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Comment by Konohamaru | Hacker News Reader

That 10% that comes from grit matters more than the 90% that comes from intelligence, because it's the only aspect that reflects the sovereignty one has over oneself and the ability to define oneself in spite of physical reality (supernatural). The 90% is just an inheritance.

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Matters more to whom? I'll take your inheritance if you are offering.

Why would you choose what's natural (inheritance, physical development, parent's DNA) over what's supernatural (your willpower)?

I get what you are saying philosophically, but I don't think it holds up in reality. I'll take good healthy genes over whatever life lesson you are offering.

It only matters if your happiness is in this-life-only. If you don't then it's just another part of staying in a bad inn.

You seem to have a clear view of what will make you happy, and I genuinely commend you for that. My initial question was "To Whom (does it matter)?" and you seem to have answered it with "To me and my beliefs about who I am". Fair enough.

But I wonder, - Do you want a brilliantly gifted surgeon or one who gets by on grit to operate on your loved one? - Do you want to listen to the effortless musician who seems to have some gift from god, or one that practices 6 hours a day even though they know they kinda suck?

Kind of a theoretical question since you cannot observe grit. Only the surgeon can know if he has grit based on his own self-reflection.

> or one that practices 6 hours a day even though they know they kinda suck?

Again, we know that practice does not make perfect, but rather perfect practice makes perfect. Just because he practiced for six hours a day doesn't mean he practiced well.

this is all rhetorical, especially when you brought in the afterlife.

grit == effort, not results, and not even effective effort, since that would take an inheritance to understand what is and what isn't effective. you dodged the question

Reframe it! Instead of thinking results matter, reframe your life as the following:

1. Pretend that only effort exists

2. Assume beforehand that all your results are equal to <insert first-rate role model>'s results in <insert your desired field>

3. Only exit this make-believe world by looking at your actual results in order to measure the quality of your effort

Any evidence that grit isn’t also a heritable trait?

The above argument doesn't hold if free will doesn't exist. But then I couldn't choose to believe that I have free will if free will doesn't exist, so why bother arguing?

Even assuming free-will exists, the argument assumes that "grit" is less heritable than "intelligence," which is a claim that needs to be substantiated.

Then replace grit with desire, or desire with faith in oneself, or faith in oneself with determination to live and die doing what I value, etc....

Again, is there evidence that any of those is less heritable than intelligence? Replacing the words with synonyms doesn't change the fundamentals of the claim.

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