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Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

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Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#231

Post by WalterBright »

webmaven wrote: post #208
WalterBright wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of famine certainly is. Probably the greatest advance ever.

Are you certain those dots are connected? We've had profit seeking entrepreneurship for a long time and famines haven't been gone very long, and arguably profit-driven climate change is the biggest potential source of looming famines (should they start to reoccur).

Famine was first eliminated in 1800 by the US with its free market agriculture. Collective farms have never succeeded in providing sufficient food.

Starving people are not good for the environment. They stop caring about anything but getting food.

Profit-driven farms are why you're able to type into your computer complaints about capitalism, sipping your morning Starbucks, rather than holding a cup on a streetcorner begging for an apple.

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#232

Post by WalterBright »

Klinky wrote: post #203
WalterBright wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of famine certainly is. Probably the greatest advance ever.

Haber process was developed while Fritz Haber was at University of Karlsruhe, a public research university. BASF was hesitant to invest in it, but luckily employee/engineer(not exactly an entrepreneur) Carl Bosch was there to convince them otherwise, and was able to industrialize the process. Haber process also has its negatives, such as an ammonia resource for war, and the growing use of factory/unsustainable farmin…

Sewing machines. Dishwashers. Airplanes. Jet engines. Xerox machines. Ethernet. The first internet. Radio. Light bulbs. Movies. TV. Telephony. Corn flakes. Cars. Printing. Microprocessors. Trains. Steamships. Pencils. Safety pins. Assembly line.

Basically everything in your dwelling.

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#233

Post by WalterBright »

buran77 wrote: post #159
inter_netuser wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprise, you don't get to choose anything at all on that list.

You didn't mention what might be the most important things successful people have to get them there: a good support network of other successful people, and a good safety net to catch them if they fail (sometimes the same network). I think you can scratch away everything on that list and the network (family, friends, colleagues, etc.) could still help you be successful. It's like a game where some people get a copy wi…

Why do you think America is fuller of successful people than other countries?

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#234

Post by pdimitar »

inter_netuser wrote: post #225
pdimitar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. they are rarely stupid I know at least 5 people who are fairly stupid but were at the right place, the right evening, the right dinner and spoke with the right people. They all retired at 35 with tens of millions after taxes. They can coast on these savings for 10 years if they live lavishly and if they close all their businesses tomorrow. They weren't stupid in 2-3 regards, yeah. For everything else that I chat…

Sleep needs was worded poorly. I really just tried to describe a hyperthymiac in detail (they need less sleep). They have a lot of traits that help to compete. Some I’ve known worked for decades under enormous amounts stress that would probably kill most, but without any visible impact on the hyperthymiac in question. And it was all on 5 hours of sleep per days. For 20 years straight. The larger point that everyone m…

Haha, you definitely got me. Thanks for clarifying!

> Not sure if that’s what they tell you in books: “make sure to win at genetics” lol.

Nobody ever will. As Jenifer Lopez was singing:

    "Life can be cruel in a way that I can't explain
     And I don't think that I could face it all again"
Most people, after they move past the critical mass phase and start amassing money / assets / other-forms-of-wealth and insure themselves to be never poor ever again, will NEVER admit the role of luck, genetics, connections, rich family etc.

It is how it is. I wish them well and I am happy they made it. But I grew tired of the memes and delusions that many of them often spit out.

I actually knew a couple: a former elite prostitute/escort and her former pimp. They made a ton of money by pimping her to rich guys, she managed to get extra payments from them, gained some connections, arranged partner businesses with some of them, did a lot of money (probably shady but happily I never inquired further and I really don't care) and at one point she started acting as if she was such a shrewd clever businessman and that her success was all but preordained and the was sooooo smart that she almost made it sound as if she planned it from childhood. I kid you not, she was extremely full of herself and was looking down on literally anybody who is below the social ladder than her.

She was so hilariously out of touch that I couldn't help but laugh out loud at one point, which predictably led to losing the acquaintance. I don't regret it, I don't need such people in my life.

---

So yeah, I am aware hyperthymiacs exist, I am only saying everything has a limit. One notable example is a guy who finally broke at 68-70. I seriously have no clue how was he healthy and ambitious literally from 14 years old all the way to 70 while almost never sleeping more than 4-5 hours. But they are genetic flukes as you said. I still believe we the regular humans can achieve a lot with 16-17 waking hours.

