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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-my-luck dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:04AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:04AM (#647447)

    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.

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  • (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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:57PM (#647693)

      "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

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:54PM (#648163)

          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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @03:36AM (#647844)

    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 darkfeline on Monday March 05 2018, @06:01PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Monday March 05 2018, @06:01PM (#648069) Homepage

    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.

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