51–60 of 75 posts
This is a sloppy article that summarizes sloppy research and conclusions. Any State school science graduate student could point out the various reasons why. Though I'm unfamiliar with the average quality of the MIT Tech Review, I'd guess that the article isn't worthy of it.
If you're smart or talented, then that gives you a huge boost. It's yours to lose. But without effort, talent is of no use. I have seen people who have talent squander it by not putting in the effort. Family wealth obviously helps too , but of the top Substack authors I follow...most succeeded by raw talent and some effort, with otherwise minimal connections or family wealth. Same for top start-up founders...most see…
> The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms This is the least credible genre of "study says" article. You can't make claims about the real world based on some of researcher's guesswork simulation of society.
This study is disingenuous. It seems self evident to me that as the amount of wealth increases the amount of luck needed to get there increases. But, its possible to improve your chance of getting lucky. It might not be worth the effort but it is possible.
And the most successful people in the world aren't "just the luckiest." I'm sure that they required luck to achieve their wealth (as most if not all of them would probably admit), and if they started again from scratch, they may not reach the same extraordinary heights of success. But that doesn't mean they're just lucky. If you study any highly successful person, you'll almost certainly find specific qualities that made success for the person (in some degree) exceedingly likely.
Many people might read a headline like this and then, consciously or unconsciously, marginalize the accomplishments of successful people. I think that's the wrong approach. Instead, I think it's better to focus on (i) improving yourself and your circumstances, (ii) taking action on what's directly within your control, and (iii) learning from successful people. That way, you'll increase your odds of success, and even if you don't reach your goal, you'll be a better person.
Also, this fantasy of "hard work gets you further" significantly blocks our society's ability to help the poor, because so much bogus morality gets wrapped up in our attempts to lift people out of poverty (see: "Welfare queens" etc etc etc).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This paper does not suggest in any way that effort is not important.
Effort without intelligence is just pointless toil though. Either this paper is saying it’s pure chance, in which case effort isn’t relevant, or some intelligence is required.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This paper does not suggest in any way that effort is not important.
Effort without intelligence is just pointless toil though. Either this paper is saying it’s pure chance, in which case effort isn’t relevant, or some intelligence is required.
If you slide that scale any further you'll quickly be overweighting intelligence to success
> The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms This is the least credible genre of "study says" article. You can't make claims about the real world based on some of researcher's guesswork simulation of society.