[matt_wulfeck]

These kind of articles and discussions almost invariably lead to defeatists and cynical attitudes. It's akin to saying "Unless you're born with good genes, you'll never be an Olympic athlete, so don't bother training and exercising".

You may not ever be wealthy by trying and working hard because of the role luck plays. But there's value in working hard at it that everyone should know, just like there's value in physical training that everyone should know. It takes training and (very importantly) discipline to stick with it.

[mindcrime]

It's interesting... there's an anecdote floating around out there somewhere about a famous wrestling coach (quite likely Dan Gable[1]) talking to a group of young wrestlers and telling them something approximately like:

"Most of you have the genetics to be an Olympic wrestler. But most of you don't have the work ethic".

Of course that's just an amusing anecdote and there's no reason to think that Dan Gable is an expert on genetics. But it's something to think about.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Gable

[maxerickson]

And what if the personality traits that feed into "work ethic" have a strong genetic component?

[mindcrime]

That's possible. That's one reason I don't take this quote as gospel or anything. Like I said, it's just food for thought.

As far as that goes, we don't even know for sure that we have free will and that we ever actually make any decisions at all. Maybe the whole universe it totally deterministic. I mean, it's hard to see an explanation of how it isn't so. That said I prefer (well, I think I prefer) to believe that we do have free will.

[alayne]

Ignoring these external factors isn't going to make them go away and studying them could lead to ideas about removing bias and having more meritocratic systems.