You can increase your luck outcome simply by trying more.
The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
131–140 of 356 posts
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#132But what did the reviewers say about the paper? (http://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068)
They used a normal distribution for "Talent", but that's false. There is plenty of evidence that , like everything in life , it's power-law distributed
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/02/19/the-myth-...
http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2018/11/16/power-laws-reve...
And the assumtions of the model are rather childish: each random event either doubles or halves your capital (In real life, the multiplier can be much much higher or lower). In fact that's the most flawed point of their tiny "model": by changing the factor 2 and the multiplier distribution they can come up with any result they want.
Also, everyone meets lucky/unlucky events in the same frequency - the presumumption that smart people make paths that provide equal opportunity as the rest or take chances with equal frequency is just false.
They could at least have compared the lifetime wealth fluctuations with real data for a sense of how wrong thir model is. This is a model of a very simple casino game, not real life.
The paper has no discussion, no justification for its parameters, no critical presentation of its limitations , no sensitivity analysis.
Good conversation piece, everyone has an opinion on the subject, but the experiment is rubbish.
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#133I wonder if this is an artefact of the rules of the sim. There's weak evidence that supports the sim in that it predicts the current wealth distribution somewhat, but that doesn't mean the sim represents reality, of course.
The part that sticks out to me is the variation in the talent param. It's N(0.6, 0.01), so the mean person has a 60% chance of capitalizing on their luck. I wonder if perhaps that number is actually substantially lower.
Well, just a thought. I found the paper's methods interesting (simulating the agents and events random-walking until they encountered each other, etc.).
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a great point. It's not (necessarily) that Americans are just inherently money-hungry; we just have to be because we live in a system that is really callous and unmerciful compared to other places in the world.
There are plenty of people in America who continue to chase money long after their safe retirement is assured. I don't know if I'm qualified to compare Americans to Europeans, but many Americans really are enamored with money and judge material wealth as the be all and end all goal of life.
When you live without a real safety net, no amount of money is ever enough to guarantee anything whatsoever. Plus decades of doing what you have to do to survive at all and not end up being a victim of such a system powerfully shapes your psychology. It's hard to just put it down one day after your net worth hits $X.
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the same for men, too. I had everything set up to retire at 35... then I married. Sure, I am a more socially productive person now. My kid will someday pay taxes that will finance the retirement of people that didn't bother to have kids.
We were on track to retire comfortably by 55 without even trying very hard, 45-50 with some effort, without even FAANG money or any sudden jumps in income. Three kids starting just before age 30 and now retirement ever is... iffy, and it's probably not going to be very comfortable if it does happen. They're really expensive. Mostly healthcare, child care, and housing (more space, but also need good schools, so pricie…
If you do a half decent job of raising your kids you’ve also diversified your retirement prospects.
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#136IQ and income are correlated fairly strongly. It's obviously not a perfect correlation. https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlation...
IQ might be more accurately termed SQ (Success Quotient), as it might be measuring the traits that could make one more likely to succeed than intelligence per se.
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#137While the book is not perfect, reading Outliers from Malcolm Gladwell could hint on some not so obvious conditions that could make getting rich not so random.
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
>My kid will someday pay taxes that will finance the retirement of people that didn't bother to have kids. All things considered, that is definitely not a given. Social security for instances is tied to one's lifetime earnings, throw in the correlation between life time earnings and longevity and it smooths out to getting what you put in (roughly). There are also a lot of benefits, both employer funded and tax payer…
> Social security for instances ... And parents likely have lower lifetime earnings than non-parents. So its possible they're not only funding the future of social security, but also getting less for themselves... It would be great if someone had a source if parents are net recipients of benefits beyond the societal benefit of having children.
There's a plethora of tax breaks and deductions related to children that you can claim. Besides that, the people who don't have kids are subsidizing the education of yours through their taxes.
Regarding social security, I'm fairly confident the system will collapse before I see a penny of what I'm paying in.
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#139People are quite misinformed about how wealth accumulation works. You don't become wealthy by working hard at any particular craft. You become wealthy by acquiring as much capital as possible and charging people a premium for access. How then do you acquire wealth-building capital in the first place? Birth lotto most of the time. Turns out, life isn't a meritocracy at all.
Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve been surprised at how uncomfortable people are with capitalism in various parts of Europe Talk about my fintech venture or trading and young people are visible apprehensive Very distinct from the general awe and congratulations and “wow but you're so young!” that comes with completely misunderstanding what personal and liquid monetary wealth is Outside of Monaco and Zug I just started telling people I was a stud…
nah, people are just suspicious of people calling bitcoin "fintech"
I’d have a chuckle if you weren't assuming that about my venture
No bitcoin involved