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The reason I reject this premise is because it implicitly plays into well known failure states of logical thinking. It’s the same reasoning that allows idiots to say things like “Well if you’re an economist and understand the economy so well, why ain’t ya’ rich; HUH?” That’s not how that works. Just because a referee understands the rules of the NBA doesn’t make them an NBA superstar. Or it’s like saying, “If Karl Marx was so smart why aren’t his followers using the materialist conception of history to predict the stock market?”
People want success on their own terms and not everybody is after the same thing. I have the background knowledge certainly to work in occupations that come close to doubling my current annual salary. I’ve spent decades close to people in infosec, I have personally met and went to dinners when I was younger and sat directly at the table and participated (more of a tag along thing than anything else) with people you can currently find in DefCon videos, RSA Conference talks, one who was in the NSA and who’s wife works at the FBI headquarters in Quantico, one of them who’s a veteran software engineer who’s made single paychecks big enough to retire himself for the rest of his life, and others who are still published authors to this day (I remember being at my father’s job when I was younger after said famous public intellectual’s new book just dropped while he was casually working right there in the office next to him, in cases of cardboard boxes and we were encouraged to take one); and I personally stay on top of new developments in the space. So then why don’t I pursue past leads I still have lying around? Desire. I don’t want that as much as I want other things in life. If I had a family to support maybe I would be on that kind of grind. But I personally don’t need a lot to be happy.
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