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Comment by roarcher | Hacker News Reader

It's obviously true that nobody achieves things in a vacuum, since we all have some level of "privilege" given to us by our economic circumstances, the level of education available to us, our luckier heritable traits, etc. But for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it. The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this.

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The degree to which an individual is responsible for his own success, and the degree to which fortune enables it, is as old as time. In ancient Greek philosophy (and poetry), a person's life is divided into soul, body, and fortune: one exerts control over one's soul and body, but not over one's fortune, the sum total of things external to him, such as his family and friends and money. Virtues reside in the soul, and external blessings like wealth and the support of others outside the body, and the ancient Greeks were clear in this distinction, of which both halves are necessary but insufficient to achieve great benefits for one's people. Hence the idea that happiness is the exercise of vital powers along lines of virtue within a life affording them scope: the "lines of virtue" are internal elements of character, but "a life affording them scope" is the external support necessary. A virtuous hermit living in poverty alone on an island and a ruinously depraved criminal in the midst of civilization, the one virtuous but lacking fortune and the other fortunate but lacking virtue, are equally ill-suited to achieving great benefits for mankind.

Owing your success to the group does not imply that the success itself is a guarantee. Just that without the group, the odds are many many times worse.

I would argue that the degree to which you owe something credit for your success is the degree to which it guarantees that success. If my society/group/family guarantees my success, no matter my actions, I owe it everything. If it makes no difference at all, I owe it nothing.

If it merely improves my odds, then I owe it something, but there must have been at least one other factor at play, and that factor is also owed credit. I presume you would call that factor something like "luck". No doubt that that plays a role, but credit for luck belongs neither to the society nor the individual. All that is left, then, is individual choice, and so the rest of the credit belongs to the individual.

Assuming free will actually exists, and that everything is not actually just cause and effect back to the big bang.

For the purposes of this thread we are obviously assuming free will exists. If it doesn't then achievements have no meaning and credit belongs to no one, making the whole conversation moot.

I have seen quite a few Americans saying "nobody ever gave me anything" while they were literally from upper class and their parents/families gave them a lot. And actually most people who are born rich stay rich. Some do squander it, but it takes a lot more effort to squander stuff for them then for someone who starts poor.

The "failing upwards" is an actual thing and who is around you massively influences whether you are failing upwards or downwards.

I only argued that legitimate cases of individual achievement exist. The fact that trust fund babies also exist does not contradict that.

If you were to truly do a science of people would you not take into account all of the circumstances that person was in, in order to understand them?

You say: "One achieved it, but the other person in similar circumstances didn't achieve it"

Well how do their circumstances differ? Don't you think it's important how they differ? Actually, couldn't how they differ be the key?

Why, then, do you draw the line at an incomplete analysis? Maybe because it is convenient? Maybe because we'd rather not destroy our illusions of ourselves? Maybe its convenient not to understand others?

What is real in regards to ones self and others? There shouldn't be a loss of pride with understanding.

What level of analysis would you consider "complete"? Certainly if we accounted for every neuron in their brain we could reduce their achievements to whatever configuration of gray matter produced the thoughts and actions that led to their success, and whatever external events produced that configuration. But then we would be at a level of analysis that regards us all as automatons, where nobody, including the group, is accountable for anything at all. This may or may not be technically correct, but I would argue that it is not useful. The question of who gets "credit" for an achievement would be entirely moot, as would the achievement itself and everything else any human has ever done.

I would think the correct level of analysis for this conversation is the lowest one that still allows people to be accountable for their own actions. Lower than that, and the central question of this thread is irrelevant.

> could reduce their achievements to whatever configuration of gray matter

Even if we could do that it would not "reduce" any personal value. I think these are biases you may have. Accountability can be defined, even in that total view.

And right now, even in the incomplete view that we have, it is defined socially and politically. And that's what my real take is:

That the ideas that most people have of self, person-hood, achievement, merit and value, are political ideas.They are not necessarily true/accurate ideas. They serve a political purpose.

> What level of analysis would you consider "complete"?

We can go further than what we have now. In fact I think we MUST go further in order to make the world a better place.

Our current analysis is really just a cheap political tool that serves to preserve a sort of caste-system, most employed for classism and racism. That vague notion that "some people are just different" is the base for many political violations.

