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MIT Tech Review reports on a new study which used computer model to analyze wealth distribution in society. It concludes that the majority of riches do not result from talent, intelligence or hard work - but luck. Those who succeed most in modern society are born well and experience several 'lucky events' which they exploit, but are of mediocre talent. The study's abstract states that the model has potential for encouraging investment in the genuinely gifted, and summarizes:
"...if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals. As to our knowledge, this counterintuitive result - although implicitly suggested between the lines in a vast literature - is quantified here for the first time."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:13AM (51 children)
Oh I absolutely will. His head start was chance but everything he gained thereafter was most assuredly not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:30AM (50 children)
There are a couple of problems with that statement:
1. It's quite obvious that it's easier to make money if you start with money. He got huge advantages from his family connections, and the money he was able to bring to deals. His "head start" has continued through his life.
2. His investments have made less money than had he merely invested in a tracker fund, so he really hasn't shown any skill in business.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:42AM (49 children)
And? What's your point? You think it's all down to luck? Spend all your retirement plans on lotto tickets then. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Now that we've established that even you don't believe that utter bullshit, let's have a sensible conversation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:02AM (9 children)
False equivalence. Making use of the connections and money you have because you were born into a rich family is vastly more easy than winning the lottery.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:20AM (8 children)
Lack of reading comprehension. He made an absurd statement and I invited him to put his money where his mouth is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:22AM (7 children)
You're still equating two situations that are entirely unlike one another. There was no reason to bring up lottery tickets at all.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:13PM (6 children)
Fine, I'll explain it like I would to a small child. If he genuinely believes luck is what creates wealth, then buying lotto tickets is infinitely wiser than saving for retirement. Now, do you still need further help removing your head from your ass?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:49PM (2 children)
If "you" means YOU then yes, you need help. I understand you're head has gotten awfully big of late so it'll be hard, but I'm sure it won't be the last large object you stuff up there.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:25PM (1 child)
Damnit, did I leave my webcam on again?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @04:45PM
I guess its hard to tell with your head surrounded by gluteus maximii.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @05:50PM
That's not an argument being made. No one said that absolutely everything comes down to luck. Once again, an invalid comparison. Deny it all you like, but your point about lottery tickets was irrelevant.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday March 05 2018, @07:29PM
Maybe we can consider not being stupid to be a sort of luck.
I don't know the odds but I know that if you pulled together a bunch of 18 - 21 year olds and asked them have some success related conversations you'd hear some "interesting" things if you prompted them to talk about gambling, hard work, the value of credentials, or running a business. The sad thing is if you pulled together the least successful 10 years later you'd still hear the same bullshit.
Let's see if I can get a few people to respond to this thread with anecdotes about how they got to assistant manager of nothing by getting a degree in anything and working hard until their big break came, and of course how the Millennials can't do this. I expect also to hear from the regular population of "entrepreneurs" on the internet who "did it all themselves" but are paradoxically one government regulation away from being completely broke.
(Spoiled old men and liars)
These are the sorts of people raising most of a generation, these are the people that most young people are using as role models. 'How to get the job your father was downsized and laid off from" , not super good advice.
Of course if you grow up surrounded by people who are actually successful, then your chances of confidently making wise life decisions goes up considerably. Not only that but being a young person with the financial freedom to take risks and casually find your place in life instead of desperately clinging to your first job is a big deal. If you travel to the richest cities in the world, where the wealth comes first before it trickles down the the commoners, peasants, serfs and wageslaves; You'll see that there are huge populations of young, barely employed, rich kids. Oh they think they're broke, the rude barista who can barely keep it together enough to brew a latte without incident, who do you think that is... really? They're all there on their parents dime so they can be there and available where opportunity knocks with regularity. Finding pleasurable volunteer positions is almost a certain pathway to eventually getting an easy cosmopolitan life. If you can afford to work for free until you make friends with all the elderly idle rich running the place.
You think that kind of real opportunity is available to the daughter of a used car salesman and a CNA in Cleaveland, OH? What about the son of a Tyson meats plant middle manager in Arkansas?
Lol these represent households in the upper half of the middle class but there is no fucking way they can expose their children to the type of opportunities that actually rich people can, at best they get an old car and a college fund.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:34AM
A real pity to spoil that straw-man, Buzz.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:04AM (7 children)
There is a saying. Luck favors the prepared.
You can be presented an opportunity (the luck bit). Being able to act upon that and even seeing that there is one in the first place. Without the skills to act upon luck you get nothing. You may even have the skills and see the opportunities but do not have the means to do so.
