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IQ is only a minor factor in success

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Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#221

Post by vixen99 »

hyperbovine wrote: post #153
babuskov wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having kids is a far more selfish act than not. Our species and our planet would be way, way better off if about 9/10 of us elected not to reproduce for a few generations.

You are presumably delighted to know that Europe is in fact dying off with only France having a fertility rate of 2.0 (2014) which is not enough to sustain the population. One wonders who's going to be paying those taxes to fund the pensions of the elderly and the other massive liabilities of the European welfare states.

At < 2 replacement rate, the populations of Portugal, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria just won't be around in a few generations. The cultural identity of Europe will disappear on present trends.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#223

Post by VladKovac »

supercon wrote: post #45

In the book 'Outliers', M. Gladwell talks about this very subject and suggests that a persons social upbringing has a lot to do with how you can navigate through the world and have it work for you. A high IQ is surely a good thing to have and will make it easier for one to become successful, but if you totally lack the skill of 'getting your way' in the social maze that surrounds our daily lives, it will probably be…

Stopped reading this comment after "Gladwell".

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#224

Post by hyperbovine »

vixen99 wrote: post #221
hyperbovine wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having kids is a far more selfish act than not. Our species and our planet would be way, way better off if about 9/10 of us elected not to reproduce for a few generations.

You are presumably delighted to know that Europe is in fact dying off with only France having a fertility rate of 2.0 (2014) which is not enough to sustain the population. One wonders who's going to be paying those taxes to fund the pensions of the elderly and the other massive liabilities of the European welfare states. At < 2 replacement rate, the populations of Portugal, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Hungary, Slov…

Relying on fertility to prop up the welfare state was never a sustainable model to begin with. The adjustment will not be pleasant whoever is left in 200 or so years will be a lot better off because of it. To say nothing of all the non-human species with whom we share the world.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#225

Post by whack »

lisper wrote: post #41

Getting rich, at least under our current system, has a lot more to do with luck (mainly being in the right place at the right time) than it does with being smart or even working hard. The reason perseverance (which is related to working hard, but is not quite the same thing) helps is that the more willing you are to keep playing the game without winning the more likely you are to eventually win. (You can see this dyn…

It depends on what you mean by "rich". If your goal is to be a billionaire, then yes, luck plays a major role. But if you simply want to get to the 99th percentile of income/wealth, that can be achieved in a pretty replicable manner. Study hard in HS -> Go to a good college -> Work your ass off for a good GPA -> go do a MBA/JD/MD/CS degree at an elite university -> get a six figure job and work your ass off. Not much luck involved there.

Interestingly, you don't need to have mensa-level IQ to achieve the above either. Hard work and grit is far more important, which is what the article is saying as well.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#226

Post by bzbarsky »

csomar wrote: post #105
errantspark wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that, but my friends are starting to have kids and I'm rather looking forward to being their crazy uncle and teaching them how to solder and take things apart etc. I love kids, I just don't want to be the one primarily responsible for them

I don't really know about your situation and if you are actually doing it now. But based on experience, people who get married usually dismiss friendship with singles and instead look for friendships with people who have families/kids.

A lot of this is simple scheduling pattern differences.

As an example, my no-kids friends typically schedule things like dinner parties starting at 8:30pm or so. The ones with kids would aim for 5:30 or 6 instead.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#227

Post by Fnoord »

beachstartup wrote: post #220
Fnoord wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it usually manifests in the form of 'what if something goes wrong???' and spirals from there. That is because we compare to the successful rich only, not all those who tried to become rich and utterly failed. This is just masculine vs feminine thinking. Or VC versus slow growth. Or the way we nurture children in the West vs cats, or in Africa. Or quality vs quantity. You never hear about all the times people prayed…

i swear all you trolls read from the same exact playbook. "nobody hears about the failures"? really? i hear about plenty of failures all around me. i see restaurants shutting down left and right. i see people having mental breakdowns, public freakouts, people drop out of school. marriages fall apart, houses get repossessed, stock markets crash, people go bankrupt, even commit suicide. startups failing and people not…

> so just do nothing with your life? never try anything?

That's not the point. The point is that many fail, the success / failure ratio is low. Period. No need to be judgmental past that. Or resort to namecalling.

If you think someone is trolling. Don't reply. Ignore them. Heck, report them.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#228

Post by lisper »

whack wrote: post #225
lisper wrote: post #41

Getting rich, at least under our current system, has a lot more to do with luck (mainly being in the right place at the right time) than it does with being smart or even working hard. The reason perseverance (which is related to working hard, but is not quite the same thing) helps is that the more willing you are to keep playing the game without winning the more likely you are to eventually win. (You can see this dyn…

It depends on what you mean by "rich". If your goal is to be a billionaire, then yes, luck plays a major role. But if you simply want to get to the 99th percentile of income/wealth, that can be achieved in a pretty replicable manner. Study hard in HS -> Go to a good college -> Work your ass off for a good GPA -> go do a MBA/JD/MD/CS degree at an elite university -> get a six figure job and work your ass off. Not much…

There cannot possibly be a reliable process to get you to the 99th percentile, because by definition 99% of people won't get there. Hard work will reliably get you to the 99th percentile only in a world where only 1% of people work hard.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#229

Post by Hydraulix989 »

IQ is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for success.

If you aren't smart, you get through life in a walking haze, as others continually take advantage of you, and you are never truly aware of what is going on.

For example, you'll mismanage your money, or forget crucial details, or you'll make the wrong decisions.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#230

Post by lisper »

ikeboy wrote: post #163
lisper wrote: post #41

Getting rich, at least under our current system, has a lot more to do with luck (mainly being in the right place at the right time) than it does with being smart or even working hard. The reason perseverance (which is related to working hard, but is not quite the same thing) helps is that the more willing you are to keep playing the game without winning the more likely you are to eventually win. (You can see this dyn…

I've noticed that a lot of successful people got there by doing things that, on the surface, don't seem to need a lot of brainpower. But, when you get to know them more, you find that they're smart. I think that very often, being smart leads someone to succeed but invisibly, so it's easy for others who don't know the whole story to attribute it to luck.

Being smart helps stack the deck in your favor, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient. Ben Carson and Steve Harvey are both rich, but I wouldn't consider either of them particularly smart.
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