Winners think success was earned even if it was down to luck

[Audie]

On the 31st floor, my gold plated door
will keep you peasants out

[/QUOTE]

Is that supposed to be anything
other than annoying?

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Is that supposed to be anything
other than annoying?

Nice try, but Grammar Nazi says,

 

[Stevicus]

This thread reminds me of a funny argument I had with my brother while we were playing pool. Whenever one of us made an unlikely, or "lucky," shot, we would say "It wasn't luck; it was unplanned skill."

 

[Audie]

Nice try, but Grammar Nazi says,

Um, ok, total communication failure.

 

[Shaul]

No one is self made. That itself is a myth. But, that's the awesome benefit of being a social animal. We don't have to do it all on our own, and it's foolish to attempt it.

Everyone is self made. Luck or fate doesn’t determine who we are. Some wealthy people had good luck while some succeeded in spite of terribly bad luck. Similarly some poor people have bad luck while others are still poor despite some very good luck. It all comes down to the choices people make. Our choices are the determining factor, not “luck”. I reject your fatalism. We are all self made. To deny that is to deny free will and an existential part of our humanity.

 

[Shad]

"Do wealthier people owe their financial success to skill or luck? Your views on this question may be set by your own financial status, at least according to a study of people playing a card game.

In a simplified two-player version of the game known as “President” (or less politely, “*******”) winners were more likely than losers to credit their success to skill rather than luck – even though the game clearly involved little skill and when the odds were blatantly rigged in the winner’s favour.

“It was absolutely obvious one of the players was playing with a huge advantage,” says Mauricio Bucca of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy."

Source: Life’s winners think success was earned even if it was down to luck

Who would have thought that people could be so biased ?

Yah there a lot of factors people will never consider. It is far easier to become successful in Western Europe than Eastern Europe due to geography alone. It is easier if you know English as English is the primary language used for knowledge and communication than not.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Everyone is self made.

No one is a self contained island. No one is free from being influenced by external factors. No one does everything on their own. We are social animals, and we do behave like it.

I reject your fatalism.

I've never advocated fatalism. But I do reject free will because clearly it doesn't exist.

 

[Koldo]

Everyone is self made. Luck or fate doesn’t determine who we are. Some wealthy people had good luck while some succeeded in spite of terribly bad luck. Similarly some poor people have bad luck while others are still poor despite some very good luck. It all comes down to the choices people make. Our choices are the determining factor, not “luck”. I reject your fatalism. We are all self made. To deny that is to deny free will and an existential part of our humanity.

If you have terribly bad luck you can't be rich because that necessarily entails dying before getting rich.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Suppose a lone prospector goes out and
finds a gold mine. You going to say he is not self-
made millionaire?
I guess you can play semantics that way if it suits.

He learned the skills from someone, needed someone to buy the gold, and needed a society to agree that gold is valuable.

 

[Stevicus]

He learned the skills from someone, needed someone to buy the gold, and needed a society to agree that gold is valuable.

Not only that, but he also needed the state to have a policy of expansionism and the military to clear the land of those pesky natives so that the prospector can claim his mine and work it unmolested.

That's really the big issue. All this "self-made" rhetoric is done against the backdrop of militaristic expansionism and labor exploitation.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Um, ok, total communication failure.

*sigh* Right.

You posted. I gave a significant response, to which you gave a light-hearted response, with a typo “meep” instead of “keep”.
All was well.
But keeping with the humor aspect, I replied via a gif displaying the muppet character “beaker”, whose sole word of communication is “meep”.
You didn’t get the joke, but within your self-quoted response, you reposted your original text. However, you corrected your original misspelling, so that the “meep” was now “keep” (obviously recognizing, yet not admitting your prior mistake).
To which I posted the soup nazi meme, castigating your action in a light hearted manner.
And now apparently you didn’t get the joke again.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Suppose a lone prospector goes out and
finds a gold mine. You going to say he is not self-
made millionaire?
I guess you can play semantics that way if it suits.

He learned the skills from someone, needed someone to buy the gold, and needed a society to agree that gold is valuable.

Not only that, but he also needed the state to have a policy of expansionism and the military to clear the land of those pesky natives so that the prospector can claim his mine and work it unmolested.

That's really the big issue. All this "self-made" rhetoric is done against the backdrop of militaristic expansionism and labor exploitation.

There is, I think, the most significant point here. That prospector didn’t go out there alone; he went out with 5000 other prospectors. 99.9% of them found nothing but dirt and a few small flakes of gold at best.
He just happened, by luck, to stop walking exactly where a vein of gold happened to be running underneath the surface of the ground.
All of the other prospectors were intelligent and hard-working, but they came up poor and many of them came up dead because of bad luck.
That one successful prospector made it because he had exactly the same skills and drive and government protection.........but he was lucky.



Now, in all fairness I will admit that perhaps one or two of the 5000 other prospectors did in fact end up on paydirt. But due to ignorance, or lack of survival skills, or lack of drive, did not get the many pounds of gold out of the soil that our first fellow did.
So while drive and intelligence may have played a part in making him the best of three or four people, it was sheer luck that made him the most successful of the 5000.

 

[Audie]

*sigh* Right.

You posted. I gave a significant response, to which you gave a light-hearted response, with a typo “meep” instead of “keep”.
All was well.
But keeping with the humor aspect, I replied via a gif displaying the muppet character “beaker”, whose sole word of communication is “meep”.
You didn’t get the joke, but within your self-quoted response, you reposted your original text. However, you corrected your original misspelling, so that the “meep” was now “keep” (obviously recognizing, yet not admitting your prior mistake).
To which I posted the soup nazi meme, castigating your action in a light hearted manner.
And now apparently you didn’t get the joke again.

