—comfort, self-interest, happiness—to my destiny."
"Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest."
And I will never see any justice for it, because the law in this country protect the guilty, rather than the innocent.
Yes I properly learned a lot in school and it made certain subjects such as physics and chemistry which required a lab easier. But don't think for a moment that the school was the reason I learned to read or write. I would have done that one my own anyway as I am too much a sucker for good stories.
As for the roads, people went to school before there were roads (paved ones anyway) they made it easier sure, but that is about it.
In summary I don't mind helping those who have tried and failed but I absolutely recent having to feel sorry and repent that I was born the way I was. And most people just need to apply themselves.