A non-native speaker here - what does "debacletacular" mean? The word only has a few hits on Google. I understand it's a neologism of sorts, a conflation, but what's the meaning?
I'm guessing "a spectacular debacle" - AKA "epic fail"?
A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
181–190 of 438 posts
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#182Wealth = Human Connections.
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#183While 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…
I think it's mostly just that intelligence is not terribly important for success. Tenacity, street smart, charisma, connections, passion are all more important than IQ.
Don’t forget good looks and a rich uncle to bail you out of a jam.
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#184A non-native speaker here - what does "debacletacular" mean? The word only has a few hits on Google. I understand it's a neologism of sorts, a conflation, but what's the meaning? I'm guessing "a spectacular debacle" - AKA "epic fail"?
it's a port-manteau of spectacular and debacle i.e. a spectacular debacle
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#185I feel like what isn't really properly understood in these situations is the statistical chances that are involved here. 10 people put $50 on the roulette table, and then we celebrate the guy who hit their number. That genius who hit their number still had a negative expected value when placing that bet. Colette Martin would've been right to criticize Reed Hastings if he were making that bet with Netflix's money. But we don't read articles about the CEOs who make bad bets and lose them, and we don't really know if the CEOs who won made good bets or bad bets.
It's possible the richest CEOs are actually the worst at picking bets, because they're the ones who picked bets that were the least likely to pay off, and therefore got the biggest pay out when they won. If 50 people were making the same bet as Reed Hastings, then Netflix would've found it far harder to succeed, since they would've been competing for talent, content and customers with 50 other companies. The reason Netflix exploded in growth is partly because they were the only ones serving that market. Maybe that was a genius stroke of insight, or maybe he was one of a thousand people making bad bets, and he's the one that it paid off for.
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#186A non-native speaker here - what does "debacletacular" mean? The word only has a few hits on Google. I understand it's a neologism of sorts, a conflation, but what's the meaning? I'm guessing "a spectacular debacle" - AKA "epic fail"?
it's a port-manteau of spectacular and debacle i.e. a spectacular debacle
Port-manteau, another one :) Thanks!
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not "succeding" though. I like to give Trump as an example: everyone loves to blast him for being an idiot. Is he a good president? No. Is he good at the game, but most people totally miss what his game is? I claim, yes. It's unfortunate that he managed to play the US election system for his own purposes, but that doesn't mean he's just incompetent at everything. E.g. he's a rather good populist - that may not…
Which leads to the following: How do you measure if someone is a good president? What measurements do you use to claim Trump is not a good president? Surely it can't be approval ratings since you can't expect public to understand nuances behind the decisions and what the president actually has to be doing? It can't be just GDP because GDP might have been going up anyway? It can't be what the president is saying in pu…
> What measurements do you use to claim Trump is not a good president?
Number of his supporters arguing that objectively there's no such thing as a good president :-p
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#188I agree with the premise of this article. That armchair quarterbacking is rarely helpful and usually oversimplified. But I dislike the common implication in the headline, which is that intelligence somehow always equates to wealth. First of all, it's not always easy to judge how wealthy another person is, no matter their profession or outward appearance. Secondly, I think we all need to disuade ourselves of the notio…
Would you agree that higher intelligence equates to a greater likelihood of wealth over the long run (lifetime)?
As a general trend, yes. But since your life is lived with N=1 and you can't generally change your innate intelligence, that is not usually relevant to guide decision making.
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#189>> I mean, Reed Hastings did manage to build this rather large and successful business that killed off one of the most successful retail operations of its day. It's possible that he just sort of did this by accident. But is this really the most likely explanation?
It's possible, yes. And if we consider that there were possibly a few thousand people at that time trying to make that business work, then "by accident" does start to look like the best explanation.
Was/is he smarter than everyone else trying to do the same thing? Probably not.
Was/is he better connected, better funded, more able to run a business, than the others? Possibly, but probably not.
Was/is he luckier than everyone else? Almost by definition, if we define "luck" as "something that helps people succeed".
It's a very nebulous definition. But there's definitely a Venn diagram overlap of "by accident" and "by being very lucky". Even without getting to FedEx levels of "lucky", there is definite "luck" involved in making decisions based on incomplete information that will turn out to have outsize effects on the business later. This is a normal activity for startup founders, and I'll bet serious money that more than a few of them were made in Netflix' early years.
We always underestimate survivor bias when considering successful startup stories. And without studying the other people who were trying to build the same business at the same time, we have no idea why some of them succeeded and others failed. Without this information, it's impossible to say whether Netflix succeeded "by accident" or by design.
Re: A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now you are moving the goalposts from singular they are good at the game, to their family as a collective is good at the game. A statement perfectly compatible with that particular family member being an idiot.
Idiot usually means someone who doesn't know basic facts or has trouble anticipating consequences for their actions. But I think part of GPs comment was to note that the concept of idiot needs to be readdressed. For example, if your hypothetical person has a family network (just another tool; but a v. good one!) that helps them, then they choose to either stick with their family or try to strike out on their own. We'…
I have never, ever, once in my life ever heard anyone say "Isn't that person smart, they managed to get their dad to give them a job"