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Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

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Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#341

Post by [deleted] »

eaenki wrote: post #21
toyg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital is not underappreciated - it is hidden by owners. Because their power and wealth comes from control of a scarce, hidden resource. If everyone had access to capital, nobody would be “on top”, and that’s unacceptable to the owning classes.

Mhh, I simply suspect that a family would rather fund their son’s projects and their friends because of human’s nature, and since one can’t ask a stranger to fund him, and not everyone can be bff with rich dudes, this is probably a problem better solved by the gov

[deleted]

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#342

Post by eaenki »

WalterBright wrote: post #319
eaenki wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most products are either chemical addiction (FB, Coca Cola, tobacco), vaporware (Most B2B), non world changing utility (intuit, JPM)

Nothing that you've bought you actually wanted?

A Mac and the iPhone 3G. A Tesla X would also be great. But I already mentioned those companies

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#343

Post by mav3rick »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #334
thrower123 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I find the blank slate model just cruel, because it shifts blame for failure to achieve results onto either a personal failure to work hard enough, or some ill-defined societal boogieman of oppression or structural isms. Which tends to need massive amounts of money or power in the hands of someone to try to rectify. In reality, you just can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, no matter how hard yo…

> In reality, you just can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit This is one of the most disgusting things I've seen on this website. Am I "chicken shit" to you?

He clearly used a generic phrase not aimed at you. What is it with deliberately taking things personally ?

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#344

Post by bumby »

thrower123 wrote: post #284
alchemism wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the many regulations in American society, there is usually a dead body buried underneath, possibly many dead bodies, including those of women and children, etc. For each and every one, someone suffered terribly or died.

Unfortunately, many times, the dead body belonged to an idiot, whose foolishness won them a Darwin Award, and the legacy of inconveniencing millions of people. We place too high a value on human life, and it's no wonder that we can't accomplish anything when a non-zero level of risk is unacceptable.

> We place too high a value on human life

I don't think this is quite right. More accurately, I think we need to the risk assumer and risk accepter may need to be making the informed decisions.

Too often there is someone making a decision that someone else pays for. You want to strap yourself to a rocket and go into space and you have been communicated the risks and accepted them, that's one thing. It's entirely another when you get into a car running on software that you have no clue about. In the latter case, you aren't making a risk informed decision because the person/corporation determining that the risk is acceptable doesn't flow that information down to you (or, there's limited bandwidth that any one person can make an informed decision about). That's where regulation levels to playing field somewhat to ensure perverse incentives don't cause risks to be accepted by those who don't have to bear them. I or [insert relevant company name here] shouldn't be the decider on what risk you should be (perhaps unwittingly) accepting.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#345

Post by james_s_tayler »

kirso wrote: post #339
james_s_tayler wrote: post #26

I feel like this is stating the obvious and putting the emphasis on the exact wrong end of it. "Oh no! Think about all the potential geniuses we are missing out on! We must be doing something wrong!" Ok, thought about it. My conclusion is: "Wow, the rate of genius production has never been higher, we must really be doing something right." Could it be better? Sure. Is it getting better? According to Factfulness: sure.…

I think you missed the point that the opportunity is not equal, as a person if you grew up in rural Georgia and not knowing what to do with your life because you didn't get the memo kinda screws your future. It's about giving the opportunity for the smart minds to work on impactful things and frankly, if I would have that chance of a privileged kid, I would take it. Basically there are ways how to fix it, the questio…

Yeah, I didn't miss that point. Not at all.

I think you missed my point. Because you state:

>Basically there are ways how to fix it

My point is it's not actually broken. It's working. It's working very well.

Although it doesn't tend to, opportunity _could_ arise anywhere. So, potential geniuses are peppered everywhere such that if opportunity were to arise there there are people who can take advantage of it.

The assumption that it should work the other way around is ridiculous.

Opportunity isn't for geniuses. Geniuses are for opportunity.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#346

Post by jhayward »

abakker wrote: post #335
jhayward wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "lefty" epithet, how handy. You could start by telling us why the statements aren't the same, using examples and facts. You seem to want to have an abstract, bloodless, clinical discussion of when it is acceptable to kill people in the name of "efficiency" (I will interpret this as "profit"). I can tell you that is a dishonest discussion, if that's what is intended. If you want to have it honestly you will have t…

Evil and blame free do not necessarily follow from acknowledging that some level of risk is acceptable.

