7 ms·

It's not worth arguing with a frequentist mindset to success. It is clear that better starting positions in life lead to better outcomes. It's even unfair and g

It's not worth arguing with a frequentist mindset to success. It is clear that better starting positions in life lead to better outcomes. It's even unfair and getting worse. This isn't genius level analysis. The issue is that using averages, making blanket statements, and dismissing exceptions to the averages as pure luck and statistical happenstance is a pretty common form of frequentist bias and leads to even worse policy, if used as justification for a remedy. Exceptions are routinely waved away as statistical noise or survivorship bias, rather than taking a more nuanced and Bayesian look at the exceptions. For all the libertarian bias Hacker News is accused of, this particular issue is exceptionally neoliberal/socialist in nature and persists on the site for some odd reason.

WalterBright 7y ago
> It's even unfair Life is not fair, and you can't fix it. Play the cards you're dealt. The good news is every hand can be a winner in life (as in poker), it's all how you play. You get to choose. Me, I will never be tall or handsome or muscular or have depth perception or have hand-eye coordination. I'm only good at one thing, and I take advantage. No, I don't expect to change your mind. But I'm happy to try.
- zenhack 7y ago
  > Life is not fair, and you can't fix it. I don't think the fatalistic attitude towards changing the system is any more (or, as much as I hate to admit it, less) reasonable than the "you could be Steve jobs too." Odds for both are pretty bleak, albeit non zero. As advice to an individual in a rotten system, "make the most of what you've got" is fair enough. But when folks talk about politics they're not usually fishing for personal career advice. So when you bring this up in that context, either you've missed the point, or you're trying to distract folks from the issue at hand.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    I use the Steve Jobs example because everybody knows about him, and his life is well documented. You don't have to build a trillion dollar company to be nicely successful, but using a nicely successful person as an anecdote is impractical because they are not public figures. But they are still all over the place, in plain sight. It's well within an ordinary person's ability to become one.
sokoloff 7y ago
Better starting positions lead to better outcomes on average, sure-absolutely. Some of those better starting positions are conferred by the sacrifices of those who came before. None of that matters much in terms of what the individual should do in response. I wrote a shitty attitude college financial aid application essay saying how I intended to use my college education to “get rich enough that my kids wouldn’t have to write college financial aid essays.” That was 32 years ago and I still remember the fight it caused with my parents who were doing everything they could to help generation N+1 do better than generation N while I was spitting in their face in essay form. Just like it’s hard to deny the benefit of coming from means, it’s equally hard to deny the benefit of dedicated, concerted, well-directed effort in raising your individual and family outcome. Coming from means is no guarantee of success either, but since you have a lot more control over your choices of life than of birth, why not take advantage of them?

WalterBright 7y ago

> It's even unfair Life is not fair, and you can't fix it. Play the cards you're dealt. The good news is every hand can be a winner in life (as in poker), it's all how you play. You get to choose. Me, I will never be tall or handsome or muscular or have depth perception or have hand-eye coordination. I'm only good at one thing, and I take advantage. No, I don't expect to change your mind. But I'm happy to try.

zenhack 7y ago
> Life is not fair, and you can't fix it. I don't think the fatalistic attitude towards changing the system is any more (or, as much as I hate to admit it, less) reasonable than the "you could be Steve jobs too." Odds for both are pretty bleak, albeit non zero. As advice to an individual in a rotten system, "make the most of what you've got" is fair enough. But when folks talk about politics they're not usually fishing for personal career advice. So when you bring this up in that context, either you've missed the point, or you're trying to distract folks from the issue at hand.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  I use the Steve Jobs example because everybody knows about him, and his life is well documented. You don't have to build a trillion dollar company to be nicely successful, but using a nicely successful person as an anecdote is impractical because they are not public figures. But they are still all over the place, in plain sight. It's well within an ordinary person's ability to become one.

sokoloff 7y ago

Better starting positions lead to better outcomes on average, sure-absolutely. Some of those better starting positions are conferred by the sacrifices of those who came before. None of that matters much in terms of what the individual should do in response. I wrote a shitty attitude college financial aid application essay saying how I intended to use my college education to “get rich enough that my kids wouldn’t have to write college financial aid essays.” That was 32 years ago and I still remember the fight it caused with my parents who were doing everything they could to help generation N+1 do better than generation N while I was spitting in their face in essay form. Just like it’s hard to deny the benefit of coming from means, it’s equally hard to deny the benefit of dedicated, concerted, well-directed effort in raising your individual and family outcome. Coming from means is no guarantee of success either, but since you have a lot more control over your choices of life than of birth, why not take advantage of them?