Now you can also tilt 'luck' in your favor. You do that by putting yourself into positions where opportunities present themselves.
You are not always presented opportunities. That is luck.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:07AM (3 children)
Couldn't have said it better myself. Watching all these wage slaves spew butthurt over failings that are entirely their own fault is absolutely hilarious.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:57PM (2 children)
"It concludes that the majority of riches do not result from talent, intelligence or hard work - but luck."
The only butthurt in this thread is from you ignoring a study that confirms what most people already know. It's not what you know it's who you know, i.e. lucky to know the right people at the right time. No one said hard works isn't a factor, or that you need some level of competence, but the fact remains that a lot of wealthy people simply got very very lucky.
I would expect nothing less from you than the bender of a tirade you went on since it destroys your libertarian belief that hard work and responsibility are all that is required to succeed in life. You ignore the edge cases, ignore the luck factor, all so you can sit high on your donkey.
You sir are a moron. One of the smartest, but a moron nonetheless.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:29PM (1 child)
If I flip a coin ten times, call heads each time, and am proven out by the landing of the coin each time, you'd say it's luck, yes? What if I then told you it was a two-headed coin? Or that I'd spent an hour a day for a couple years practicing controlling a coin flip?
Just because you don't understand how something is done does not mean it is luck. It only means you are don't know what you're talking about.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:54PM
Circumstances outside of your control are luck, just because you can't understand basic English is apparently everyone else's problem? Go melt little ice demon, your words are wasted here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @03:36AM (1 child)
The means that you so blithely gloss over is, 99 times out of 100, MONEY. Usually as reserves, less often as credit, but if you don't have it your skills count as zero.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 05 2018, @05:27PM
Try having and using some of your own, you'll find out what an idiot you just sounded like.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday March 05 2018, @06:01PM
I guess I need to be lucky enough to be born without a gambling addiction when I inherit a vast inheritance at birth, but other than that, I don't see any particular preparation I would need to receive a vast amount of money at birth.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Informative) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:05AM (24 children)
His point is Trump exemplifies the study; luck not talent got him rich. In fact Trump is so mediocre that someone starting out with his wealth would be wealthier than Trump simply by having put it in a broad fund tracking the stock market and then doing nothing; ie by following the same advice given to folks with zero investing knowledge.
"Spend all your retirement plans on lotto tickets then."
Nobody is suggesting someone can or should decide they're going to be 1 in 10s of million lucky; and then act on that, as if that somehow would work.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:17AM (23 children)
You're still not getting it. Whether his bets were the smartest bets out there or not is irrelevant. That he grew his wealth massively by his own decisions is what matters. The vast majority of this nation would be broke today if they'd got the same start Trump did. Nobody arguing with me has a clue how to acquire wealth other than via a monthly check. And that pisses them off royally.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:48AM (2 children)
It would matter if that statement were true.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:14PM (1 child)
If you have some means to refute that claim, by all means do so.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @04:53PM
It was not his decision to be born out of a wealthy family.
(Score: 5, Informative) by YeaWhatevs on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:49AM (5 children)
Mmmmm, no. People with large inheritances are lucky, unless somehow you can show there is skill involved with choosing rich parents. They to start out with so much money that even relatively mediocre choices result still add up to a whole lot better returns in absolute terms compared to a poor person making better choices.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:16PM (4 children)
Says the person who's never tried it. Care to continue your armchair quarterbacking? It really is cracking me up.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @05:03PM (3 children)
Back atcha fuckface
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 05 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
You really went for the old "I'm rubber, you're glue" response? Jesus, man... Learn to troll.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:56PM (1 child)
It is funny how you think I was trolling, but I was not surprised since you fail basic language comprehension as repeatedly demonstrated throughout this thread. Your brain has a [personal beliefs] override that short circuits your critical thinking skills.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:38AM
So, you're saying "No, you are!" is an intelligent response in a debate between people who are not under the age of eight years old? Interesting. Sad but interesting.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:51AM (9 children)
I think your not getting it. You wrote:
"The vast majority of this nation would be broke today if they'd got the same start Trump did."
I'm saying: No; they wouldn't be. As long as they did ANYTHING remotely sensible, they'd be in the same ballpark. If all they did was follow the simplest, most basic investing advice they could get.
Trump's 'decision making' ability really didn't amount to anything special; he could have closed his eyes and bought new york real estate by throwing darts at listings and he'd have done as well. If he'd thrown it at any number of major market tracking funds selected by darts, he'd have done as well. Anything that grows with inflation would be fine. Basically, with his start; as long as he didn't do something catastrophically STUPID he'd be in the same ballpark he is now.
