Wealth does not make you smarter
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I think, though, that people are missing the broader point of Scott Adams' piece: what is being said is being buried underneath how it was said. And yeah, it was pretty stupid of Tom Perkins to phrase things in a way that invites everyone to immediately focus on how he said things rather than on his actual point.
But I'm neither wealthy nor famous, and I'll come out and say this: I believe that the underlying emotional motives behind the protests in the San Francisco are the same underlying emotional motives behind the Holocaust. In both cases, you have people worried that their fundamental economic survival is threatened, unaware of why it's threatened or what to do about it, and looking for a scapegoat (techies in SF, Jews in the Holocaust) to blame for it. That does not mean that I believe there will be another Holocaust, or that the magnitude of these two is anywhere close to equivalent. But I do think it's worth focusing on the substance of people's concerns and addressing them before it becomes a situation where such concerns are warranted.
The reference point is wrong - I am more reminded of pro-life campaigns. A flyer made the rounds recently, identifying the residence of a Google employee and going on to describe how he had assisted the military. The implication is that this is a violent person, and violent acts against them are therefore justified. This resembles the info pro-lifers would publish about abortion doctors, implying the same - any actions taken to stop/hurt/kill this person are justified. I expect a George Tiller-like scenario to happen.
Making extreme comparisons exaggerates the seriousness of the issue. This is nothing compared to what people who do genuinely controversial work have to deal with all the time.
I quote:
Now I used the word because during the occupy of San Francisco by the Occupy Wall Street crowd, they broke the windows in the Wells Fargo Bank. They marched up through our automobile strip on Venice Avenue and broke all the windows in all the luxury car dealerships. And I saw that. I remembered that the police just stood by frozen. And I thought, well, this is how Kristallnacht began. So that word was in my mind, but I did – I don’t necessarily need to read from this letter, but if you’re interested I can."
Do people who are suffering and feel threatened, sometimes lash out at people who they see aren't suffering? Sure. Is building an entire editorial on this unremarkable observation a sign that your strengths lie more in spreadsheets than public discourse? Surely.
Because you are correct, because it is possible to reduce (most) conflicts down to that, it is therefore vital to realize that and come to gripes with that. We aren't going to go anywhere pleasant by ignoring the underlying issues (hatred fueled by economic disparity and jealousy) just because the scapegoats are softer targets who are more fun to pick on.
> "Tech workers [are] spending their energies figuring out how to put ordinary people out of work"
Neo-luddism. The solution is social reform, particularly focusing on reeducation and safety-nets for those who can no longer productively contribute, not smashing machines.
If you want to talk about a particular phenomenon, don't pick the most highly charged and divisive example you can think of that in a minor way embodies that phenomenon. Perkins didn't just say something potentially offensive. He buried his point in an analogy that is, for substantially the reasons 'michaelochurch points out in a sibling comment, both historically questionable and clumsy to work with. It's not wrong to use a controversial analogy, but if you're going to throw that hammer strike, it had better ring true and pure.
I am nevertheless concerned by what I perceive to be the idea that such examples are inherently wrong, not merely ineffective.
What. The. Fucking. Fuck. You could not be more offensively wrong on this one.
In both cases, you have people worried that their fundamental economic survival is threatened, unaware of why it's threatened or what to do about it, and looking for a scapegoat (techies in SF, Jews in the Holocaust) to blame for it.
No. What fueled the Holocaust was not economic anxiety. That probably drove the acceptance of political extremism in general. But behind the Holocaust was a belief that some races were immutably inferior and should be extinguished in the (abused) name of "eugenics".
Before Hitler, Germany wasn't any worse in terms of racism than other European societies. There were respected and prominent people in the U.S. and Great Britain with the same disgusting views. Still, you cannot seriously argue that what turned mid-century Germany into a mass murder machine was economic anxiety. It was racism.
"Techies" (I fucking hate that word) are not a race.
Take a "techie" out of the Valley and confiscate his Google Glass and he's just a computer programmer and no one has a problem with him. Move him to a city without a dysfunctional housing market (say, to Austin or Portland) and he's likely quite welcome. On the other hand, being ethnically Jewish is not something a person can change.
