[Exo_Tartarus]

I'm not exactly sure what the point of the article is or what the author is trying to say. It's pretty much an abbreviated biography bookended by some attempts at philosophizing. It is interesting to hear how much easier the author found his British curriculum than his Chinese. I was also amused by how he mocked his Stanford MBA curriculum, and how the career office people were dismissive of his passion to make money.

Smart hard working people succeed much more often than they don't. Born into difficult circumstances, their probability of 'success' (accumulating prestige and wealth) is much higher than for others.

Of course sometimes circumstances are too oppressive to overcome, and sometimes the stupid and lazy are elevated in spite of themselves... But these are exceptions.

[addicted]

"Smart hard working people succeed much more often than they don't."

A smart hard working person today might be a hard working computer scientist.

Their skills would be absolutely worthless even a few centuries ago. Their skills would be absolutely worthless even today depending on where they are born and to the parents they are born.

I'm not convinced "smart and hard working" are not post hoc descriptors themselves.

[ebola1717]

Plus, that sentiment is only true with a narrow set of upper middle class, white collar assumptions. What about hard working retail workers or factory workers? Or look how vast the race and gender disparities are...

[Exo_Tartarus]

Maybe they don't want to be anything other than retail or factory workers?

Many people don't have ambition, or they have limited ambition.

[timthelion]

maybe they don't want to be anything other than factory workers. That doesn't mean that they are fundamentally less valuable and less worthy of being paid their fair share.

[Exo_Tartarus]

What's their fair share? You think you're worthy to determine that?

[vilmosi]

>>> Smart hard working people succeed much more often than they don't

It sounds to me you're classifying people as smart/hard working only if they're successful.

[Exo_Tartarus]

That's not what I'm saying at all

[theonething]

To be born with the genetics to be smart and hardworking is out of our control. So smart and hardworking can be considered circumstances we are born into as well.

[Exo_Tartarus]

Agreed. And I'll go one further: there is no free will. But the point holds

[coolaliasbro]

I mostly agree with this sentiment (though I grant that there may be other, more nuanced views with which I might also agree) and find its implication a little startling: that one's life is really "One's Life: The Movie".