If Everyone Else Is Such an Idiot, How Come You're Not Rich? (2011) | Hacker News Reader

If Everyone Else Is Such an Idiot, How Come You're Not Rich? (2011)

theatlantic.com

28 pointscaaqil44 comments

Because I personally don't think that being obscenely wealthy is worth it. From my perspective, almost all paths to wealth seem exploitative and unethical. Of course, I don't think this view is quite common so I expect people to disagree.

Its a reasonable stance, its also a common rationalization.

> its also a common rationalization

Abductive reasoning forms hypotheses, not conclusions.

I make no reasoning or conclusion. My comment consists of an opinion followed by a statement.

Then why have you written that. What's your point. You are expected to be substantive, which makes statements productive in the logical context.

I wrote it because I find it fun, which is an end to itself, and because its a reminder to beware our rationalizations, which is helpful. I reject the premise of those expectations, but I do note its both productive, and on topic for the link and the comment.

What exactly is being rationalized? I've had opportunities and I've chosen not to take them because I didn't think they were aligned with my moral structure.

Thinking that it is a rationalization is often times a rationalization by those who can't fathom turning down money.

Perhaps, in my experience reluctance to change, and laziness is more common than greed.

Greed comes from inability to change from the base instinct of hunt+gather,

laziness regularly precipitates being wealthy so one can stop hunting and gathering.

Rationalization means to make an excuse for something that is not rational. It is quite rational to choose not to pursue wealth above all other concerns.

Rationalization means to find a respectable explanation for some choice or behavior when acknowledging the true motivation would make you feel bad. Its irrelevant if the choice turns out better or not.

The problem is that by finding an alternative explanation which is more in line with who they want to be, or what society finds acceptable, their ability to recognize what drives them, and predict their own behavior, becomes worse.

Same, I’ve passed up a handful of opportunities to become obscenely wealthy because they involved being a person I didn’t want to be. I’m content with simply having a comfortable amount of money, doing good work and doing as much good as I can.

This might come as a shock to a lot of people, but not everyone's goal in life is to be rich.

If you're so rich, why aren't you so smart?

Reductions in the "death tax"? (which the Dems could have rebranded as a "birth windfall tax")

I think "silver spoon" tax has a nice ring to it

But that term would trigger all the usual "But it's class warfare!" drivel.

I find it amusing how many comments here are some form of "I could be if I wanted to" with apparently nobody questioning how much of acquiring wealth is luck. Tells you a lot about HN's audience.

I find it sad how none of the comments reference the article and people are just using this thread as a random soabox.

Welcome to Hacker News.

Is there any way to quantify 'luck'? Your comment is also commonly posted but it isn't always 'luck' and without any way to determine how much luck is involved at an aggregate level, it seems meaningless to mention it.

Turn your argument around: without knowing the impact of luck there's no reason to assume it's determined by skill.

Fooled by Randomness is a decent treatment of this topic.

They've all come here to be around the luck.

Also no one is willing to admit that they might not be that smart. People here think because they’re an engineer they’re smarter than their peers; by my estimation, my smartest friend works less than 40 hrs a week selling mortgages, has never heard of leetcode, doesn’t have anything past a bachelors degree, and will make nearly a million dollars this year

All of the commentors here so far are just responding to the headline without reading the article.

The article is about Netflix and the general public's judgement of business decisions.

And that's why Billionaires are billionaires. they can see something that most people can't or won't do.

In the case of Netflix it's cash out the dvd business(raise prices) and jump head first into streaming.

I bet not 5% of business leaders would have the audacity to make that jump right after crushing blockbuster. It really is one of the great self-disruption business stories.

I think that's definitely possible but it was so obvious what was going on. The DVD distribution model they were running was also sort of baroque. My guess it it was a solution that presented itself pretty obviously.

Because those who hold money, power, and control, are not idiots when it comes to key resources under their control. It doesn't matter if you're smarter than a clerk, if a doctor or lawyer fall for a scam, or if an executive paid a small fortune for a trivial item.

well one aspect that is not really talked about is confidence, most wealth gained from people who can present their idea confidently, a lot of confidence comes from security. a lot of americans (my family for instance) we’re brought over on a boat with a promise of a better life if we worked for someone, my family was indentured servants who were scammed into working for free when they got here. a few of us died, many never recovered, my parents at a young age got into a terrible crash so i spent most of my childhood taking care of my father instead of the other way around. being raised in a small town that didn’t value university schooling i resulted to working in construction which ended up as damaging my arm and i ended up in serious depression, pain medicine was given to me and i ended up getting addicted because it was the only thing that made me feel normal after the accident. i started coding at a very young age but was diagnosed with add but was never treated so as time went on, it became more and more difficult for me to focus. later on i finally decided to go to school and the first year i was there i had to drop out because i got my gf pregnant. that forced me to go back to construction but ended up quitting after a bad breakup. so yeah we all aren’t starting out the same, some of us have a severe handicap that is hard to explain during interviews

“If everyone else is an idiot, how come you’re not tall?”

When someone else fails, it's due to them being an idiot. When I fail, it's obviously someone else's fault.

As long as my basic needs are met, I do not care about gaining excessive material possessions.

Smart people are less instinct driven. One doesn't need to stick to factory settings if one can configure to fit the state of affairs.

If Everyone Else Is Such an Idiot, How Come You're Not?

Workout.

Mostly because I’m an idiot too, and not equipped with the supreme self confidence or work ethic it takes for an idiot to get rich.

https://archive.is/uUVE7

Because capitalism gives mostly money to people who exploit the labour of others.

You'll never become rich by working hard or smart. It's only possible through inheritance or extracting value created by others through profit.

This is a trivially false generalization.

Nope.

So if you invent/perfect/practacalize the light-bulb you are rich because of exploitation?

>So if you invent/perfect/practacalize the light-bulb you are rich because of exploitation?

Great example. Inventing, perfecting and making the invention practical to use gives you exactly $0. So the brilliance and genius gives you nothing.

However, the inventor can become rich through patents if they are given a slice of the sales when it's produced and sold by other people. In that case, the inventor would be exploiting the profit and value created by other people. But this is extremely rare, as most inventors work for a wage (their employer owning all the inventions they make) or sell their patents to a bigger company early on, which then milks profits out of it.

Inventor of insulin purposely gave away their patent for free. But then the patent system was gamed by a capitalist and now insulin is super expensive in some countries and someone else than the inventor is getting rich off of it.

Capitalism doesn't care who invented what or who's brilliant or not. It only cares about ownership and accumulation of wealth through profits.

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