No one hates "the rich" as some immutable class. Aside from criminals (who are motivated by greed, not hatred) virtually no one targets anyone for violence because he is rich. What people are reacting to is behavior-- often, really shitty behavior that even most people in tech despise. Behavior, unlike bloodlines, can be changed.
"Techies" are being asked to stop being assholes. Jews in Nazi Germany, on the other hand, had armed men coming to kill them, and if they tried to escape or hide in attics, the people who assisted them were also killed.
No comparison.
For such smart people, some of the people on hacker news are just stupid. For the last time, the analogy doesn't work, it's inappropriate, and those who persist in this line of thinking really should have their heads examined.
I prefer the term that came back into vogue when the Tea Party started up: useful idiots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
Possibly. It depends how one got rich. Did they inherit wealth from previous generation ? They may or may not be "smart" by the book. But if you got rich on your own (think entrepreneur, gambler whatever), then I am sure there is some element of smartness involved but the important thing is to define smartness. For example, are you smart with money management? Boom, you could possibly get rich over time if you do it right. stuff like that.
Overall, I think that being smart is necessary but not a sufficient condition (hello logic class) to be rich on your own. What do you all think ?
I would expect that depends on what bar we set for "rich".
Is the bar: "1%"er billionaires? Then you are probably right.
Is the bar: "SF Tech workers"? Well newsflash, most google employees are not trust-fund babies.
Anyway, I am not the person that wants "rich" to be defined with such a low bar. Rather it is the SF protesters and their supporters who are setting that low bar. To them, the bog-standard tech worker is "rich", hence their objections.
Personally, I prefer a much higher bar for rich. The "1%er billionaire" is closer to my preferred definition.
that kind of money is either inherited or made by founding companies. only one of those involves smartness, and i'm pretty sure that's the kind of rich he means.
Of course a lot more of them lose.
Yes, people who have different beliefs than you are stupid and/or have been tricked. It's not possible they genuinely have reasons for their beliefs.
There are any number of cases where this is obviously not true.
The fact is that many poor Americans seem to oppose the implementation of some government policies designed to help them as poor people. This is a very frustrating phenomenon from a liberal perspective.
To add to this, I've been in the UK for 6 years now and have had some dealings with the upper middle classes - not quite rich, but the 'aspirational' rich whose focus is on maintaining their status and ever climbing upwards. This sort of thing goes on in America, sure, but ... I guess I'd say most of the UK is 'working class', which corresponds to 'middle class' or lower in American terms - but the strivers whom Thatcher idolized / glorified tend to be very nasty people, be they Labour or Tory. Rich people who know their place, who know that their wealth is nothing but effectively a roll of the dice and who are able to understand ... "humanity" and whose values are not predicated upon their status, and exploitation of everything they can exploit, but on an understanding of humanity at large, -- I can deal with such people, I respect them (if they respect me).
It is the sociopathic types, whom Thatcher and Bliar (misspelling deliberate) are a prime example, who are the problem. Perkins sounds like such a person - unable to empathize with the Other and willing to see their point of view. I can empathize with the rich, both the decent ones and the assholes, and I condemn the assholes, not because they are rich, but because of their actions and their values that are the cause of their actions.
Tax more the richest to be able to tax less the poorest so that overall the poorest are more happy ?
(Well, that's as close as I can get to that particular riff. It's hard to spell a riff. Especially one that sounds like a cash register.)
Not just giving you the freedom to be isolated; it pretty much forces it. You almost cannot live among the middle class if you're rich. Imagine living in some middle-class area then suddenly you win the lotto; 674 Million dollars.
It would take the strongest of will-powers to stay where you are and not move to some millionaire neighborhood; if only for safety-reasons. And you probably don't need your fulltime job anymore. And to learn how to maintain that money, you'll probably have to spend more time with people of the same financial level. Suddenly, most of your time is with the elite rich in your neighborhood & meetings & parties. Any friendships you had previously will probably fade away slowly, except the _closest_ friends you've known since you were a kid or something. You just won't have that much in common to talk about anymore. Dan will be joking about how he really wanted the white yacht, but his wife wanted the light-grey one while you sip coffee at a cafe in paris or something.
Or... the most humble way you could maybe do it is... http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/
I like to think I'd be like Jerry if I'm rich, still mellow and can enjoy sitting down at a humble coffee-shop chattin' about life.
