Want to Be Rich? It’s About Being Rude to People | Hacker News Reader

Want to Be Rich? It’s About Being Rude to People

bloomberg.com

13 pointsttol14 comments

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I'm disheartened by people's inability to immediately spot such academic fluff. steps to academic success (apparently):

choose two behaviors/phenomena

collate the data and look for correlations

write a paper that implies possible causation

profit

it works best if one or both of the things you choose are already controversial (see Freakonomics: Abortion and the Crime Rate?! ZOMG!)

Correlation ≠ Causality

Here's a thought: perhaps they're all rude because they're rich college students, which usually implies that they grew up in a wealthy family and certainly didn't become wealthy on their own. The researchers should have studied their parents.

This article should be titled: "Want to come from a wealthy family? It's about being rude to people."

Which obviously makes no sense, but then, neither does the article.

The article says how to be rich, not to get rich.

Experiment with trust fund babies for the former, entrepreneurs for the latter.

Why are people attacking the logic of a clear satire?

Your comment made me give this a second look. If its meant to be satirical (which it very well may be) then its really horribly done.

"As your bank or hedge fund slides toward insolvency, just carry on barking at your secretary, snubbing waitresses, and blanking old friends who nod at you in the elevator. Everyone will assume you are still loaded -- and will hold off pulling the plug on you for a few more days at least."

I was starting to critically pull apart the article too, but when I read the quoted paragraph I started to laugh and realised my leg was being pulled.

Wow, what a gross generalization and over-simplification of human behavior.

I doubt Warren Buffet has gone on many diatribes in his life.

Even if that study implied causation it would be the other way around- the students are rude because they are rich, they are not rich because they are rude. C'mon...borderline link bait.

The researchers could have saved a lot of trouble by just reading John Cheever stories.

Just because a study of college students showed that the wealthier ones were a bit more "stand-offish" does not mean that the way their parents generated wealth in the first place was by being rude. Yes, it makes sense if one has wealth one is going to be naturally protective of it, which can translate into being rude occasionally I suppose. But to generate wealth in the first place, I really think being rude would be counter-productive. So I would say: charm you way to the top, then, once there, if you want to be a drama queen that is your prerogative!

You're all a bunch of jerks.

Now where's my money?

Here you go! --> $$$$

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