The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 10:10 PM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #198

WalterBright wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of people come to America. Just in my neighborhood there are Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Iranian first generation immigrants. I often hear Russian at the local park. The local real estate agent is first gen Romanian. A good friend is a Polish immigrant. I've run into three first gen Afghan immigrants nearby. The other two members of the D Foundation BoD are Romanian and Turkish. My mot…

Great. Now what about the other ~7.5 billion people out there? It's extremely elitist to say that anyone who wants to succeed should "just" get to America. Even if you wanted to claim that just touching the shores of the USA meant automatic success (and I am not suggesting you are), not everyone literally can do that.

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 10:16 PM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #195

pclmulqdq wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot: 6. Don't have children out of wedlock That derails a lot of people.

Also, "be born in, or be able to get to a country that has enough opportunities."

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 10:30 PM UTC

dabinat wrote: post #148

epistemer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also disregards the type of lottery game that is a part of wealth accumulation. Of course, it is not all luck but to believe wealth accumulation is a type of purely deterministic meritocratic game without a giant stochastic factor is ridiculous. That might even be the dumbest aspect of our society. Believing the powerball lottery winner is a genius for picking the numbers they picked is obviously stupid. Yet we ba…

I prefer to think society doesn’t believe this because they are innocently misguided but because those with wealth and power have an incentive to push such narratives. If people think you’re rich because you’re a genius, they’re more likely to accept that you “deserve” your wealth and success and be less likely to think it should be redistributed. It’s also a useful way of downplaying all the other factors like socia…

Post by sidlls » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 10:47 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #192

sidlls wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/hard/smart/g You're making a distinction without difference. I literally had no idea whether the company I work for was even going to go public, much less how successful (or not) it would have been. There was no skill or intelligence involved in picking it. It was pure luck.

And yet you put yourself in a situation where luck could find you. Keep doing things like that, and you'll inevitably get lucky.

Post by jcparkyn » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 11:54 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #202

neetle wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally survivorship bias. I'm sure there were people in the same period, working on a similar problem and they didn't hit the IPO lottery.

The startup was a choice people made. The business plan was a choice. Executing the plan (or failing to execute it) was a choice. Accepting a job at a startup is a choice. Choosing to do an IPO is a choice. No lotteries there.