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#235

Post by shiredude95 »

Arisaka1 wrote: post #101

Confirmation/survivorship bias thrives when paired together with the illusion of free will. If we were talking about a philosophical example of an apple tree in a remote closed garden, people would agree that the presence of the apple tree itself is a factor that plays a role to whether you'll eat an apple. No matter how much you can stretch your hand or climb a ladder, if there's no apple tree to climb there's no wa…

There's another side to that argument, where we work back from the result of eating an apple. Eating an apple gives us some amount of satisfaction and enjoyment. In the example provided even if there was no apple tree and/or no way to get to the apple tree, the idea that one day we can eat an apple might be something that might in accumulation gives the actor the same kind of enjoyment. From a 3rd party PoV looking at the simulation you might feel bad for the actor because you know there is no apple tree and they are just wasting their time trying to get an apple, but if the actor's reality is based on a hypothetical apple to which they are working towards who are we to deny them that happiness?

This scene from the movie inception rings true in this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsYc5tCk1t8

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#236

Post by ModernMech »

inter_netuser wrote: post #77
lampe3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain a little bit more? What odds? What part of that successful people do? What do you mean by loser?

>What part of that successful people do? 1. they are rarely stupid 2. they often sleep a lot less 3. they more often than not are hyperthymiacs (related to #2). 4. they produce unlimited amounts of self-generated morale (related to #3). 5. they are stress tolerant (related to #4) 6. they are healthier in general (related to all of the above) I don't know very many successful people with numerous chronic health condit…

> I don't know very many successful people with numerous chronic health conditions that impair their cognition to the point of debility

You'd be surprised to find out how many highly successful creatives are bipolar. Britney Spears for instance infamously went through a very public manic episode a number of years ago. Bipolar disorder definitely fits the bill for a "chronic health conditions that impair their cognition to the point of debility".

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#237

Post by WalterBright »

GameOfFrowns wrote: post #229
WalterBright wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an astute observation. Choosing winners for friends, and cutting loose the losers, will increase your odds of success. For example, if you want to be good at skiing, hang out with people who are good at skiing.

This only works if your peers aren't following the same strategy of maximizing potential otherwise they would just cut you out for being the least successful friend.

If you look hard enough for a reason to fail, you'll surely find one.

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#238

Post by gnicholas »

jonplackett wrote: post #51

I had a dumb idea about this a while ago - to do a massive completion for coin flipping. Get thousands of entries. Each ‘match’ just involves the two people flipping coins to decide the winner. You make a documentary about it where you ask everyone about their tactics and strategy. Someone has to win all their matches. They will have developed some ‘tactics’ that they probably strongly believe in. Of course we know i…

There's a funny youtube video [1] about 10 coin flips in a row. The guy apparently did tons of takes until he got it. The successful take is one in which he alternates HTHT... which makes me think that he was trying for all H, all T, or alternating HT, to make it easier on himself.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHU-L3BLd_w

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#239

Post by openknot »

amelius wrote: post #221
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly this, i've been thinking about this a lot lately. I mean who is 'anybody' anyway. People talk about legacy, but I think it's just ego. They don't want to accept they will be one day gone and nobody cares, so they want to build something they think will extend there life beyond that. But does it really matter anyway? Even the most successful of the successful, does it really matter? What about the person…

Yes, it's all relative. But what if your sisters and brothers all have successful companies, and you have just an average paying job?

That depends. Do I like my work that has average pay? Do I have a significant other who cares for me, and a loving family? Is the reason that I have an average paying job, because I maintain a range of open-source software projects that are widely used?

From another angle, am I only in an average paying job because I worked hard, and things just didn't work out, and did they abuse their employees and break the law to make money?

I'm not very competitive. I don't give a toss about what my parents or siblings think of how successful I am about my career. Career-wise, I only really care that I know I put in my best effort week-to-week. I don't compare myself to others based on results; I've lost incredible opportunities genuinely due to bad luck, and stumbled into amazing opportunities based on chance.

Re: Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?

#240

Post by openknot »

xwdv wrote: post #189
yawnxyz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been bootstrapping our weird tech/bio/techbio startup for the last four years... it's NOT EASY at all, but we've made it to the point that we're ramen profitable (For now) and it's kind of an amazing feeling. Of course I'm making like 1/5 I would at a tech company, but we're literally saving people's lives, and that really makes up for not making as much.

You may not want to hear this but four years is way too long to reach ramen profitability and it’s not a good signal for future success of that startup.

Could you please state a source or elaborate your reasoning? That is a very bold claim, especially since biotech in particular has quite high costs. Note also that the objectives may be different (e.g. save more lives, versus maximize profits early).
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