On Charlie Munger (2019)
jasonzweig.com
jasonzweig.com
"The Psychology of Human Misjudgment" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7sLrON7QY
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/29/business/ucsb-munger-hall...
I guess it's because the brain is used so intensely it's the last thing to fall.
For people not yet in their 20’s it must seem like ancient history (like the Vietnam war was for me despite happening not that long before I was born).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger
President Carter turns 99 too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter
At some point over the next 50 years, science gets a few wins and a lot more people will reach 100.
Antibiotics only started appearing in the 1940s, for example.
Jimmy Carter survived cancer in his 90’s. That likely would not have happened a few decades ago.
That being said, the first people who are going to live to 150 (most of that in good health) are likely already among us.
Would you share some credible sources ( books, links ) that explain the new discoveries in slowing down human aging?
https://books.google.com/books/about/Lifespan.html?id=0fEbwQ...
The book itself is somewhat pop-sci’ish, and there is something to be said about Sinclair himself being somewhat sensationalistic. However, pretty much all concrete statements are backed with footnotes to actual research papers if you’re willing to dig deeper.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/...
And if life expectancy for a few elites is increasing, that means it's decreasing even more for the rest of us, given the trends.
This is still only about 1/3 of the US population. If we’re generous to the OP’s point, it still supports it (granted the tone of “a few elites” may be read differently)
Covid and drug ODs really isn't a life expectancy issue
For instance, you might find that in 1980 the median life expectancy at 65 was 25 years, and today that number might be higher. You'd still be getting a lot of lifestyle disease deaths though. Obesity and diabetes really grew after 1980.
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
It might be even better to look at median life expectancy at 70 or 75, if your idea is to gauge whether modern medicine is keeping people alive longer. Start with the group of people that at least made it that far. 70 or 75 is still probably too early for "died of old age" to happen, and those people are past most of the "died of something else" deaths.
I don't see how that follows, please, show your work.
(Still gotta show your work tho)
Mr Munger making it to a ripe old age and being a wealthy man to boot could literally be shaving years off your life expectancy. But I sense that if you write out all your thinking, step by step, you might find a flaw in that line of reasoning. Even though it is.. simple mathematics. ;)
Having large families, lots of friends, and a sunny disposition (as opposed to being an edgy communist for example), minorly but measurably increases your life expectancy.
Social isolation and loneliness amongst the elderly are widely known to lead to adverse health outcomes and shorter life expectancies.
https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older...
Cancers and terminal illnesses of all sorts eventually come for everybody, luck of the draw. But in so far as you can control anything being less stressed and having more friends correlates very well to living a tad longer.
You are most welcome to compare life expectancy stats between communist countries and none communist countries and make your own conclusions about life of course ;)
Don't see what all the halabaloo is about.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2020-2021/LExpMort.pdf
[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?location...
What was steady before 2014 is the INCREASE in life expectancy every year. The first derivative was steady. Now the first derivative has been negative and expectancy is only STEADY if you squint your eyes to lower the resolution of the data to 0.5 instead of 0.1
This is a clearer chart with delta measurements
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life...
You can see the decline phase in red in the lower split. It's a marked shift from the continuous green line. To see it more clearly set the end date to 2018. You can clearly see from your own data that life expectancy peaked in the United States in 2014 and hasn't recovered yet. If the previous green trend had continued we would be at a life expectancy of 80.0 - not still short if the 2014 peak.
The purpose of the example of Cuba is CONTRAST. How a lower income country with a higher baseline life expectancy continues to have a green trend i.e. life expectancy at year n+1 is more than year n - ALWAYS.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CUB/cuba/life-expectan...
It has not been "steady". It has reversed trends from a consistent increase in expectancy - green trend - every year since records have been kept. All changes in life expectancy are in the decimal range. Disguising the decline by specifying a range doesn't help.
The decade of the 2010s has a linear regression slope of -.008 years / year, well within the measurement error. I stand by my use of "steady" to describe that.
Life expectancy increased every year in the united States peaking in 2014, when it reversed trends.
We still haven't recovered to 2014 levels 8 years later. The data you shared validates my original comment which states that life expectancy was DECREASING before covid19.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/life-expectancy-is-declini...
The rules don't apply to the wealthy. It's their world, you're just living in it.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger#Early_life_and_...
In most states, to pass the bar, you only need a Juris Doctor which is usually received upon graduating from law school. In some states you don't even need this, and in some others you can skip law school entirely by studying under a judge or practicing attorney[1].
Law, especially in the US, is much more like a trade that accidentally ended up being taught by the universities, instead of a trade school separate from academia. Very similar to medicine in that regard, where again, there is no need for an undergraduate degree to practice medicine.
---
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admission_to_the_bar_in_the_Un...
In summary, the argument is to point out the difference between personal effort/discipline/work ethic/character (and everything that’s commonly named as the “reason” of success) and the huge impact of external conditions that are completely outside the realm of influence of the individual in question, such as their parent’s wealth and influence, physical build, natural attractiveness, health, location of birth, etc.
