> Indeed, another example of this is how NBA basketball players are worse than all the amateurs on the streets!

Hours of training are hours of training.

The GP argued that "People who are into something for fun are more likely to out effor into getting good at that thing." (emphasis mine).

> And lets not forget how the cousin of your boss that enthusiastically read some tutorials on the net is a much better programmer than you.

If you're in it just for the money then quite possibly. I can quite easily tell for whom programming is not just a job but also a hobby, and for whom it's just a way to make a living - coding skills tend to be much stronger in former.

Playing basketball is an NBA player's entire job, shooting guns is a small part of a police officer's job.

Enthusiasticly reading some tutorials on the Internet isn't really what I'd consider "into" something, but there are absolutely amateur programmers that are far better at programming than a 9-5 enterprise "code monkey" level programmer with no interest in the job apart from the paycheck.

Police very seldom, and sometimes never have to use their guns, except maybe to threaten. They're paid to keep the peace and all that, the gun is merely one of many tools, although the one that all others ultimately rest on.