Investing in Children Who Have Shown Poor Judgement in Their Choice of Parents

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Hopefully future generations will find it bizarre that we so richly rewarded and so severely punished kids for their choice of parents.

Here a study shows that simply giving mothers $300 a month in the first year of life for their child made a measurable difference in a child's cognitive development.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/politics/child-tax-credit-brain-function.html

Elon Musk is the world's richest man. Elon Musk's grandpa was a leader of Technocracy Incorporated (TI) in Canada from 1936 to 1941. TI advocated for a world run by experts - engineers and scientists, not politicians - whose technology would solve the world's problems. Elon was immersed in the concepts and practice of seeking and developing technology solutions from before he could remember. He did not choose his grandfather.

Jeff Bezos was the world's richest man a short time ago. His grandfather was one of the founding members of ARPA who developed ARPANET - the obscure computer to computer network that evolved into the Internet. His grandpa also managed federal west coast labs that included Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, probably managing more scientists and engineers than anyone else in the world at the time. Jeff spent summers at his grandpa's and cites him as an important mentor. The man who helped to develop the internet and how to manage scientists and engineers was grandfather to a man who became the world's richest by developing a wildly successful internet company by managing a large technical team. Like Musk, Bezos did not choose his grandfather.

Bill Gates was the world's richest man for a long time. His father was a local hero in the Seattle area. For instance, Howard Schultz had an agreement with another Seattle area businessman to manage Starbucks and then buy it at a certain point. The man reneged on the deal. Schultz turned to Bill Gates Sr. for help and 6' 7" Bill Sr, a multi-millionaire and lawyer involved in numerous businesses in the area, marched across the street to browbeat the man who had reneged on his deal with Schultz, a young guy who at the time had little net worth. Thanks to this timely intervention, Schultz is now richer than all but about 200 people on the planet, worth roughly $4 billion. Imagine having Bill Sr. ready and able to intervene on your behalf from the time you were born. Bill Gates did not choose Bill Gates Sr. as his father.

Nor, of course, do babies choose to be born to poor mothers. We spend trillions on nonsense in this world. We can spend a trillion or three investing in the children who didn't show the good judgement to be born to powerful, connected, wealthy, and savvy parents. Partly we should do this because it is the right thing to do for the child, an act of grace towards an innocent new to this world. Partly we should do this because the demarcation between selfish and selfless has dissolved. If children grow up with opportunities closer to what Musk, Bezos and Gates had, we all will live in a world with more and better jobs, products, and wealth. To invest in a child is to invest in the community you are dependent on. It is both terribly selfless and selfish to help a child to realize their potential.