The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms • Hacker News Board

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#231

Post by selestify » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #166

LyndsySimon wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Health issues are another thing. If I’m remembering your previous posts correctly, you’re quite aware that mental health is absolutely a part of this. It’s a very big part for some people. I’ve never felt that I’ve lack “smart”. What I lack is passion, willpower, and consistency. From where I sit, I expect that I’d be much better off both financially and emotionally if my situation were reversed.

If I’m remembering your previous posts correctly, you’re quite aware that mental health is absolutely a part of this. Yes. I do a poor job of making that clear because I feel so strongly that physical health and mental health cannot be neatly separated. "A sound mind in a sound body." To me, (a lack of) "passion, willpower, and consistency" really sounds like someone with low energy due to a hidden health issue. I wa…

Wow, that sounds like me! Do you mind sharing what the genetic disorder was? Or how you get tested for it in the first place? I have a feeling that if I asked my doctor about laziness, they would refer me to a therapist instead.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#232

Post by hinkley » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #29

ta1234567890 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, 2, 3 and 4 can be reduced to 1. You don't choose your genes or where you are born. Those factors, which are blind luck, determine all of the other lucks for your whole life. In the end, everything is just blind luck, but our egos want to feel like they are in control somehow.

Hustle and preparation are not luck, they're skills you have to hone for them to be useful. You have to actually do something. They aren't something you can be born into (much to the dismay of rich parents with deadbeat kids). By reducing 2 and 3 to luck you're implying that people have no agency. Sure, the person who develops those skills in rural Africa isn't going to go as far as someone who develops those skills…

"Fortune favors the prepared mind."

not

"Fortune rewards the prepared mind."

Although the latter is effectively Calvinism, which the US culture was founded on. It will probably echo through the ages.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#233

Post by ativzzz » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

ReptileMan wrote: post #69

ta1234567890 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, 2, 3 and 4 can be reduced to 1. You don't choose your genes or where you are born. Those factors, which are blind luck, determine all of the other lucks for your whole life. In the end, everything is just blind luck, but our egos want to feel like they are in control somehow.

Genghis Khan was exiled and had nothing by age nine. At the time of his death he left the biggest land empire the world has ever seen to his children. You need very little of 1 to make a difference

His campaigns also contributed to something like 60+ million deaths[1]. Maybe the Hitler of his time?

In his case, perhaps everyone who got in his way simply didn't have any luck.

[1] https://www.scifacts.net/human/genghis-khan-death-toll/

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#234

Post by biolurker1 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

the article assumes that nobody has orders of magnitude higher skills like nobody has iq orders of magnitude higher. that's extremely faulty because someone with an iq of 160 doesn't solve 60% more problems. He solves problems that others find impossible. Paul Allen and Gates hit iq ceiling

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#235

Post by ChrisLomont » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

ultraism wrote: post #110

rubidium wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, the best we know is the laws of physics are not deterministic! The quantum states that your neurons fire to is unknowable in advance and determined only at the point of measurement. Therefore, you are _free_ in the exact results of your neural mass are unknowable in advance and truly random. There's certainly a distribution of probability to the randomness... but be free and don't by the deterministic, 19th cent…

I favor the idea of free will but I don't buy this argument. Everything in the universe is bound by the same physics/quantum mechanics but you wouldn't say a rock has free will.

Quantum mechanics has the free will theorem: if you have free will, then so do sub-atomic particles.

Thus if you want to have free will, then so does a rock.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#236

Post by starpilot » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #194

thrownaway954 wrote: post #189

I chased the dollar and lost my wife and Pomeranian in a divorce :( I was rich, but never realized that love and companionship is worth more in the long term than money. I would give a billion dollars to wake up with my wife in my arms and that little dude licking my face.

^^ Techlead spotted. You can have both good things in your life again. Dust yourself off, learn what you need to learn and find someone who will uphold her commitments (I'm making some assumptions about your vows)...

Triple X: Ex-Facebook. Ex-Google. Ex-husband.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#237

Post by giardini » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

Previously discussed on ycombinator starting March 2018:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16591908

including the Pluchino paper (scroll/search on the above page to find the reference).

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#238

Post by hinkley » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #39

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. Yes, there is more opportunity in some settings than others but the people with the skills are much less likely to be passed by by that opportunity than everyone else. There's a lot more opportunity that usable to the people who are in a position to take advantage of it (preparation) and have the drive to do so (hustle).

Again, imagine 1 does not occur. You hustle and there is never a lucky opportunity. Do you still achieve success? You prepare for a job interview and you never get the opportunity to interview. Do you still achieve success? No one is saying that there aren’t factors to increase luck insofar as people are saying that success doesn’t necessarily have a linear relationship with preparation or hustle. IE. Person A who ea…

What if you hustle and all you get is bad luck?

I think one of you is saying that neutral situations should allow one to scramble up just due to willpower alone. I'm not sure I agree.

But some people are born with one foot in a bucket. They just keep getting hit by sic relatives and floods and what have you and everything they get never lasts.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#239

Post by 1000units » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:19 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #208

jerf wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. I mean that having a certain level of wealth throws you into a world where everyone wants a piece of you, friendships become very difficult because are they friends or are they just after some money? Probably the latter. It basically takes you out of the normal run of human affairs into a very isolated environment. It solves a lot of problems that, frankly, I can solve well enough now, in return for…

having a certain level of wealth throws you into a world where everyone wants a piece of you, friendships become very difficult because are they friends or are they just after some money? I've never been rich. Most so-called "friends" have wanted something from me while having little or nothing to offer me in return. This became crystal clear while I was homeless for years. People continued to want something for me,…

This is a good point. However, if you insert yourself among people who all have a certain level of material comfort to lack material ambition, it is much, much easier to forge authentic relationships. The prevailing social aim becomes to experience joy, learn interesting things, and grow as a person. Of course, this dynamic is still rare. Even when people aren't fighting for money, there's still an urge to fight for status, which only rarely perfectly manifests itself in a competition to create beauty. This is partly why conspicuous consumption is frowned upon by certain factions of the upper classes. It reveals you're playing the wrong game.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#240

Post by MR4D » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:19 PM UTC

gl00pp wrote: post #209

growlist wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that is really callous and unmerciful compared to other places in the world like Europe, which has a level of public spending that many view as unsustainably high? Edit: plenty of economists are saying this! It's hardly a controversial view

They seem to have sustained this far.

The turkey said that same thing the day before Thanksgiving.

The OP might be incorrect, but you are using the wrong argument against theirs.