[DistressedDrone]

I was commenting about this earlier, here's a link to a study that says otherwise: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/7/eaau1156.full

Or rather, it says people who are advantaged (ie lucky) considerably underestimate the contribution of this advantage to their success, and overestimate their own contribution.

On the article itself, the stated idea of status is truly naive if not delusional, and allows them to put anyone who disagrees with their idea into the box of "status game players, to be ignored".

I'm not going to read the entire article, it reads like advice to people who don't need it (upper middle class people). I'm sure it must be comforting to the author, and upper middle class and rich people, but in reality there is no clear path from "poor" to "rich", or else everyone would be taking it.

What I will say is they seem to understand that our economic system is irrational, and to take advantage of it seems rational. But an irrational system is also unfair, and I would rather people not praise this unfairness as "good". The author seems to be paying lip service to the idea of "ethics" while teaching people to abuse the system. And they dare to talk about "virtue signaling".

[zpeti]

I can guarantee you one thing, if you don’t try and complain about how only privileged people can do it, you DEFINITELY won’t get rich or be successful or whatever your metric is.

If you try, you might fail, and you might fail because of things outside your control, and it won’t be your fault.

But you might succeed.

Your choice.

[michaelgrafl]

No one is saying only privileged people can be successful. Just that observation has shown that the odds are stacked against them. I would call that unjust, and thus would be accused of playing the status game.

It's a toxic argument.

[Xplune13]

I agree. The act of trying itself opens you up to new possibilities which are just locked if one just complaints and do nothing about it. That's why trying is necessary.

But that doesn't mean one should deny the fact that some things are entirely dependent on pure luck. In my opinion, the luck part starts even before you're actually born (your place/country of birth, family etc.). So, one should acknowledge the fact that luck too played an important role in their current wealth along with their own hard work.

[megaman821]

But what meaning does luck have if you consider every positive thing in life luck? You were lucky you were born with the ability to see. You were you didn't die of childhood disease.

If it was 100% luck, China and India would have most of the good things in the world since the have more lotto tickets (people) than the rest of the world.

[Xplune13]

I didn't say it was 100% luck. I said, trying itself is opening up to new opportunities and possibilities. After all luck is just a game of possibilities and chances.

There isn't a universal definition of luck and there won't ever be. The border between what is luck and what isn't changes every person to person. Your country, family wealth (which then pays for your education) play an important role in one's life and their wealth. A "rich" person on some poor island most probably won't be considered rich in any Western country.

Now it matters what you do with that what you have. Scoring high or low in academics is up to me which would contribute to my wealth in future. I'm not saying that academics is the only metric here, but people having high score are generally more "wealthy" than those that don't according to my observation. So all of it matters on what you do with the given time and opportunities.

[developer93]

I would define luck as any positive circumstance which I didn't create/control. I'm not sure his last point even counts as luck.

[jayd16]

Pretty sure no one is saying to not try. Quite the opposite. Many simply understand that yes, luck does matter. You need to try and get lucky.

[developer93]

I'm already relatively successful by my lights, but I won't pretend that luck of birth and circumstances didn't play a big part. Yes I took advantage of the chances that were presented to me, but I can recognise that someone who didn't start off with my advantages would have to work much harder top get where I am. The world isn't fair, that's a fact and there's no point pretending it isn't just to make yourself feel better.

[croes]

So constant failure is a choice, success is not.

[rini17]

Seems to me either you haven't experienced yourself the distinction between wealth creating and status seeking. Or you put it all into the box "they delude themselves they create wealth, to be ignored".

[DistressedDrone]

You are right, I don't have rich friends who create wealth. But if I to choose one as a friend or mentor to make the world a better place, I'll side with the person not trying to game an entire society to get richer, regardless of the other's stated intention to "create wealth for everyone".

That said, I don't doubt that they do create wealth, I just think any benefits to society are incidental, and that the logical rigor of their ex post facto justification is lacking.

