You're asking the wrong question. Even if they do recognize the benefits they received from college education, it doesn't mean they want to share those benefits with others. These people have made it abundantly clear on many occasions that they hate sharing, and even more so when it comes to sharing access to quality education.
You're right. But I think we should be asking both questions because that's what this implies.
Either they:
- Don't recognize the factors that contributed to their own success
- Are ladder-pullers (pulling up the ladder behind them)
- (open to other interpretations that are less likely, such as their education not actually contributing to their success...)
I see the former as likely, and worth noting as we see this sentiment being quite common in Silicon Valley itself. I mean the (current) top comment falls into this category[0]. The sentiment is reinforced by replies and replicated through other comments. I'm sure we've all head this sentiment in many places and in our offline lives.[1]
But you're also right to consider the more malevolent interpretation, especially considering we're discussing Palantir. The "fuck you, I got mine" crowd is growing, even if people are participating without realizing it. In a way, these related to the earlier point [see 1]. Personally, I feel the "fuck you, got mine" crowd is destructive to society. Not just at large, but even locally. We are communal creatures, and we formed societies because coalitions, by definition, generate more utility than we could by our summed efforts alone. It's one of the key ingredients not to just the success of humans as a whole, but to each and every one of us. We all benefit from creating more ladders, just as we all are worse off when any is removed. A rising tide lifts all ships after all. You can't lift the biggest ships by sinking others.
I tend to want to give the benefit of the doubt and be kind. Hoping that others will interpret and infer consequences of the settings. But if anyone is denying the attribution of their own education, then you're probably most right in implying that they are not thinking that deeply and we should be more explicit. Though the right way to do this kindly and convincingly is more difficult. How do you find that balance of making one face reality yet not in a way that raises their defenses so much that they can't see what's staring right at them?
[1] Personally I think this is a bit of a defense mechanism for people. It can help build a view of the world that it is purely meritocratic and we can "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps." I'm not sure why we feel shame that others contributed to our success and have to tell this story that it was all us and everything was going against us.
