> Everyone builds on the work of others with help from others.
It is why we have societies. Coalitions.In game theory a coalition is a group where the group's utility is greater than the sum of each member's utility. In other words: "we're stronger together". The problem with the self-made man myth is that it frames things as if it is shameful to have help. Having had help does not diminish your accomplishments. Having had help just means you're human. The same goes for luck. Just because you got lucky doesn't mean you didn't work hard nor deserve the rewards. There's a saying I like The harder I work, the luckier I get.
The way I read that is "by working hard you are able to take advantage of lucky opportunities as they come by." We all require luck in this world. Some are luckier than others. But you have to "strike while the iron is hot" and if you don't work hard then you won't be able to strike in the right moment. Like the having had help part there is no shame in having had luck.Being able to recognize these things helps us do better and help more people do better. But if we pretend we just did it all on our own then we can't actually recognize how things came to be. Which means we're going to have a hard time replicating that success. By pretending that everything is all on us and nothing else then we'll fail while trying to repeat the successful strategy, we'll fail when offering advice to others, and we'll just be blind to the world around us. We'll never recognize that we have to make the iron hot! Even the best blacksmith in the world can't hammer frozen iron into shape. Again, having had luck or help doesn't mean you didn't work hard or that you don't deserve what you have. Things aren't binary. There's not a single causal factor to any complex phenomena. The problem is seeing things in black and white. There's a million things that go into success and while most of that will be on you, you can't ignore things like the environment and those that helped you along the way. After all, we're all in this together. |
Is that it's a complete straw man. It's not about not having help - every great achiever has had a figurative (sometimes literal) army of supporters behind them. Including those in history.
What the "theory" actually posits seems trivially true - that the people who do super extraordinary things are extraordinary themselves. Whether it's talent, hard work, both, insanity, etc. The idea that these people are just normal and very lucky or whatever is absurd.