[rini17]

Why do you insist they must be rich? I had in mind for example engineers who create wealth by solving problems and don't desire to climb corporate ladder.

[clairity]

a subversive if subtle inversion also underlies the argument, that status is subservient to wealth. instead, status is the game, and wealth is a conspicuous component of that. everything we consider ‘sociopolitical’ is about trading various proxies of status, including wealth, to try to ‘level up’ on the status meter.

his obfuscation is plainly designed to enhance the statused (like him) against the rising threat of the unstatused by confusing the potential up-and-comers.

also, luck is inherently cognitively dissonant. as such, it insists on rationalization, and rationalizations grounded this way inherently lack explanatory power beyond the individual and/or circumstance (since they’re projective rather than observationally exhaustive).

[vladmk]

100%. A lot of survivorship bias in his diatribe. I feel most people I n this thread won’t like what you’re saying though, because it goes against the very belief drilled into Silicon Valley ideology.

[clairity]

yah, it’s an unpopular position, but that’s fine. i’ve seen prior unpopular positions get repeated, which means they’re doing their job of bringing diversity of perspective to the discussion.

and besides, irrational certainty (over unbiased reality) is often needed to be a successful (or even an unsuccessful) entrepreneur, so the bias is not surprising.

[vladmk]

Yeah not surprising, but I’d like to see Entrepreneurs at least acknowledge luck.

Irrational certainty I feel is dangerous. Unbiased reality on the other hand is actually where I personally see the opportunities are since most don’t frame reality correctly and it’s impossible to know it all.

[michaelgrafl]

The article is insane. Pure ideological reductive bs.

To say anyone who points out social injustice plays a silly mean game of status is the most cynical thing I've read in a while. As if capitalists weren't driven by status.

And describing taxes as stealing is simply juvenile and fucking stupid and unhelpful.

[throwaway3699]

Taxes are something we've decided is in the collective interest, but they are still the government reaching into your pocket. Especially with ever increasing overreach, mainly to fund blowing up kids overseas, I can understand this opinion.

[michaelgrafl]

I don't pay taxes in the US. I pay them in Austria, where the system mostly works (in comparison).

If taxes are misused, the misuse is the problem, not the concept of taxes itself. Government may be reaching into our pockets, but we also reach into the government's pocket when we need to (again, Austrian speaking here. My wife received around 2700 Euros per month during Mutterschutz, which surprised both of us, since she hadn't been working for some time due to it being our third child, just as an example).

[developer93]

Sometimes taxes are misused, but try working without them as a country.

[ixacto]

I’d say taxes are halfway stealing and halfway actually doing good things for society.

Paying income taxes into the national debt and finding the military industrial complex is not that appetizing. That is just allowing for geopolitical shenanigans and bombing poor people the world over. Also funding the state governments (hello CA/NU) that think that they are small countries is ridiculous.

Paying property taxes to fund EMS/schools/roads is an entirely different thing that I fully support.

But yeah, right now as a whole we are paying way too much tax IMO and could get away with paying like half if we got rid of the military and bloated government. Then you could have the first 100k that you make you actually get to keep.

[developer93]

As a general principal would you call robin hood a thief? Taxes are theft since they're collected by threat of force, but they pay for things we all need (mostly), so necessary theft. I doubt an organised society that works for everyone could work purely on donations.

[michaelgrafl]

Theft is an abstract concept, and paying taxes simply doesn't reflect the meaning of that word.

Paying taxes is a result of the legislation we've indirectly put into action by voting our people into office. Robin Hood acted out of his own agenda, albeit an allegedly noble one. I'd call the latter theft, without judging it on an ethical level. Taxes aren't that.

[smolder]

Your hypothetical version of the government that's unbloated, doesn't tax small earners, and has no military is unfeasible.

[michaelgrafl]

On a spectrum, I'd say most countries are a lot closer to this hypothetical version than the US.

[ixacto]

Define unfeasible. This country operated just fine for over 100 years without an individual income tax.

And do we really need like 12 aircraft carriers?