To his credit he didn't do anything catastrophically stupid, but that's damning with faint praise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:40AM (1 child)
There are many who win more than a million dollars in the lottery and end up broke. Maybe that is because lottery players tend to have bad judgement, but it does give some support to the point that many could have had Trump's head start and ended up with less instead of more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:14PM
Lottery winners get broke because they are an anomaly in their original social circle, they don't have support network in their new social stratum (as dictated by their new "net worth"), so they just fall off quickly. It's just that they are targeted by everyone.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:12AM (5 children)
We don't have to guess what would happen.
The actual result is that most windfall winners (not just lotteries) flame out badly. They don't follow said basic invest advice and they're surrounded by a toxic culture that chews them up.
Merely preserving wealth would be a big improvement over just luck.
Second, I'm dubious about the valuation of stock market index funds. Such Profit calculators [soylentnews.org] are notoriously inaccurate.
(Score: 3, Informative) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:38AM (2 children)
That's a good point; it's also the case that wealthy families lose their wealth within a couple generations too. The same 70% in fact.
"70% of Rich Families Lose Their Wealth by the Second Generation"
http://time.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/ [time.com]
That's why I didn't go so far as to claim the 'vast majority' would do any better than Trump. I only disputed that trump was in any way very exceptional. He's in the 30% that held onto it. Ok, so I concede he did better than the majority would; and I guess that's an achievement... but it's really not much of one.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:10PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @07:32PM
And you'd be right to do so. I suspect that the people who actually earned it will have setup enough wealth management infrastructure and taught their offspring enough to take care of things for a while, and it takes a full generation for that to fall apart. vs lottery winners who have no wealth management and no skills so they mostly fall apart immediately.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:43AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @05:54PM
As someone who lives entirely on the returns from a stock market index fund I built up over 15 years (by saving almost everything I made), I find them very valuable. One look at history will tell you that they're one of the safest investments you can make, and quite profitable as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:16AM
Or at least an honorary one.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless
tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority
of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People
laugh at you a great deal.
Sounds about right to me.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday March 05 2018, @07:38PM (2 children)
I think you're a smart guy but this is pretty much the definition of a bad businessman in the circles trump runs in. Consistently failing to gauge opportunity cost.
He can't lose unless he gets expensive or incapacitating bad habits which is a major concern for the retarded rich.
This may very well be why he doesn't drink. His parents knew he was a retard and drilled into his head that he not get addicted to drugs or alcohol and all their help came with strings attached.
Since he was on daddybux well into adulthood he was spared despite his pleasure-seeking addictive personality.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:41AM (1 child)
Good or bad relative to other businessman is irrelevant. What's relevant is that he could have easily lost everything he was given but instead grew it. Really, bringing Trump into the conversation at all was nothing but an attempt at a distraction.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:29PM
Opportunity Cost is not irrelevant. Rich people budget opportunity the way that normal people might budget actual money.
I'll agree that talking about Trump is tiresome. But Trump and Bush are both great examples of how far luck will bring you, particularly in today's America.
This discussion itself is a great example of your poor fortune not to be born into a wealthy family that raised you to manage a fortune from birth. Even though you might be relatively wealthy you were probably raised on financial folk-wisdom.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:11PM
That's hilarious from a guy who says opportunity cost is irrelevant. Trump could have dumped his cash in an index fund and spent the rest of his life getting his asshole licked by supermodels. That's that baseline for a guy like trump and he failed.
100% of the people in this thread could learn at least that much about growing wealth in 15 minutes and it's the sort of knowledge you impart on your child when you want to hand them millions of dollars.
You're really revealing YOU don't know anything about growing wealth because this shit is so basic I literally learned it 2 weeks in to my very 1st business class. You can provide some extenuating "buts" but calling it irrelevant is a clear tell you talk a bunch of shit but don't have a clue.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:13AM (5 children)
What's your point? Are you claiming that lotto winners are wealthy because of something other than luck?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:18AM (4 children)
My point is put your money where your mouth is. I have.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:36AM (3 children)
You’ve kissed your own arse?
Hardly surprising.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:19PM (2 children)
If I could reach my own ass with my lips, that is not the body part I'd be putting them on. Think about things before you say them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:02PM (1 child)
After thinking about it first I can safely say: you are a cock swallowing closet dweller.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:42AM
Naw, I'm not that flexible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.