> Everybody has some opportunities that are closed off to them. But they do have avenues that are available to be exploited. Focus on those.
Are you sure about that, honestly? Or is it that it worked out for you, with your particular set of prerequisites and willpower? I too believe there are more opportunities for people than they realize, but much of my adult life has been doing all I can to mentor and help people find and hop onto opportunities. I've done this enough to see a lot more failures than successes. It makes me think that people, while they may think its "hard", still really underestimate how much further ahead they were of people who weren't doing as well as them. Mental health and childhood trauma being one of the biggest factors that people don't end up considering, but also just how deep the cycle and mindset of poverty gets ingrained into people.
Yes. People have free will. They can choose. They are not condemned to fate.
These were middle class people, paid much more than myself.
They had no money, but they had plenty of income. They just spent it all. And there were a lot of them. I can give you many, many real life examples.
As for unemployable ancient programmers, I'm one of them. I know about it.
The solution is hire yourself. Nobody can stop you from buying a computer and hanging out your shingle. Companies are much more likely to hire an older person as a consultant than as an employee.
Contribute to open source to build a reputation. Several companies regularly scan the D programming language forums looking for people to hire, and they'll often hire remotely.
Everybody has some opportunities that are closed off to them. But they do have avenues that are available to be exploited. Focus on those.