Well, no, I did not grow up with sesame street.
I correct typos some of the time w/o feeling
any paricular need to admit it...?

Sometimes I feel like an American and other times
I feel like there is this big cultural gap.

 

[Audie]

Not only that, but he also needed the state to have a policy of expansionism and the military to clear the land of those pesky natives so that the prospector can claim his mine and work it unmolested.

That's really the big issue. All this "self-made" rhetoric is done against the backdrop of militaristic expansionism and labor exploitation.

I have an uncle who is still stuck in the mao-
cultural revolution days.
We know better than to get him started.
You and he might have a terrific time talking
about capitalist-roaders, and all that rot.

 

[Stevicus]

I have an uncle who is still stuck in the mao-
cultural revolution days.
We know better than to get him started.
You and he might have a terrific time talking
about capitalist-roaders, and all that rot.

Maybe. I've had conversations with some Russians, both emigres to the US and people who live there. I've seen a wide array of opinions, both pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet. And even among those who are anti-Soviet, they're still rather patriotic about some things, such as the Soviet role in WW2. Also, since Khrushchev denounced Stalin, they could discuss the Stalinist period with a certain level of frankness and honesty without necessarily being "anti-Soviet" as defined by post-Stalinist leaders.

And they've all had some rather frank and outspoken views about the US system.

You might think that I rail against capitalism too much, but one thing to keep in mind is that it's in the context of so many people here in America constantly crowing and thumping their chests about what a wonderful system capitalism is. When many Americans (mostly conservatives, but even some liberals) endless gush over capitalism, they spread it on so thick as to be unbelievable.

There's also a certain religious fervor from some of its adherents, along with a certain self-righteous, moralistic attitude towards "unbelievers." I grew up with the idea of America being a bunch of knights in shining armor, the defenders of all that is good and righteous, while those in the "evil empire" were these horrible devils with horns out to destroy the entire world.

I have no illusions about this world or the various political and economic systems which have shaped it into what it is today. It is what it is. All I would ask is that people be more honest about it. This "us vs. them" rhetoric which paints "us" as the good guys and "them" as the villains can get rather old.

 

[Audie]

Maybe. I've had conversations with some Russians, both emigres to the US and people who live there. I've seen a wide array of opinions, both pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet. And even among those who are anti-Soviet, they're still rather patriotic about some things, such as the Soviet role in WW2. Also, since Khrushchev denounced Stalin, they could discuss the Stalinist period with a certain level of frankness and honesty without necessarily being "anti-Soviet" as defined by post-Stalinist leaders.

And they've all had some rather frank and outspoken views about the US system.

You might think that I rail against capitalism too much, but one thing to keep in mind is that it's in the context of so many people here in America constantly crowing and thumping their chests about what a wonderful system capitalism is. When many Americans (mostly conservatives, but even some liberals) endless gush over capitalism, they sp
thoseread it on so thick as to be unbelievable.

There's also a certain religious fervor from some of its adherents, along with a certain self-righteous, moralistic attitude towards "unbelievers." I grew up with the idea of America being a bunch of knights in shining armor, the defenders of all that is good and righteous, while those in the "evil empire" were these horrible devils with horns out to destroy the entire world.

I have no illusions about this world or the various political and economic systems which have shaped it into what it is today. It is what it is. All I would ask is that people be more honest about it. This "us vs. them" rhetoric which paints "us" as the good guys and "them" as the villains can get rather old.

I find a lot of people to be tiresome and surly,
but that is just the human condition, and think
that anyone finding in it cause for angrr and dismay
is just being a fool for expevting any different.

The worst show off and most arrogant
generally are the ones with the least. A
person who has it may be arrogant, but
braggibg and showing off, why bother.

"Small man's disease". Or the most pushy
disrespectful people when they get a public
employee they can abuse.

What are we going to do to change human nature?

I am not really even aware of the behaviour of those
you describe crowing and thumping chests. Never
encountered it. Nor the rest of the gushing, etc.

We are in very different circles, evidently-?
Anyway, who cares? Ignore them.


I will go along with your last line, the "us v them",
a thing we can all look out for in ourselves.

 

[LiveBetterLife]

Most of the wealthy I know are
extremely hard working. The few who are
not tend to be widows.

This "did not earn" is a preamble to,
"So we are morally bound to confiscate it."

Most interesting take I've read in this thread thus far.

My experience is that the wealthiest / most successful people I've ever known are not necessarily the product of either extreme.

There are some examples though; I know so called "self made" millionaires and others who would have nothing if a certain civil court settlement didn't go their way (which it very well could have).

In every event, earned or not (and in more direct response to the OP): winners almost unilaterally think their success was earned even if it were down to luck. And those who usually didn't earn their success pretty much always do extraordinary mental gymnastics in order to convince themselves that their success was entirely earned.

It's a dirty topic but a thought provoking one.

 

[LiveBetterLife]

An extensive survey of millionaires has found out that many myths about them are false. Most millionaires are self made, they did not inherit their money. Most millionaires have ordinary jobs, not jobs like doctors or athletes. Most millionaires do not come from wealthy families, they mostly come from at or below median incentives families.

Everyday Millionaires by Chris Hogan

"Self-made" is a myth in and of itself.

 

[LiveBetterLife]

I've never advocated fatalism. But I do reject free will because clearly it doesn't exist.

How so?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

No one is a self contained island. No one is free from being influenced by external factors. No one does everything on their own. We are social animals, and we do behave like it.

I've never advocated fatalism. But I do reject free will because clearly it doesn't exist.

That we all have constraints in our lives caused by other people, events, and pure chance. does not mean that we do not have free will.
Free will is not unconstrained by our environment, but our environment does present opportunities that we, as free agents, can exploit.
Free will exists and flourishes with in such possibilities, however limited or however broad.