It is very, VERY common that people uphold and believe in the (comforting) myth that mostly oneself is responsible for success and that said external factors are basically negligible. The “self-made” person… You could even throw them on Mars and they’ll somehow become billionaires and own mansions!
There is not much to add, except that such thinking appears outdated (previous economic booms allowed for a bit more control of one’s fate), ignorant, and self-congratulatory - a delusion of a successful person who is neither aware nor grateful for the external circumstances that allowed them to get where they are.
FWIW I like Charlie Munger, a down-to-earth thinker who doesn’t shy away from talking about inconvenient truths. Chances are he would even agree with the above.
Book recommendation: “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell.
OP apparently isn’t talking about the subject’s brilliance or so. I think the OP is talking specifically about the rule bending for the rich.
> … his family connections certainly helped, but …
Put few people with similar background — except the socioeconomic part of their backgrounds in the same situation and see whether they would have made it.
I doubt it. So, I’d say you can omit the “but”.
FYI, you have it backwards. The parent said Munger was deserving.
> I doubt it.
Exceptionally bright people exist. Had Munger not gone to HLS immediately or at all, I wouldn't bet against him doing exceptionally well (still top 1% of 1% of business outcomes).
Nobody would accuse Ivy League schools of being bastions of fairness. We all know nepotism & pay-for-play is a core part of their business model.
But I'm not sure you could get away with that today. You'd have to make a sizable 'donation' instead.
Ivy League schools survived for 300 years before a couple decades of the general public thinking that they need Ivy League, due to the corporate sector’s inability to screen a larger working population
Ivy League schools will survive this meme too. Academia as a whole has never adjusted to the underclass’ need to learn for the purpose of making money, they teach irrelevant theory for the sole pursuit of knowledge to this very day
They are for the wealthy to connect with each other and build rapport with each other
The rest of us are just … around
As long as an applicant meets the minimum/lower-end standards for admissions, Ivy League professors in grad schools (law, mba, and PhD-track… not sure about medicine)can and do make by-name requests for admissions that are best not ignored.
By that logic SBF should be chilling still in the Bahamas , having paid off the authorities
Munger at least has proved himself many times and has the history to show it.
Poor comparison.
To paraphrase Chris Rock, SBF was rich, but Charlie Munger is wealthy.
Alameda was over 50% of the trades and often the counterparty of the others.
It is a scam in the end, FTX will die without Alameda.
Someone else said the problem was that SBF stole from his customers. And while it’s true that this is often sufficient to bring you down, it’s often only when you steal from the powerful that the wheels of justice turn so swiftly. He’s being made an example.
SBF stole nothing meaningful from anyone powerful.
Who is “them”? There is no serious power embarrassed by FTX. The seriously powerful never got close enough to be tarnished.
Powerful people are acting quickly to publicly distance themselves from him.
The point being they’re making and keeping that distance. This conspiracy theory, that SBF is facing consequences only because he sort of maybe embarrassed Ricchetti, has no legs to stand on.
> only when you steal from the powerful that the wheels of justice turn so swiftly
Not:
> only when you steal from the powerful that the wheels of justice turn [at all]
And certainly not:
> SBF is facing consequences only because ...
To the degree powerful people were embarrassed by him, it was in the Bahamas. Not here. Not at all.
And that (even if only because of the negative coverage) powerful people are taking steps (like returning millions of dollars) to distance themselves from him.
And finally that, whether it's the motive or not, swift prosecution is an effective way for officials to distance themselves.
The rest is speculation, but not crazy.
He did ok.
https://inshorts.com/m/en/amp_news/warren-buffett-was-reject...
Elite schools feeding the powerful and elite companies / institutions with good ol' boys has always been quite symbiotic.
It’s an easier life for sure, but less stressful? Really?
If you or I mess up at our job the worst thing that happens is we have to look for another job. If someone like him messes up bad enough it’s jail terms and death threats. Obviously that’s less threatening when you’re already pushing 100 and we’ll into what most of us would call bonus years but I’m sure he was aware of the cost of screwing up during his younger years too.
That's not to say other billionaires aren't under constant stress, but they don't seem to be personally.
I’d say your average middle class job is way less stressful.
Hell, I sometime yearn for the days of my blue collar jobs where when the clock hit 5pm the work was someone else’s problem.
And prevention is surely more influential on life expectancy: exercise, food, and environment help a lot and are available to most people with median income.
Charlie clearly had some stressors at 31: “divorced, broke, and burying his 9 year old son”.
It's possible for someone to have a million times the wealth as somebody else but wealth buys you a factor of two in lifespan at best.
> but wealth buys you a factor of two in lifespan at best.
We tend to refer indirectly to average lifespan, without context, which is strongly influenced by baby deaths (also childhood and teenage deaths). In another comment about elites: “Life expectancy for rich people is up”. That statement strikes me as being meaningless without further details (especially given the context that the USA is rich yet lifespans are going down!). What is an elite baby? It turns out approximately all of us are terrible at maths, probability, and clarity of communication.