After I turned 16 I enrolled in a community college, fully paid by high school, using a local dual enrollment program. When I was 15 I started working as a C++ developer, which was quite fun.
Yes, I was a freak and still am a completely asocial misanthrope. But no one is limited -- it is solely by choice (and probably fear of the unknown) that children stay in high school.
Or because of the social benefits. You state that you consider your former self a freak, and consider your current self a completely asocial misanthrope. I was following a very similar path to you, but realized that I was on my way to being a social outcast. To me, being a C++ programmer was not my purpose in life (although it was a very interesting field I ended up making my career). A great deal of what I see as the "purpose of life" consists of those social relationships. If I didn't have those, C++ wouldn't make me happy, so what would be the point of it all?
I don't mean to sound argumentative - I'm just pointing out that although I was capable of doing more, I chose to stay close to my own age group because of a legitimate quality-of-life benefit. You did state that it's by choice, but I think that's an aspect a lot of people don't consider, especially the author in question.
Signing contracts, however, isn't hard and so I worked as an independent contractor (1099) :)