This is a non-statement intended to deflect into the abstract and away from actual consequences.

Policies and regulations aren't made in some Platonic ideal universe, they are made in specific, factual circumstances.

Come back to us when you can talk about how a specific "acceptable" level of risk does not involve enabling evil actors, and indemnified doers for a specific policy area.

Then we'll talk about the specific things you find acceptable, and just whose death and suffering you will trade for profit.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#347

Post by bumby »

jhayward wrote: post #346
abakker wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil and blame free do not necessarily follow from acknowledging that some level of risk is acceptable.

This is a non-statement intended to deflect into the abstract and away from actual consequences. Policies and regulations aren't made in some Platonic ideal universe, they are made in specific, factual circumstances. Come back to us when you can talk about how a specific "acceptable" level of risk does not involve enabling evil actors, and indemnified doers for a specific policy area. Then we'll talk about the specif…

I don't read their statements the same way you do. The way they come across to me is that there needs to be a discussion of risk grounded in the understanding that in many (most?) domains, zero risk is unattainable.

It's like the idea of the FDA setting limits to the amount of insect contaminates allowed in food. At first, it seems disturbing until you realize that if they put a zero tolerance policy in place, there would be near-endless grounds to sue every food manufacturer out of business.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#348

Post by malandrew »

bumby wrote: post #347
jhayward wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a non-statement intended to deflect into the abstract and away from actual consequences. Policies and regulations aren't made in some Platonic ideal universe, they are made in specific, factual circumstances. Come back to us when you can talk about how a specific "acceptable" level of risk does not involve enabling evil actors, and indemnified doers for a specific policy area. Then we'll talk about the specif…

I don't read their statements the same way you do. The way they come across to me is that there needs to be a discussion of risk grounded in the understanding that in many (most?) domains, zero risk is unattainable. It's like the idea of the FDA setting limits to the amount of insect contaminates allowed in food. At first, it seems disturbing until you realize that if they put a zero tolerance policy in place, there…

> in many (most?) domains, zero risk is unattainable.

Not only is it unattainable, it's actively counterproductive to try and achieve because of unexamined and unintended consequences.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#349

Post by unreal37 »

sokoloff wrote: post #219
unreal37 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that I agree that capital is "under appreciated". Capital is infinite. The US just prints an unlimited supply of dollars, and that has no effect on the value of the dollar. Governments around the world are now offering negative interest rate bonds and investors are buying them. The stock market will keep going up and never crash. Money just churns. There's no way to stop it. Basically, there is too much…

The US does not " [print] an unlimited supply of dollars " for if we did, they would cease to be the world reserve currency and be valueless. Dollars are basically a claim on labor or natural resources. That we print slightly (in relative terms) more each year is what causes the slow devaluing of existing dollars in circulation. This is also known as inflation. (The linkage isn't quite that direct, but it's fairly cl…

They sure do.

The M1 money supply has gone from 1.5 trillion in 2009 to 3.8 trillion today. That's 2.5X more money in circulation in 10 years. A graph of that is a hockey stick - basically a 45 degree angle.

The dollar remains strong. Inflation remains low. Unemployment at record lows. Stock market at record highs. There is no sign that printing $20 billion per month for the last 10 years has had any negative effects.

The printing machines don't stop. Won't stop. Can't stop.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m1

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#350

Post by kirso »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #345
kirso wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point that the opportunity is not equal, as a person if you grew up in rural Georgia and not knowing what to do with your life because you didn't get the memo kinda screws your future. It's about giving the opportunity for the smart minds to work on impactful things and frankly, if I would have that chance of a privileged kid, I would take it. Basically there are ways how to fix it, the questio…

Yeah, I didn't miss that point. Not at all. I think you missed my point. Because you state: >Basically there are ways how to fix it My point is it's not actually broken. It's working. It's working very well. Although it doesn't tend to, opportunity _could_ arise anywhere. So, potential geniuses are peppered everywhere such that if opportunity were to arise there there are people who can take advantage of it. The assu…

The point of the article is that majority of people are not given opportunity to become geniuses and frankly you don't even have to be one to make an impact. You don't just get born a genius its a process with lots of puzzle pieces (parents, education, environment). If your primary goal when you grow up is to not starve to death, you can hardly allocate time to study physics and make discoveries. However, tell it to the millions in Africa without food and education that the opportunity is everywhere and you will get skinned alive.
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