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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)

#241

Post by croon »

jesuschroist wrote: post #235
baddox wrote: 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.

The implication you are pointing at still an assumption.

If we can't assume that Hollywood stars or concert violinists are intelligent (even if not all intelligent people can be those things), then why would it naturally be so with financially successful people?

The examples still make sense under the premise that the assumption is off.

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

#242

Post by Bambooly »

There is a correlation between intelligent and income but we have been conditioned to misunderstand what intelligence is. we are taught that schooling is as sign of intelligence but that is just a sign of Memory and a sign of formatting. Many people fail because their ideas as are not formatted correctly or their ability to remember remember during an exam. There are many people who have failed education and still succeed in their dreams. Elon Musk is an example where he said "I didn't go to Harvard but all my lawyers did".Is Musk more intelligent that his lawyers even though he does not have the same education. So what is intelligence? The issues is also how do you measure success. May people choose Money as that quantifies things and then we can compare. The main issue is Quality is not comparable. Neither is Happiness. Success can only be measured with yourself. because you have to do the things that need doing to get into the positions to be seen as dumb. The Politician who says some really dumb thing or the businessman that does not seem to know what he is doing, have done some really smart things to be in a position to be dumb.

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

#243

Post by Grustaf »

gizmo wrote: post #222
Grustaf wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Intelligence is hugely important for any kind of outlier success. It's no coincidence that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Jim Simons are undeniably brilliant. The claim that charisma, street smarts, or connections are more important than intelligence is absurd. There are so many fields in which those things just don't matter. If you're not charismatic don't pursue a career in a field that requires charisma. Simple. It's…

Sure they are smart, but you'll find smarter people at any theoretical physics department, if we're talking IQ. Also, I don't think we are talking about rich as in global top 100, what I at least meant more mundane financial success, like earning $1 m a year.

At that level, you definitely don't need to be a genius, I'd say if anything a genius is much less likely to make a million a year.

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

#244

Post by Kye »

WJW wrote: post #177
growlist wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or, the people playing the game and the rules of the game are so utterly moronic and worthless that it defies belief, e.g., celebrity culture.

This seems a clear example of the parent comment though. You don't see the value in it and that's fine. Other people enjoy an endless parade of almost free entertainment that they find more interesting than the usual drudgery of life. Even the Romans knew you only needed to supply bread and games to keep the people pacified. Celebrity culture is just a modernized and less directly violent form of "games". The game mo…

It's the same mindset that goes into dismissing pop music as low effort drivel. It actually takes an incredible amount of skill from a bunch of people at the top of their games to make a pop hit.

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

#245

Post by tinyhouse »

robert_g wrote: post #223

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…

Do you think graduating from a top university makes them smart? Do you think working at a top hospital makes you a great doctor? Etc. There is a distribution everywhere. At top universities it just might be not as wide as some other places.

You should watch closely the people you admire. Donald Trump is as successful politician as one can be. He is as rich as one can be. He has a degree from a top university. But he's a useless person and dumb as a rock. If you try to follow his way you will get nowhere. Good luck.

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

#246

Post by TBurette »

It seems people are commenting on the title of the article and not on what the article says : it's easy to think someone is stupid when you read about them making a bad decision in the news.

Classic examples are:

"Hitler was stupid to invade Russia". In fact he needed to conquer oil fields to keep the ability to wage war andhe Russian army was particularly weak at that point.

"Kodak was stupid not to sell digital camera". In fact Kodak did develop digital camera technology. They were behind one of the first commercial digital camera (The Apple QuickTake), they licensed their patent and were number one sellers of digital camera in the US at some point.

It's easy to fall into this trap when you only high level information. I think that when you get more detailed information this effect dissipates. You then realize that there are many factors and stakeholders.

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

#247

Post by maest »

Traster wrote: post #185

I 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…

What makes a betting person good or bad? It's hard to score and compare process and intention. The most natural way of determinig the quality of the betting person is by their results.

It's not a very informative way of looking at the world, but it's the most straightforward.

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

#248

Post by Kye »

koheripbal wrote: post #136
beefield wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe you do, but simply refuse to play the game due to ethical and moral grounds.

I don't see how that applies here. There are lots of ways to make high income that have no ethical dilemmas.

There's a nonprofit that researches this: https://80000hours.org/

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

#249

Post by wegs »

A much more thoughtful treatment of this problem is "The Dictator's Handbook." There are three possible explanations:

1) The CEO knows something I don't.

2) The CEO is dumb.

Those are rarely it. The third one is:

3) The CEO is optimizing for personal wealth / fame / success, and there are political considerations.

Most CEOs can recognize that a business decision can be absolutely the right thing to do for the business and not make that decision if it either would cost them (1) their standing with shareholders (2) their annual bonus (3) their standing with the board (4) their standing with internal constituents.

The key skill CEOs need to be CEOs can be summarized as: "How to become a CEO." That involves a lot more management of politics than it does business success (but still a fair measure of both). Furthermore, if a strategy leads to business success but costs a CEO their job, they cannot take that strategy.

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

#250

Post by 082349872349872 »

Traster wrote: post #185

I 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…

Investors diversify, so we need CEOs of individual firms to take more risk than we want for our portfolios as a whole. To be worth their wages, a CEO of a publicly-traded company should be making risky slightly-positive expectation value bets; were the firm too risk-averse, it'd be just as inefficient as if it were to keep too much cash on hand.
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