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Comment by Husafan | Hacker News Reader

Also, some people work harder than others.

News at eleven, "Horatio Alger myth continues to appeal to fairness bias", "Middle class continue to toil under the mindset that they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires".

Raw numbers collected over decades of research disprove this handily. While working hard is a factor, there are other phenomena which will just as easily impair upwards social mobility. There's a reason they call it "poverty trap"

For an introduction, take a gander at Gladwell's books.

Malcom "igon value" Gladwell is probably not the person one wants to cite on an empirical or technical matter.

http://monkeysuncle.stanford.edu/?p=541

  Pinker’s term: “The Igon Value Problem” is a clever play 
  on the Eigenvalue Problem in mathematics.  You see, 
  Gladwell apparently quotes someone referring to an “igon 
  value.” This is clearly a concept he never dealt with 
  himself even though it is a ubiquitous tool in the 
  statistics and decision science about which Gladwell is 
  frequently so critical.  According to Pinker, the Igon 
  Value Problem occurs “when a writer’s education on a 
  topic consists in interviewing an expert,” leading him or 
  her to offering “generalizations that are banal, obtuse 
  or flat wrong.”  In other words, the Igon Value Problem 
  is one of dilettantism.

As for the Horatio Alger "myth", the modern incarnation is the internet startup. Look at YC. There is just no dispute that smart people working hard can put a few million in the bank after several years of all out toil in the Valley.

>There is just no dispute that smart people working hard can put a few million in the bank after several years of all out toil in the Valley.

This statement is either utterly nonsensical and backed up by nothing or it's circular in nature (i.e. "How do you know they're hard working and smart? Because they put a few million in the bank", "Why were they able to put a few million in the bank? Because they're hard working and smart").

Not that I'm a fan of Gladwell in any respect, but his gaffe shows that he never took linear algebra, which is true of almost everybody who didn't go into hard science or engineering.

"in the valley" suggests that geography matters as much as the smarts and the hard work. What other assumptions have you missed?

He's ridiculing the people who holds the blind belief in the valley startup as a sure way to wealth, not promoting it.

I am well aware of his flaws. I actually placed a higher weight on the accessibility of Gladwell's work. He might not be an economist/sociologist who studied the problem, but the fact that he is able to introduce difficult concepts to a larger audience with his writing is a plus to him and not a minus.

Are you actually under the ridiculously naive impression that hard work = success? I thought that had been satisfactorily disproven years ago.

That's a pretty strong statement without any proof to back it up. What is this satisfactory proof that this "has been disproved years ago"?

For instance, academic success is about 60% socio-economical background, 15% professors, which lets only 25% to individual variation. Similar data can be found in many domains, like the importance of geography on a country economic success, etc.

--wazoox, 2011. I guess these are more 'facts' out of the sky.

No, I didn't drop a link farm because I figured most people would already knew this. I mean, it doesn't even pass the common sense test: if hard work = success why aren't most, say, Mexican immigrants loaded?

I suppose it depends on what you mean by success. But by the most common definitions (e.g. being rich) hard work isn't the main factor or even required at all (e.g. inherit millions from your parents requires how much effort? Basically not dying).

I watched my dad hold down two jobs and come home and work into the night providing his family with the things we needed. The first career job I had made more than he's ever made in his life and that job was mostly standing around.

Sadly, how we really wish things were has nothing to do with how they actually are.

Thinking smart is a part of working hard. When we say work, we mean something that provides value, not something that requires a lot of physical effort.

I can "work" very hard pushing stones uphill like Sisyphus, and I probably won't get rich as a result.

A major reason why inequality exists is because the work ethic required for long-term thinking and planning is a model of behavior which children acquire from their parents through learning, observation, and imitation. Children from families where parents do not consider long-term goals worthy of pursuit are hugely disadvantaged.

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