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This is huge. I once dated a girl who absolutely believed that there was some inherent skill with math / programming that I possessed, and consequently felt that my making good money was just a function of my genetics. This entirely undermines the fact that I spent years upon years forgoing any sort of social life to learn more about computers. The only 'inherent' thing wasn't skill - it was an inability to not want to learn more about computers and programming.

It took sweat, and there's an entire category of people who believe in inherent genius versus really effing hard work. That category of people will never put in the work necessary for others to inappropriately categorize them as inherent genius. I hate this problem and don't know how to convince people when they've fallen into that trap :-\



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