And a parent who worked an NASA.
I agree I don't think excessive privilege is responsible for success in technical fields. But it sure doesn't hurt to have friends or family members already on the inside.
The idea that the only way to get here is to start rich is just wrong, and offensive to those of us who didn't. You don't need rich parents, and there's no royal road to tech if you have 'em.
It's not mechanical, of course; my sister never particularly enjoyed maths and went on to become a nurse. That's fine, of course; but clearly the road would have been harder for me if I wasn't born in an environment which valued maths and science as naturally interesting.
My mother's siblings have all finished the university, and so have my cousins on my mother's side (or are still going to the university). Among my father's siblings, he's the only one who finished the university, and coincidentally of my cousins on my father's side the only who finished university are my siblings and I. Of course I don't pretend this is statistically significant, but I think the real privilege with culture is not the money or somebody who makes it easier for you to get a job, but rather being born in an environment that stimulates your desire for culture.
I really did just figure out most things on my own, through trial and error or old books. In an environment where most people either didn't care what I did or actively discouraged that kind of experimentation. Which is why I don't have a lot of patience for that argument up there: no, it's not privilege, anyone can do it, just most people don't.
Electronics was - and is - an engineers game and I personally don't care about whether someone came from a wealthy background or a poor one, jealousy is only going to get you so far, grit, perseverance and smarts will count for at least as much as pedigree in a somewhat meritocratic environment.
For the start-up lottery it's a different thing, there your parents will pretty much determine the outcome because if you are already rich you can take much bigger risks. But having a scope or wanting a scope so badly that you'll build your own (I recall hand-drawing the scale for my first VOM, and converting a small BW TV to a low frequency scope) isn't going to make huge difference and building your own test gear (at least, the basic versions of them) will give you a huge degree of insight into how it all works.
Fixing laptops doesn't require electronics knowledge beyond replacing units, much like being a car mechanic.
BTW, when I eventually did get a 'proper' scope (a nice dual beam 60 MHz Tek from a surplus store) I found that the difference between 'no scope' and 'crap scope' was a lot larger than between 'crap scope' and 'good scope'. I still have the Tek :)
You could argue that to have the vision of planning ahead for the children's life is a kind of cultural privilege, but then you could also argue that this can be learned from observation and introspection.
There are still some groups of people that have some advantages when trying to do this compared to others, this have been changing over the years.
The point is, there is privilege but it's not the single factor and maybe nor the most important one.
It's definitely not a place where "money ambitious" people go. It's not particularly well paid compared to other engineering jobs (and I think this is even more true at NASA). What we all had in common was fierce passion and a sense of fulfillment that I haven't found anywhere else yet.