Ramanujan learnt calculus at the age of 8 and was able to rapidly factor large numbers by the age of 6?
Come on now. Ramanujan was still doing arithmetic by the age of 10.
Unarguably Ramanujan was held back as his mathematical progress very strongly, and was not too far above that of his peers until he attended High School.
And the worst is that Ramanujan himself was incredibly privileged compared to the Indian average, being able to live in an urban milieu. Were he in an average rural, peasant context he would have been held back even more. Not to mention, he was a Brahmin, the highest caste in India.
This was one of the world's foremost mathematicians, an unprecedented genius who was born into relatively poor circumstances (by Western standards and by modern standards) and who was completely self-made. There's footage of his very modest family home, so if you're going to try to claim he's somehow "privileged" above and beyond an extremely poor person in the US today, that would be laughable. It's true he wasn't a child prodigy, but so what? You're trying to crap on Von Neumann's
adult accomplishments, which is what's impressive here (there's loads of child prodigies that flop as adults), by claiming without any basis that they're a product of his parent's success when Ramanujan is conclusive proof that this isn't a necessary condition for a Von Neumann calibre genius to arise. Another thing your analysis ignores is that intelligence is partly genetic, so of course smart kids are going to often have richer parents. If their parents are extremely smart then most likely they've figured out a way to make some money. No surprise there.
It's not really arguable that without his early advantage Von Neumann would not have been able to achieve what he did. Something can be the product of many things, as I'm sure you've learnt in elementary school.
As far as Ramanujan, it's not arguable either that if he had been recognized early and given proper opportunities, he would have been even more prolific and have made even greater contributions. It took him 10 years for his genius to be recognized locally! And that was as a Brahmin to an urban family, imagine how hard it would have been if he was a Vaishiya born to farmers - he might have never been recognized, and we would have lost his contributions.
If you believe that without being 100% self-made you're crap, that's your point of view, not mine.
As for your edit, extreme intelligence is not really correlated to income. In fact, once you leave the median by a standard deviation, there is almost no impact anymore, and even less when you start controlling for social factors. What is moreso correlated is low intelligence and low income. Descendance is a much, much stronger impact.
If you think that a very poor person can rise to a Von Neumann calibre genius, then we have no disagreement. I agree with you that having successful parents can only help the situation.
"As for your edit, extreme intelligence is not really correlated to income."
Ok, the marginal correlation breaks down at the extremes. But it's still the case that intelligence and income are correlated, so smarter kids are more likely from higher income parents.
"they'd just need significantly more innate intelligence, which is a very tall order."
I dispute this. Ramanujan is by all accounts on Von Neumann's level and so his example seems to disprove this statement. Or maybe you think Ramanujan has "significantly more innate intelligence" than Von Neumann? It's possible, but without evidence, and a bit farfetched.
I think wealth helps but through a different mechanism to what you're thinking. Avoiding malnutrition is the big one. A secondary point is avoiding the need to work and being able to focus on intellectual passions, which many average-wealth people can do. Adding more money to the picture doesn't help beyond a baseline. Ramanujan was fairly poor but still had enough family wealth to be able to eat enough food and dedicate a lot of time to his passion.
Come on now. Ramanujan was still doing arithmetic by the age of 10.
Unarguably Ramanujan was held back as his mathematical progress very strongly, and was not too far above that of his peers until he attended High School.
And the worst is that Ramanujan himself was incredibly privileged compared to the Indian average, being able to live in an urban milieu. Were he in an average rural, peasant context he would have been held back even more. Not to mention, he was a Brahmin, the highest caste in India.