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A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

theatlantic.com

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Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#61

Post by filoleg »

fogetti wrote: post #35
blobbers wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luck favours the prepared.

Luck by definition is an independent variable. Edit: I don't know who downvoted me, but this is the definition of luck according to Google: "success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions"

Luck just determines specific momentary opportunities that that have the potential to set you in the right direction. The thing is, you need to be prepared to take advantage of those opportunities, as well as work on increasing the occurrence rate of those opportunities.

It’s like playing blackjack. Ultimately, it all comes down to luck, but you are significantly increasing your chances of winning by employing certain (legitimate) strategies rather than playing your hand randomly and hoping for luck to hit you.

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#62

Post by draugadrotten »

Ma8ee wrote: post #54
innagadadavida wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these are good factors, but don't leave out ego. Many smart people would rather be "right" and preserve their ego than make money.

And that many smart people have better things to do with their time than making more money. I have everything I need and really want. I much rather play with my three year old son in the garden than being able to afford a new Tesla.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#63

Post by gonzo41 »

thdrdt wrote: post #19
bravoetch wrote: post #8

To answer the question posed in the title (and yes, I read the fluffy article) - luck decides who gets rich.

True, but you can't get lucky when you keep sitting on your couch.

Are you born in the west, male and white? If you are you're lucky. And those traits will allow you, even against your best efforts to fall upwards over your lifetime.

Also, you have a couch, and get to sit on it, that's a lucky thing to do.

To be lazy is an indulgence that not all unlucky people have.

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#64

Post by thdrdt »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #4

Whenever you see someone who you believe to be an idiot succeeding, it usually means they're really good at the game and you don't even understand what the game is .

Today information is so easy to get that a lot of people think they know everything about every subject. But, like you said, reading the rules of the game does not mean you know how to play.

When a company like Netflix launches a new product it is possible they thought about this with different teams for a long time. Then it's very naive to comment on the internet to say they are wrong and made a stupid mistake.

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#65

Post by risyachka »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #4

Whenever you see someone who you believe to be an idiot succeeding, it usually means they're really good at the game and you don't even understand what the game is .

And in lots of cases you don't need to be smart to build a successful business - time and place often matter the most. Speaking here of my own experience.

So yeah, often idiots can be super rich and its absolutely ok.

Also you can be a genius going something without resources and connections, so there are millions of reasons why you can be way smarter than the rich guy on top while you are not rich at all.

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#67

Post by AtlasLion »

innagadadavida wrote: post #34
DecayingOrganic wrote: post #28

While I agree with the article, it is important to distinguish the macro from the micro point of view. From the micro point of view, a talented individual has a greater a priori probability to reach a high level of success than a moderately gifted one. On the other hand, from the macro point of view of the entire society, the probability to find moderately gifted individuals at the top levels of success is greater th…

All of these are good factors, but don't leave out ego. Many smart people would rather be "right" and preserve their ego than make money.

Or social skills, many highly gifted also have less developed social skills.

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#68

Post by Ma8ee »

nsgi wrote: post #39
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #4

Whenever you see someone who you believe to be an idiot succeeding, it usually means they're really good at the game and you don't even understand what the game is .

So Trump is really good at the political game, for instance?

I would say yes, if you define success in the political game as being elected to a high office. Most of us consider him an idiot, and in many way he certainly is. But he do knows who to get people to vote for him, which is what matters. He didn't fall into the precidency by accident or by being rich or well connected. He did what mattered to become elected (with a bit of help from Putin).

Many smarter people with more money and better connections failed, see e.g. Bloomberg.

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#69

Post by Barrin92 »

Well, the title is easy to answer, even many exceptionally talented people are never rich, and there's a significant amount of luck involved in being rich. It's pretty easy to be smarter than many people while never having financial success, or respect, or an audience or whatever.

It's worth picking up the actual thesis from the article though. If for example Hastings is rich, does that mean he's not an idiot (or does not often make idiotic decisions)?

It lowers the chance obviously but on the other hand fame and money is often fleeting. The average S&P 500 company now lives fewer than 20 years. So that means a lot of people who could be considered to have made good decisions in the recent past will fuck up in the near future.

The fat tailed nature of tech investing means that someone can make 30 bad decisions and one good one and be insanely rich. At the end of the day they often just survived the bad ones, but you'd still have been right in calling them out on the 29 bad ones.

So I think on a case-by-case basis net-worth is a shoddy indicator.

Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)

#70

Post by risyachka »

Money an intelligence rarely correlate. I know many very smart people that are just not interested in creating the business, though they are working on super complex things just for the sake of science.

Also there are lots of idiots why can become rich. There are so many opportunities.

So you can be absolutely right saying that some guy is an idiot even if he has billions.

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