Comment by ZeroGravitas

Comment by ZeroGravitas 16 hours ago

14 replies

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I do.

108 Billion humans have ever lived on planet earth. 8 billion-ish currently.

Most of them live lives that in no way reflected on their hard work and talent, but rather their circumstances, starting with where and when they were born but encompassing a million different contingencies outside the control of their hard work or talent.

So do you think you have talent and hard work greater than 99% of those many billions? If you're posting on HN you've probably got "success" in that extreme even if you've never applied yourself or excelled in anything of any note.

sokoloff 16 hours ago

Pick any of those 8 billion. Have them work half as hard. Have them have half as much talent. Do their outcomes remain the same , get better, or get worse?

You’re arguing that there are other factors that also influence outcomes (and that those other factors are stronger forces).

I agree with that point, but that’s not a refutation to the notion that the coefficients on talent and hard work are positive, nor a convincing argument that success is unrelated to those two factors.

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  • siavosh 15 hours ago

    Can anyone benefit from working 10% harder or smarter? Undoubtedly. But success isn’t linear. It’s clear from the zeitgeist that the ultra-rich and powerful—past or present—aren’t working a million percent harder or smarter; their positions are more accurately explained by structural advantages. The first million might be 95% hard work and talent. The next million, probably a bit less so.

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    • Jensson 15 hours ago

      > It’s clear from the zeitgeist that the ultra-rich and powerful—past or present—aren’t working a million percent harder or smarter; their positions are more accurately explained by structural advantages.

      Millions of people had an equal or better starting condition than Mark Zuckerberg so we aren't really lacking privileged people, but vanishingly few of those do become ultra wealthy.

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      • siavosh 15 hours ago

        I'm not going to get into the role of luck, but more curious -- how many ultra-rich individuals do you think can exist on the planet earth?

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      • BobbyTables2 3 hours ago

        It’s not just about starting condition but also the level of psychotic desire to profit at any cost.

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  • 3np an hour ago

    Saying it's literally 0 implies a belief that free will doesn't exist (predeterminism), right? If so, who are you trying to convince here? :p

    It's complex.

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  • Throw9444 15 hours ago

    I imagine first you’d have to define success in a way others might agree with. And talent, for that matter—most notable talents can’t be easily exploited by capital.

    But, I do know for sure that being wealthy is correlated to neither skill nor hard work, but savvy leverage of the skill and hard work of others. That shit has to end. You should make proportional to the work you put in. Shareholders and investors are even worse.

    But whatever. I do not expect the world to improve at this point. We’re just stuck in a shitty place (as humanity) and asked to be grateful for the insight of the rich.

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datadrivenangel 15 hours ago

Circumstances and luck are hugely important, but you have agency even if you don't have full control.

Any of us could get hit by a meteor or drop dead at any minute, but working harder towards goals in aggregate moves us towards those goals, so I don't understand how this logic works?

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  • amanaplanacanal 12 hours ago

    That's assuming that free will actually exists, which is an open question at this point.

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