>>Some billionaires don’t even bother to flaunt their wealth. For instance, Berkshire Hathaway ‘s Warren Buffett–with a net worth of $36 billion–famously lives in the same home in Omaha, Nebr., that he bought in 1958 for $31,500. Although his home isn’t shabby, the Happy Hollow neighborhood where he lives isn’t even the ritziest in Omaha.
I'm impressed!
It is even easier if you move to a big city where wealth doesn't isolate.
Personally I have never gotten the appeal of rich people moving to exclusive areas, I think I would feel very boxed-in in such environments...but again I have never been rich :)
Why would you need to live in a millionaire neighborhood for safety? It isn't like you'll be keeping wads of cash around. You can get alarms and such, and I'm sure that will be fine. I doubt you'll be a target anyhow, especially if you live in a modest house.
>And to learn how to maintain that money, you'll probably have to spend more time with people of the same financial level
Once again. Why?
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/lottery-winners-spend-money/s...
Mannix's ShopRite has been lucky once before. Six years ago, a group of 10 bakery employees split a $19 million ticket. Nine of them, says Mannix, decided to keep working and are still on the job. None went wacky or became a drunk or wound up in jail. Some, he says, "bought their dream house." Others salted away the money, to be used later to pay for college for their grandkids. Some paid off mortgages. A few took trips. "They didn't spend foolishly," says their boss. "They're hardworking, blue collar people. It's a great story with a great ending."
I also saw a special about celebrity lives and some famous country singer lives among the common folks, she does her own laundry, cleaning, shopping, lives in a modest middle class house, etc. People are sometimes surprised to see her at Walmart.
I know someone who lives in the same town as the guys from the TV show American Chopper. I don't know how wealthy they are, but they have a popular TV show and successful business at least so they must be pretty well off. She has seen them around doing shopping and such.
EDIT: According to http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/paul-te... the older American Chopper guy has a net worth of $15 million.
My biggest concern with American politics is that everyone sees the other side as evil or wrong. We could have a much more productive debate if we did a better job of understanding the positions rather than just dismissing them as "out of touch with reality".
I used to work on Wall St., and in my experience wealth and intelligence aren't correlated. Luck is more important. Family's socioeconomic status is important. What school one got one's degree from has something to do with it (but not good grades or what one's degree was in). And, unfortunately, being "ethically challenged" was often the key--scammers and fraudsters have a much easier time making the Big Time.
RE: Tom Perkins... In any economic downturn, there will be scapegoats. The poor scapegoat the rich. The rich scapegoat the poor. Social conservatives scapegoat foreigners, non-Christians, women, gays, non-whites...anyone not like themselves. It's not simply that nobody likes to take personal responsibility or that it's easier to blame the other guy...
In the West we associate self-criticism with depression and anxiety, and we seek to suppress it. Source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124511712673817527
Worse, self-criticism is associated with Maoist Communism. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/09/28/china-se...
However, there's certainly a tradition of self-criticism in the West, rooted in its canonical texts: "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7:3-5&ve...
My point is that we need to be a little more self-critical and a little less quick to scapegoat others for our problems. A little self-criticism might go a long way to making us both smarter and wealthier!
Middle and working class grown ups with families don't care about hot tubs and parties, but the things they struggle to afford: decent schools for their children, their mortgage, etc, are things that he never would have to worry about. His decision to live in Manhattan with less stuff doesn't change that reality for them, and I question whether it really puts him in touch with their reality.
Bringing up his personal life choice detracts from the valid point that the wealthy can isolate themselves from the concerns of everyone else if they choose to.
And his argument about wealth vs. smarts is attacking windmills ... nobody seriously believes that having more wealth makes you smarter.
Edit: lost second half, re-added. Edit2: wording tweak
There are comments in this very thread that indicate there are people who do. Anecdotally, I personally know several "well off" people who very seriously believe that being wealthy implies being smart.
Any thread about fascism that gets shut down by someone chirping 'Godwin' can't have been that interesting to begin with.
Edit: It's even a sardonic observation, lamenting the quality of effort that has someone screaming "NAZI" over some piffling matter.
I'd take a shack on the beach and a cold beer right now and be poor AND of average intelligence...
Did you mean:
I'd rather be wealthy than smart.
OR
I'd rather be wealthy, then smart.
?
EDIT: crimsonalucard corrected the typo in their comment