Live data from Hacker News

IQ is only a minor factor in success

bloomberg.com

171–180 of 296 posts

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#171
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... in order for you to wonder at how "biology ruled over your logical processing unit" a lot of people had to sacrifice their freedoms, before you. Don't beat yourself over it, it's such an important thing that it is equal to "being alive". And what you lose as a person, your DNA gains as a living system. DNA is such a chump. I never realized how much work it does. Every protein in our bodies is copied from DNA.…

I wrote it in so nice way. I'm usually more harsh to people. Deciding not to have kids because it's too much of an effort is so selfish act. You're throwing away all the effort your ancestors put in to get to the point of you being alive.

[deleted]

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#172
post #55
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see money as freedom. My ultimate goal is to save enough so that I don't have to work. Eventually, that will be the case, hopefully not on my deathbed. If the majority of the population thought that way, we'd have an economic collapse though, so forget what I said.

But I enjoy work. I'm happy that I'm well compensated for the work I do, but even without that I fundamentally enjoy my work. In fact work is preferable to how I spend a lot of my free time. Would I like to work more flexible hours and get paid the same to work 30 hours instead of 37.5 a week then sure, but otherwise what would money be buying freedom from? I suppose owning a house out-right would be freedom from wor…

I enjoy work as well. Eventually you will work at a job that was great, but through acquisition or whatever, it turns terrible and you will feel trapped because it pays well but the people you work for are less than ideal for many reasons.

Most of the work we have to do is not life changing or world changing, or even makes the world a slightly better place for anyone other than the ownership.

One day you might want to fully explore a new technology or framework, but your current work environment isn't interested and you aren't well versed enough, or there aren't any jobs in your area related to that technology. Spending time after work is an option, but when you get older and have a family, the harder that is.

To me money is freedom to not have to work, or be able to work on what I want to work on, explore what I want to explore, etc.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids are great. I have 3 kids and to me it is nothing like a prison sentence. I love watching them grow up, it is taking me back to the happiness and carelessness of my own childhood every day. It also gives me a sense of purpose that I would have never found without kids and what I gave up in freedom is made up in love, affection and just plain fun. Based on my experience I am 100% convinced that people that can't f…

> Based on my experience I am 100% convinced that people that can't find joy in the happiness of others should remain single and even more important: never, ever have kids. As a counterargument, I've seen a few people turn into complete monsters once their kids were born. Their justification was "I have kids now and I'll do literally anything for my family, fuck everyone else and their needs." (paraphrased). It's all…

Unless you're talking about friends in warzones I don't really see how their kids are a justification for being, or acting like a dick.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#174
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you are single and not planning to have kids, right?

I'm not single, but you're right about the kids. In my world view having a kid is similar to an 18 year prison sentence.

My parental units divorced when I was six and my brothers and I grew up essentially feral. I was 16yo when my girlfriend got pregnant. After a few weeks she fessed up, and tests later proved, it wasn't mine... I always wore a rubber, the other dude never did. I had my vasectomy at 17 using my fake ID(easy enough in Cal City circa '87) and continued to practice safe sex, JIC. 30 years later, no regrets. I have lived similar to errantspark's minimalist lifestyle for 30 years, watching friends get married, have kids and drifting away while I ride the feast/famine waves of a single independent contractor. It's not as glorious as some outsiders believe, but for an introvert from an abused childhood it is the optimum life I am able to provide for myself. My only advice for my younger counterparts: always have a savings buffer, the 'famine' cycles become exponentially harder to weather the older you get.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#175

Interesting. I'm a 1%er and I have a piece of paper that says I'm pretty smart, but: > a personality trait marked by > diligence, perseverance and > self-discipline I see myself as pretty lazy, impulsive, and slap-dash, and tend to use my brain to brute-force lazy solutions to problems. I am too lazy and don't have the concentration span to pay attention much in meetings, but can generally utter something profound ne…

Epic honesty.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#176

Interesting. I'm a 1%er and I have a piece of paper that says I'm pretty smart, but: > a personality trait marked by > diligence, perseverance and > self-discipline I see myself as pretty lazy, impulsive, and slap-dash, and tend to use my brain to brute-force lazy solutions to problems. I am too lazy and don't have the concentration span to pay attention much in meetings, but can generally utter something profound ne…

Epic honesty.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#177

I'm probably decently smart, but I'm not rich at all. In fact I'm quite poor by most people's standards. I'm also really happy and work fewer hours per week than anyone I know. If there's one thing I worry about it's that I should be trying to be rich because I probably have the means to make that happen. I might be making 200k/yr if I worked full time. I might be able to start a successful company if I put my mind t…

What do you do for work?

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#178
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... in order for you to wonder at how "biology ruled over your logical processing unit" a lot of people had to sacrifice their freedoms, before you. Don't beat yourself over it, it's such an important thing that it is equal to "being alive". And what you lose as a person, your DNA gains as a living system. DNA is such a chump. I never realized how much work it does. Every protein in our bodies is copied from DNA.…

I wrote it in so nice way. I'm usually more harsh to people. Deciding not to have kids because it's too much of an effort is so selfish act. You're throwing away all the effort your ancestors put in to get to the point of you being alive.

You are normally "way more harsh to people" for making the very personal decision as to whether they will have children?

You do realize just how offensive you are being? Whether other people have children is not for you to decide or deride.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#179

The actual paper, available on sci-hub, does not agree with this innumerate journalist's interpretation of it. http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rs... In fact, the paper shows that IQ is a great predictor. Personality is a much worse predictor on highly g-loaded tasks, and a good predictor on some others (e.g. wages). But (IQ, personality) pairs are an even better predictor than IQ or personal…

I haven't read the paper yet, but I'd be genuinely surprised if PCA or factor analysis wasn't performed.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#180
post #118

It is so nice to see that Money is now the only criteria for success. By that logic J.K Rowling is a more successful author than the Hemingway, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Tolkien and the entire Beat generation plus several others put together.

I know right? We jump from

> how much of the difference between people’s incomes can be tied to IQ

to

> So if IQ is only a minor factor in success, what is it that separates the low earners from the high ones?

The second doesn't follow at all. Lots of evidence suggests that beyond a certain baseline, income is almost uncorrelated to happiness, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the highest income earners are less happy for the life they've chosen. I would not categorize that as success. If you're smart, and not crazy, your goal isn't to maximize your income.

Post reply on HN