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Comment by powerapple | Hacker News Reader

if a person wanted to accumulate wealth/knowledge and did it, he/she is smart. if a person wanted to accumulate wealth/knowledge and failed to so do, he/she is stupid.

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Wow, this is just... wow this is wrong. This person is either a troll or their understanding of the world is so simplistic as to render any attempt to correct their misunderstanding pointless. After all, they've already figured everything out, everything is simple, black and white, what would they have to learn from you? One imagines that they are a decade or more away in life experience to even being in a place where they could see that their simple test here does not match reality and only then would they be ready to hear why that is.

That's a stupid definition, and it's wrong.

Let's say I want to accumulate wealth, and I play the lottery and win, then, by your definition, I'm smart.

I believe, if you think you can win lottery and did it, you are smarter than average. Why not? Anyway, we are talking about a small percentage of people. I am used to generalization, couldn't help it :) Maybe I should not.

No, if you believe that winning the lottery is a good way to become rich, you're an idiot. If you actually do win, you're a lucky, rich idiot.

I'm not against playing the lottery, but it's objectively proven that it's not a good way to become rich, and a persons smartness has no bearing over whether they actually do win (maybe a negative one, smarter people will gamble less).

Trying and failing doesn't make you stupid.

Trying and failing indeed doesn’t make you stupid but in many circumstances, e.g. being poor, makes you stop trying or the feeling of inferiority seeps in. Also the people around you set a background that make it even harder to escape from.

if you keep trying and keep failing, and you do not adapt in the process, it does not make you smart. By failing, we learn and adapt. In theory it would make the next move wiser than previous moves.

I agree calling it stupid may not be accurate.

It does in a lot of courts of public opinion, unfortunately.

This assumes equality of opportunity.

This seems like a variant of the "just world hypothesis".

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