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How much is a child's future success determined by innate intelligence? Economist James Heckman says it's not what people think. He likes to ask educated non-scientists -- especially politicians and policy makers -- how much of the difference between people's incomes can be tied to IQ. Most guess around 25 percent, even 50 percent, he says. But the data suggest a much smaller influence: about 1 or 2 percent.
So if IQ is only a minor factor in success, what is it that separates the low earners from the high ones? Or, as the saying goes: If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?
Science doesn't have a definitive answer, although luck certainly plays a role. But another key factor is personality, according to a paper Heckman co-authored in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month. He found financial success was correlated with conscientiousness, a personality trait marked by diligence, perseverance and self-discipline.
Why aren't you rich? You obviously slept with the wrong people!
(Score: 4, Funny) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:40PM
Then why aren't you pedantically correcting others on a nearly-unpopulated web forum to avoid your important IT/development work?
(Score: 3, Funny) by butthurt on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:50PM
No! Populated, or unpopulated. There is no nearly unpopulated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:07PM
Try or try not. There is no try nearly.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:15PM
try catch finally
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:27PM
There is no finally. There is only the ~Destructor. Choose and perish!
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:58PM
Government took my free()dom away with a data retention policy. All my private data is heaped up somewhere.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:51PM
When I realized I was helping dumb people profit, I quit and I am much happier now.
I am also richer, because my confidence was much improved when I realized that dumb people can lead when anybody follows. I chose not to follow.
I found a new job where there are less dumb people, and far less in charge. Laying awake at night wishing I wasn't enriching willfully ignorant people... I never felt better after I quit.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday December 29 2016, @10:36PM
You may be smart, but you appear to be uneducated. Not "less", the proper word is fewer.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:54PM
That assumes that you are overcorrecting people. Even if you don't correct people on any sort of regular basis people get jealous and like to backstab.
Also, the whole idea assumes that we're living in some sort of meritocracy, we're not. You get much further in life by being a dumbass that knows the right people than being the smart guy whose existence threatens the egos of the people handing out the promotions.
Also, being intelligent doesn't necessarily lend itself to financial success. The things that people get paid the most for are often times things that don't require a whole lot of intelligence and are likely to get boring before too long.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29 2016, @02:20AM
Is that smart people are inherently greedy.
Most are not and even the people who are both successful and intelligent but not greedy, tend to live a modest life while putting the majority of their excess financial earnings either back to their employees, back to the community, or back into their current company, or future companies they want (and expect) to see prosper.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday December 29 2016, @03:26AM
Yes, this. How did the rich get there? Some were lucky, born into wealth. Some worked hard and saved. And some did it by cheating others. Trump was lucky, and he cheated. He ended up rich in spite of his mistakes. George W. Bush is much the same, rich thanks to daddy and in spite of his epic screw ups. Interestingly, I heard Trump would be far richer if he'd simply invested his money in an index fund and done absolutely nothing, instead of going bankrupt, stiffing his creditors, and cheating workers of their pay, rinse, repeat.
What's so smart about obscene wealth? It's pretty conspicuous to be going about in a high end sports or luxury car, wearing extremely expensive clothes, owning a mansion, and so forth. Yeah, a lot of people love flashing wealth, think it's so impressive to be throwing around $100 bills like toilet paper, getting in everyone's face about it. To me, that just makes you a big target for every envious, hurting person out there. All the worse if you're a scoundrel and deserve some misfortune.
Smart is living comfortably and quietly, not flashy. Humility and honesty are smart. Earn enough for your needs, and a bit more for fun, and be content with that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29 2016, @04:11AM
Interestingly, I heard Trump would be far richer if he'd simply invested his money in an index fund and done absolutely nothing
No, you didn't. You read an article, or read about an article that naively calculated that if Trump had taken his 200 million dollar inheritance when he first started (Trump claims he did not receive this until the 90's and started with a 1 million dollar loan) and invested the entire amount in said funds until now, he would come out slightly ahead of his current wealth, completely discounting a lifetime of extreme luxury.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 29 2016, @11:25AM
Ye gads, man, how did you get through that rant without saying proletariat even once?
Me, I'm not rich because it's never been one of my goals to be so. Not for any misguided socialist principle but because it would take a hell of a lot of hard work to become so and I'm extremely lazy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday December 29 2016, @03:54PM
Except that the rich don't work that much harder than everybody else. It's more or less the magic of compounding interest combined with economic policies that encourage wealth to concentrate with those that already have it.
With the gap being what it is, how precisely do you explain the fact that the richest people in a company are making hundreds of times more than the people at the bottom who are actually generating the wealth? Surely, they don't do hundreds of times as much work or are hundreds of times more productive. That belief is based upon ignorance and it's what's holding the country back more than anything else.
You can't get ahead in the US unless you have enough money to invest in stocks. And thanks to the rampant corruption and incompetence on Wall Street, most investments are horribly risky or are so expensive that you can't afford to get ahead like that either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29 2016, @04:44PM
> Except that the rich don't work that much harder than everybody else
says someone who knows absolutley no rich people.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday December 30 2016, @06:14AM
Says somebody who knows no poor people. The poor work a lot harder than you think.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 30 2016, @01:40PM
I've been from dirt poor to upper middle class and had opportunities to be rich over the years. You know not what you speak of. Being poor is far, far easier. You can tell by how many people do it successfully. I mean, seriously, if being rich were easy, everyone would be doing it. Shit, even the stress difference between working at a convenience store vs in a skilled trade is significant; going white-collar or business owner is orders of magnitude worse.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday December 30 2016, @05:05PM
Everybody isn't rich, because luck happens. Being poor is definitely not easy and if you're claiming it is, then you're full of shit and never were poor.
I've known plenty of people who were actually poor as in working multiple jobs in order to just cover the basic necessities or food and shelter. There's absolutely no way on earth that somebody pulling in hundreds of thousands a year is working hundreds of times harder than actual poor people. There just isn't the time in the day to allow it to happen.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 31 2016, @11:53AM
Luck has almost nothing to do with wealth, lotto winners aside. If I gave you a whopping pile of money, you would be no better off in 20-30 years because you fundamentally do not understand how to acquire wealth beyond your current means. Those working multiple jobs just to make ends meet are even more egregiously ignorant. This, not Shakespeare, calculus, chemistry, or history, is what needs to be taught in public highschools. It should in fact be taught in middle schools so that they can take a vo-tech class or two in highschool and get a leg up on having a marketable skill.
Put simply, we are currently flooded with unskilled labor far beyond demand. This makes unskilled labor all but worthless. Unless you want to be dirt poor, don't be unskilled labor. Make yourself valuable to someone or quit bitching.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday December 29 2016, @05:38AM
The Philosopher Mencius [孟子] said:
19. The king said, 'I am stupid, and not able to advance to this. I wish you, my Master, to assist my intentions. Teach me clearly; although I am deficient in intelligence and vigour, I will essay and try to carry your instructions into effect.'
20. Mencius replied, 'They are only men of education, who, without a certain livelihood, are able to maintain a fixed heart. As to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed heart. And if they have not a fixed heart, there is nothing which they will not do, in the way of self-abandonment, of moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license. When they thus have been involved in crime, to follow them up and punish them;-- this is to entrap the people. How can such a thing as entrapping the people be done under the rule of a benevolent man?
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Thursday December 29 2016, @08:50AM
Ah, but in fact I am... wise guy ;)