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Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

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Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#41

Post by troupe »

aantix wrote: post #34
newyankee wrote: post #2

One of the biggest lie sold in the West is that if you work hard, give everything you should succeed. This has grave implications on policy and really blinds people born with a silver spoon to the real problems in society as they have a 'i deserve it and they don't syndrome'. Contrast this with a poor society that is growing rapidly where you see islands of wealths with certain individuals, at least people over there…

Isn't it the striving, the need to move from one circumstance to the next, is what propels us forward? People don't make progress in spite of their struggle, progress is made because of the struggle.

This is a very good point. Regardless of talent or luck, the person who is willing to keep trying dramatically increases their chances of success. Someone who only applies for one job and stops if they don't get it, is much less likely to get a job than someone who is willing to apply for 100 jobs until they get hired.

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#42

Post by mistermann »

kaolti wrote: post #30
mistermann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an absolute, binary statement, yes, because it is not always true, not even close. Hard work is only one component of success. Physical attractiveness and charisma are often at least as important, even though logically they seem irrelevant. Dealing successfully with humans is often not terribly intuitive.

I don't think anyone is saying they are irrelevant, nothing is black and white. For practical purposes however, hard work does lead to success.

Except for when it doesn't, which is the point.

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#43

Post by amelius »

SheepSlapper wrote: post #9
chongli wrote: post #4

Is talent not just a form of luck? It doesn't matter how hard you work at your low post game, you'll never learn to be seven feet tall. Those who are of that height are extremely lucky, giving them a huge advantage over other contenders for that NBA center position. Other forms of athletic talent are less visible than height but I see no reason not to attribute them to luck (genetics, access to nutrition, coaching et…

All the things you mention are forms of luck, yes. And there's no way to control for them outside of some nightmarish eugenics scenario. It's a fact of life that people are different, and will excel in different facets of their lives to different degrees. In a free market system there will always be winners, losers, and a lot of us in the middle. That's a result of the system BEING an equal playing field, talent and…

> In a free market system there will always be winners, losers, and a lot of us in the middle.

Yeah, well I'm seeing a lot of "winner takes all" lately.

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#44

Post by kaolti »

rectang wrote: post #24
kaolti wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a lie? Do you disagree that hard work leads to success, within limits?

It depends on who you are. If there are structural factors arrayed against you, less success and more failure will come your way for the same amount of work.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that "work hard and you'll succeed"is a lie.

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#45

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

fullshark wrote: post #21
newyankee wrote: post #2

One of the biggest lie sold in the West is that if you work hard, give everything you should succeed. This has grave implications on policy and really blinds people born with a silver spoon to the real problems in society as they have a 'i deserve it and they don't syndrome'. Contrast this with a poor society that is growing rapidly where you see islands of wealths with certain individuals, at least people over there…

Depends what you define as success. Hard work generally does lead to gainful employment and the ability to afford a home/car which used to be the canonical symbol of success in America. If you think success is "be as rich and respected as I desire to be" then that absolutely will not hold.

Not really... I've known hard workers, they work hard, no success, they work hard, an unlucky event intervenes, they work hard, still no success, so on and so on and so they ask: what's the point in hard work? Can you blame them? Even to be a hard-worker implies that you've been lucky enough in life to see a correlation between hard-work and success.

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#46

Post by kolbe »

commandlinefan wrote: post #18
chongli wrote: post #4

Is talent not just a form of luck? It doesn't matter how hard you work at your low post game, you'll never learn to be seven feet tall. Those who are of that height are extremely lucky, giving them a huge advantage over other contenders for that NBA center position. Other forms of athletic talent are less visible than height but I see no reason not to attribute them to luck (genetics, access to nutrition, coaching et…

His conculsion also rests on the premise that talent is something you can measure and put a number on. In professional sports, for the most part, you can do that: your "talent" is (indirectly) measured by the number of goals you score. The more goals you score, the more talented you are. I suspect that's one of the reasons that professional athletes are a) so rare and b) so highly compensated: it's near-trivial to co…

Agreed.

I don't love the misappropriation of randomness in some social sciences (in this case "luck"). Outside of maybe quantum effects, there is probably no randomness in the world. Maybe those quantum effects can compound in some way to make it truly unknowable to figure out if I'll get hit by a bus today or not, but I doubt it. There're just properties of a system that are unknowable at this point because of our lack access to resources/technology to observe the system.

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#47

Post by WalterSear »

hliyan wrote: post #23
newyankee wrote: post #2

One of the biggest lie sold in the West is that if you work hard, give everything you should succeed. This has grave implications on policy and really blinds people born with a silver spoon to the real problems in society as they have a 'i deserve it and they don't syndrome'. Contrast this with a poor society that is growing rapidly where you see islands of wealths with certain individuals, at least people over there…

What if the problem is that the results of merit accumulate geometrically, so that beyond a certain threshold, some people just start rapidly pulling ahead of the pack?

The meritoriously choosing the right parents?

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#48

Post by pygy_ »

newyankee wrote: post #2

One of the biggest lie sold in the West is that if you work hard, give everything you should succeed. This has grave implications on policy and really blinds people born with a silver spoon to the real problems in society as they have a 'i deserve it and they don't syndrome'. Contrast this with a poor society that is growing rapidly where you see islands of wealths with certain individuals, at least people over there…

> One of the biggest lie sold in the West is that if you work hard, give everything you should succeed.

Even if it were strictly true, this ignores the fact that the ability to work hard is mostly determined by one's genes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2762790/

The main merit there is to have the right genes.

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#49

Post by [deleted] »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #45
fullshark wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you define as success. Hard work generally does lead to gainful employment and the ability to afford a home/car which used to be the canonical symbol of success in America. If you think success is "be as rich and respected as I desire to be" then that absolutely will not hold.

Not really... I've known hard workers, they work hard, no success, they work hard, an unlucky event intervenes, they work hard, still no success, so on and so on and so they ask: what's the point in hard work? Can you blame them? Even to be a hard-worker implies that you've been lucky enough in life to see a correlation between hard-work and success.

[deleted]

Re: Talent, luck and success: simulating meritocracy and inequality

#50

Post by WalterSear »

kaolti wrote: post #16
newyankee wrote: post #2

One of the biggest lie sold in the West is that if you work hard, give everything you should succeed. This has grave implications on policy and really blinds people born with a silver spoon to the real problems in society as they have a 'i deserve it and they don't syndrome'. Contrast this with a poor society that is growing rapidly where you see islands of wealths with certain individuals, at least people over there…

Why is it a lie? Do you disagree that hard work leads to success, within limits?

Same reason that a phd isn't really a path to being a tenured professor.

Yes, it is the only way to get a tenured position, but the vast majority of people trying don't get one. And not because they didn't work hard or even because they aren't qualified.

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