Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

technologyreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 356 posts

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#11

Post by aivisol »

> For example, intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, follows this pattern. Average IQ is 100, but nobody has an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000.

True, but can IQ be, say 210? If yes, then standard deviation cannot be applied here, right? Because for that you would need someone with opposite IQ, i.e. -10?

> The same is true of effort, as measured by hours worked. Some people work more hours than average and some work less, but nobody works a billion times more hours than anybody else.

Same here. If average work hours is 8 hours per day, and someone works 17 hours, then again, standard deviation cannot be applied? Am I right or making some error here?

Edit: thanks for clarifications on IQ, I got it, my bad for not doing a research. The question of working hours stands, however.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#12

Post by adventured »

martinni wrote: post #7

Rich people got "lucky" but they don't define what luck is to begin with. To quote Naval, there are 4 kinds of luck. 1. Blind luck - Where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened 2. Luck from hustling - luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lo…

That's a spot on point about the various types of luck. The common derogatory saying about smart / rich (referenced in the title) reveals more about the person saying it, than it does the person that it is directed toward. It's the surface assessment equivalent of thinking someone is rich based on the car they drive (or watch they wear etc.). It's a shallow & easy appraisal that someone runs because they're either incapable of deeper analysis or are too lazy to bother. In my experience it tends to reveal that the speaker knows absolutely nothing about money or wealth.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#13

Post by ta1234567890 »

martinni wrote: post #7

Rich people got "lucky" but they don't define what luck is to begin with. To quote Naval, there are 4 kinds of luck. 1. Blind luck - Where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened 2. Luck from hustling - luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lo…

However, 2, 3 and 4 can be reduced to 1.

You don't choose your genes or where you are born. Those factors, which are blind luck, determine all of the other lucks for your whole life.

In the end, everything is just blind luck, but our egos want to feel like they are in control somehow.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#14

Post by jerf »

posterboy wrote: post #5

Perhaps it is stupid to want to be rich? Few people are stupid enough to take the chance, so a few rich people are no thread to the mental health of society at large. Whowhat?

I'm being totally serious: The more I learn about riches & fame, the less I want them.

I'll be honest: I'm not quite to the point where if someone tried to thrust a million dollars into my hand, I'd say no. (That isn't even necessarily enough to take you out of "middle class" anymore as a one-off payment, honestly.) But I think I'd say no to 10 million and I'm fairly certain I'd say no to 100 million. Or really wish I had about a year later. (In "reality" I might try to do something where I take it but dump it into causes I approve of really quickly; for the sake of this argument I'm assuming that I'd have to actually step into that level of wealth permanently.)

That level of wealth forcibly inserts you into a class of games that I don't want to have to play.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#15

Post by omarhaneef »

hnhg wrote: post #6
omarhaneef wrote: post #3

Ugh, I wish the author had made the point without the computer simulation. I think there might be merit to the argument people make more money than their intelligence, or effort, seems to indicate. And the author lays out some basic arguments here: "But there is a problem with this idea: while wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is sym…

Can you clarify this? 'However, you don't need the simulation to add to this argument. If anything, the simulation undercuts it because now you point out small errors and end up doubting the whole argument.' I would say that if the author is making an argument based on probability distributions, then that's a fundamentally mathematical one, and they should see it through instead of hand-waving via rhetoric. Am I miss…

I don't know I can say it more clearly. I can sort of repeat what I said.

Instead of two factors (intelligence, and effort), let's just take one factor (effort).

One person works 12 hours a day. We know people can only work 2x as hard as this person. Yet, there are many people who are more than 2x as rich. Hence, effort alone doesn't fully explain the difference.

That is it. You can get that argument right there.

Do you need me to do a computer simulation? Will that make the argument stronger? Even if the argument is mathematical?

Or will you look at my simulation and say, "ah, I think you made an error here by not accounting for sleep efficiency fully, so I think this theory is wrong."

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#16

Post by duaoebg »

omarhaneef wrote: post #3

Ugh, I wish the author had made the point without the computer simulation. I think there might be merit to the argument people make more money than their intelligence, or effort, seems to indicate. And the author lays out some basic arguments here: "But there is a problem with this idea: while wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is sym…

IQ numbers are normalized which should make it no surprise that histogram of IQ numbers form a normal distribution. It's in the definition. IQ numbers only indicate a relative position to the rest of the population. Basically (110IQ-100IQ) != (120IQ-110IQ).

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#18

Post by throwaway13372 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #8

"So if not talent, what other factor causes this skewed wealth distribution? "Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck," say Pluchino and co. "The team shows this by ranking individuals according to the number of lucky and unlucky events they experience throughout their 40-year careers. "It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones," they say. "And the less su…

Still the comment about citing one unique sample to overthrow a general assessment from much larger sample size...

You seem to be blindly lucky and do not really appreciate that...

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#20

Post by katmannthree »

jerf wrote: post #14
posterboy wrote: post #5

Perhaps it is stupid to want to be rich? Few people are stupid enough to take the chance, so a few rich people are no thread to the mental health of society at large. Whowhat?

I'm being totally serious: The more I learn about riches & fame, the less I want them. I'll be honest: I'm not quite to the point where if someone tried to thrust a million dollars into my hand, I'd say no. (That isn't even necessarily enough to take you out of "middle class" anymore as a one-off payment, honestly.) But I think I'd say no to 10 million and I'm fairly certain I'd say no to 100 million. Or really wish…

It really doesn't force you into anything. You could just throw it into a savings account at your nearest national bank, lose a bit year over year to inflation being higher than the current interest rate, and have a whopper of an emergency fund. That would give you peace of mind if nothing else.

If you wanted to be smart you could invest it in any number of ways to not lose wealth to inflation, but that's by no means necessary.

Post reply on HN