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

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231–240 of 438 posts

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

#231
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget good looks and a rich uncle to bail you out of a jam.

Exactly. People on here seem to forget that almost every single rich person that can be named had hereditary money. Jeff Bezos now has more money than can be made if an American family earned 63k for 2 million years. He also had parents that gave him a so-called "three hundred thousand dollar investment" (more money than most people see in a lifetime even while working hard for their family, dedicating most of their…

> He also had parents that gave him a so-called "three hundred thousand dollar investment" (more money than most people see in a lifetime even while working hard for their family, dedicating most of their life to work and barely managing to enjoy life)

Jeff Bezos also had a teen mother, a biological father that abandoned him, and a Cuban immigrant father that came to the US alone at 16 with nothing and no ability to speak English.

After passing through a refugee camp, just six years later Mike Bezos was raising Jeff as his own and had successfully gone to college.

If - having survived all of that well enough to build a decent life for himself - Mike could afford to invest into his son's business, then it's a remarkable accomplishment that should be cheered, rather than attacked.

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

#232
[perhaps obsolete now that the title's been changed]

> the author uses a witty title on an article on business strategy

> the HN poster keeps the title almost verbatim, as is tradition

> people in the thread commence writing about the title instead of the article's content

So it goes.

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

#233
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't there universal measurements for leaders/counties? For example the Bible has a lot of wisdom like: 'If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.' This was already written some 2000 years ago and has been proven true over time. So I would argue you could measure the amount of unity a leader tries to create.

> So I would argue you could measure the amount of unity a leader tries to create. That’s a nice one. Yet do you think then Hitler might be a good leader? (not a joke). He united the white German population in a time of great economic disarray - in both Germany and Europe. Maybe we should measure unity and cooperation with other countries? Global solidarity

> He united the white German population in a time of great economic disarray

Rather, he united the country because it was in an economic disarray :)

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

#235
post #84

I don’t really understand the point of the article. It seems to be challenging an assumption that being “smart” has something to do with being financially successful. But why would we start with that assumption? Why would we conflate being “intelligent” with being good at making money? To me, this seems as preposterous as asking “if you’re so smart, why are you so bad at playing the violin, or why aren’t you a Hollyw…

The article doesn't really use a strict equality between being "intelligent" and being good at making money. It's more an implication, that being good at making money implies being probably something like "intelligent".

Now having this established, your examples of playing the violin and Hollywood stars doesn't make any sense. They are reading the relation backwards. The implication holds the other way round.

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

#236

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…

You are over simplifying the world. You are doing a mental exercise and reducing everything to a single variable: Talent.

So if someone success without talent, you explain it with another monovariable: luck.

By the way, for me being talented in something is just another version of luck. So we can say that you believe in just one variable: Luck is everything.

The world is way more sophisticated and complicated than a single variable.

Because of my work I have met people that are today highly successful. For example I have met motorcycle's world champions when they were children, that now earn tens of millions of dollars.

The most interesting thing is that for every world champion I know, I have met way way more incredible talented children that never became world champions and don't earn much or work in other areas.

They are human beings that took and take different decisions in their lives.

Some of them were very hard workers(and did not success after all the work), some of them were lazy(and succeeded anyway).

Some of them loved going to parties, others prefered to play guitar or read. Some were very social, others had few friends. Some were impulsive, some were analytical. Some were perfectionistic, others only care about doing things as fast as possible. Some had impulsive sex, other preferred stable relationships. Some accepted others helping them and listened, others refuse to learn or advice from others.

At the end of the day, there are hundreds of variables out there. There are usually some patterns that emerge on successful people on each specific discipline.

For example, in motosport you find that most successful people are highly competitive. They are obsessed with winning. I played ping pong with one of the kids and won. He could not stand it and trained and trained until he could win me(a year or so later). This kid is rich and famous now.

By the way, Success is different for different people. For me success could be not having a boss, working in front of the beach everyday without stress,and able to support my family.

For other people, being successful means earning millions of dollars, even when this means living for work inside a concrete hive watching numbers all day on a computer screen, and not having children until you can pay for a house that you never have time to visit.

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

#237
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he could be a president with reliable support from the senate and the house. But that said he still managed to reach very far.

Is that an option these days? When was the last time that existed? 2010?

It seems to me (as an outside observer), that this normally happens for the two years after a new President is elected.

Normally they don't get 60 in the Senate though, which means that the system is working at intended (you need to stay consistently popular for 6+ years to start swinging the Senate).

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

#238

Dismissing a successful person but seeming "dumb" person is a benefit to them. Now, they can continue succeeding with less scrutiny. For a long time I thought many politicians were "dumb" based on their public comments, propelled only by their connections. Now, when I look up some politicians who's spouting objectively false / misleading statements and find they've graduated a top-tier university and have a JD I real…

US politicians often act "dumb" because Americans mistrust intellectualism and "book smarts," but they trust plain-spoken cowboys who shoot from the hip and speak like common people.

Hillary Clinton attended Wellesley and Yale, and speaks like someone who did, and many Americans hate her. GWB attended Harvard and Yale, but he played up the stereotypical Texas country-boy stereotype and fumbled over his words, and got two terms. Donald Trump went to Wharton business school, but speaks (and shitposts) at the level of a common Reddit troll, and he was elected in large part because of that.

You'd think Americans would stop falling for it at some point.

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

#239
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget good looks and a rich uncle to bail you out of a jam.

Exactly. People on here seem to forget that almost every single rich person that can be named had hereditary money. Jeff Bezos now has more money than can be made if an American family earned 63k for 2 million years. He also had parents that gave him a so-called "three hundred thousand dollar investment" (more money than most people see in a lifetime even while working hard for their family, dedicating most of their…

Fine with what, that his parents helped him start a business or that he's so enormously wealthy?

I hope people don't mind the former, but the latter is a bit problematic. When individuals can control that much wealth, democracy breaks down, they can control politics. It wouldn't hurt capitalist incentives at all if the richest of the rich were limited to earning say $100 m.

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

#240

Dismissing a successful person but seeming "dumb" person is a benefit to them. Now, they can continue succeeding with less scrutiny. For a long time I thought many politicians were "dumb" based on their public comments, propelled only by their connections. Now, when I look up some politicians who's spouting objectively false / misleading statements and find they've graduated a top-tier university and have a JD I real…

Empathy / morals seem to be the key thing here.

I have be forced to leave a number of potentially very lucrative deals because I refused to scam little old ladies out of their life savings.

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