If anything the ideal, final form of what I am saying is this: Real Incorruptible Democracy.

So we don't need a scientific model describing of a persons thoughts in real, chemical, atomic detail, we need a world that can take peoples individual circumstance into real political consideration and action.

This could be what a real science of people is.

> They serve a political purpose.

Indeed.

> That vague notion that "some people are just different" is the base for many political violations.

As is the idea that everyone is an interchangeable unit of labor, all producing the same outputs if only they were given the same inputs.

> If anything the ideal, final form of what I am saying is this: Real Incorruptible Democracy.

I don't know what you mean by this, but I am highly skeptical of anything that claims a title like "incorruptible". Such things are usually the exact opposite, sort of like countries with "Democratic Republic" in their name or ships billed as "unsinkable".

> As is the idea that everyone is an interchangeable unit of labor, all producing the same outputs if only they were given the same inputs.

Agreed. That's why I don't believe in that. And actually that's kind of what I'm criticizing: the fake science used to judge peoples behavior.

But I do know we're way WAY more similar than our cultures would have us believe.

> I don't know what you mean by this, but I am highly skeptical of anything that claims a title like "incorruptible". Such things are usually the exact opposite, sort of like countries with "Democratic Republic" in their name or ships billed as "unsinkable".

I'm saying we can devise a political system that is incorruptible. Just like we generate mathematical proofs that underpin technologies which handle our worlds economy. But the creation of an incorruptible democracy can ONLY be done by the people who benefit from it. As in, the rich would never help us do it, only the poor. In fact, the rich would probably view us as enemies if we seriously tried.

> I'm saying we can devise a political system that is incorruptible.

Please show your work. All human history says this can't be done.

Could cryptographic voting/blockchain, which is already a reality, be a part of this new system?

I believe it will, or something similar at least.

But I am a programmer, not a cryptographer. I'm not THE guy. I'm just some random bloke trying to think about something other than making money.

if this is a possibility then we as a people should start taking it seriously. Get open source standards, software and hardware (open chips) and put it to practice.

Though I'm sure the rich would hate this. So would anyone else who has a lot to gain from controlling public offices.

A big hurdle to proper analysis is that people are unreliable narrators.

Let's take a person who made it rich betting big on bitcoin early on. Were they a savvy investor who made their own fortune, did they merely think it sounded cool and thought why not while bitcoin prices were so low that snatching them up was super cheap, did they rely on a tip or tips from friends/family, or was it some other reason?

If you come back and ask them years later after they've become worth 10^7 or better, how likely is the person who merely got lucky to admit it was dumb luck in an environment that lionizes the wealthy as self-made superhumans?

I agree, but many will say that the ones who didn't squander it were simply lucky.

Disputing the notion of "self-made" is generally an attempt to deliberately misunderstand the point in order to derail the discussion, thus making discourse impossible.

No one who uses the term "self-made" literally believes that Howard Schultz never hired any employees at Starbucks, they mean to say that for someone who was born in the projects, he did very well for himself. Pointing out he hired employees adds no value to the discussion, so it's not why people point it out.

> for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it.

Indeed.

> The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this.

This doesn't follow. Can you elaborate?

By "owe" I mean that the credit for their success belongs to the group and not the individual, because the individual was merely a product of good circumstances provided by the group. I believe this is the sentiment intended by the "no such thing as a self made man" crowd--no individual is special, and anyone else would achieve similar things under similar circumstances. This ignores the fact that many others DO enjoy similar circumstances but achieve nothing.

Owing your success to something is not the same as saying that having the something guarantees success. I owe my love of Korean food to my time spent living in South Korea; others may live there and come away hating it.

I see - some attribute of themselves has set them apart from the ones who had similar circumstances but squandered the opportunity. I guess it depends on how fine you track those circumstances. Did they all have that super-supportive friend named Trey that always knew then correct supportive thing to say? Personally, I can point to many times in my life where a teacher, grandparent, pastor made overt attempts to derail me. Maybe I wasn't completely derailed, but it slowed my progress and may have taken me along a less successful track for awhile. Looking back, I'm surprised I've done what I have. But I do wonder what kind of success I might have had if those naysayers had actually provided support.

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