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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: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:59AM (13 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:59AM (#647535) Journal

    Actually, nobody has any evidence of what a real Marxist society would be like. My guess is that it couldn't get off the ground, but if it did, nobody knows what it would look like. Communist is less Marxist than Roman Catholic is Christian.

    FWIW, it's my suspicion that a Marxist society of any size wouldn't work for a week, but nobody can point to an experimental test. And you've got to specify objective tests for how to measure success or failure before you start the experiment, and justify them from Marx's writings. (Not, for example, Lenin's radical reinterpretation of them.)

    Socialism is too vague a term. It covers an entire range from the current US to religious communes to....well, any society that takes care of its members. Nothing that vague can be an answer to much of anything. (FWIW, it's an observed fact that societies that historically see themselves as more genetically related tend to care for their less able members to a greater extent. Which may explain the US, but also predicts a European change as population migrations happen. Japan, however, is a good counterexample to this statement.)

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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 04 2018, @09:00PM (1 child)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday March 04 2018, @09:00PM (#647722) Homepage Journal

    The Commune de Paris was history's first Marxist nation.

    However they didn't look after their own self-defense.

    Sucked to be them

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 05 2018, @06:08AM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 05 2018, @06:08AM (#647873) Journal

      Well, according to Wikipedia they inspired Marx, but that hardly makes them Marxist.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 04 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday March 04 2018, @09:04PM (#647724) Homepage Journal

    A study found that the mentally ill tend to do better in the developing world than in industrialized nations

    Someone suggested to me that this is because they are more likely to be cared for by their families

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 2) by julian on Monday March 05 2018, @04:22AM (4 children)

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 05 2018, @04:22AM (#647859)

    If you count "primitive communism" (and Marx did) then communism was how humans organized their societies for the vast majority of human existence--but not for the vast majority of human individuals who have ever existed. Hunter gatherer societies were classless, egalitarian, and had no concept of private property (remember that communists distinguish between private property and personal property). They worked for far more than a week.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 05 2018, @06:12AM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 05 2018, @06:12AM (#647874) Journal

      I count that as communist, but not as Marxist. The two are distinct in many ways, though it's possible that a Marxist society would be "primitive communist". That's not really the way to bet, though. My guess is that a Marxist society wouldn't even scale as well as did primitive communism of the religious variety.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 05 2018, @05:36PM (2 children)

      Did they now? And you would know this how exactly? It certainly wasn't true of the indians in North America. They took care of the tribe, yes, but they were most definitely hierarchical with the hierarchy being largely based on merit.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:11PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:11PM (#648179)

        It is sure amazing how you can blather on with stupid generalizations and ignore very simple facts, but you turn around and demand all sorts of proof for the tiniest of things.

        The parent is 100% correct, with tribe members sharing their bounty and rotating through roles. The only semi-common hierarchy was the chief and the medicine man/woman. These were simply specialized roles and often elected by village elders.

        As I've said many times, and what makes sense in your "retirement" days, go back to school you ignoramus! You can't trust your "self taught" approach as you will just select a bunch of garbage that leaves you worse off than before.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 06 2018, @04:57AM (2 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @04:57AM (#648366) Journal

    Marxism can't work because of human nature. If humans were angelic enough for Marxism to work, complete and utter laissez-faire capitalism would ALSO work. In fact, if humans were so angelic, ANY economic system would work.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @12:03PM (1 child)

      Well I'll be damned... That's a quality bit of rational thinking. Now if I can just get you to grok that capitalism is by nature voluntary while anything approaching Marxism (even a progressive tax plan) is based on being forced upon people under threat of violence, maybe we can get if not on the same page then at least in the same chapter.

      Now my ideals are "utter laissez-faire capitalism" but I'm also smart enough to recognize that this is not practical when human beings are involved. Much like government and the laws thereof though, I think we should move only as far from pure individual liberty in our economic system as absolutely necessary to account for the worst of the abuses.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:43PM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:43PM (#648672) Journal

        Admit it, you're the "violently-imposed monopoly" guy, aren't you? You said basically the same thing he says.

        Do you truly think capitalism is voluntary? Ask the slaves. Ask the Indians who were genocided. Ask all the people whose lives went to hell when their steel mill or mining town's central work source dried up. Your problem is a complete inability, or maybe unwillingness, to consider the externalities, knock-on effects, and emergent phenomema of your beliefs.

        Here's a hint for you: "work for slave wages or die" is not a free choice. That is coercion. Learn the fucking difference before you post again. "Free to suffer, wither, and die" is not a free choice.

        If I were to corner your wife in an alley at gunpoint and rape her with a strapon, on pain of death if she didn't cooperate, would anyone truly believe she had a "free choice" in the matter? Would anyone really say she consented to what I was doing to her? No. She was in fear for her life. Just because kicking the economic bottom out from under people doesn't kill them as immediately as shooting them doesn't mean it doesn't amount to the same thing.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...