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I have learned the same thing about myself: I am (relatively) successful not because my grit allowed me to keep doing something which I disliked but were reward

I have learned the same thing about myself: I am (relatively) successful not because my grit allowed me to keep doing something which I disliked but were rewarded, but because the things I enjoy doing are things which are valued by our society. I realized this after reading the following Warren Buffet quote[1]: "I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner. But I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing — and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that." [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

oska 6y ago
Somehow I think Buffett would have ended up a parasite in any society. There's always been a niche for the Buffett type.
- wegs 6y ago
  Why do you think he's a parasite? He seems to live a modest life, and work very hard to make the economy work more efficiently. He's giving almost all of his money to philanthropic causes, and seems to campaign for all the right causes. He maintains a pretty low profile for his level of success (he doesn't even support philanthropy through his own family foundation; he went with Gates, since he thought they'd do a better job). I think he's had about $10 million in frivolous spending in his life (a plane, and a home in California). I agree most people in the financial sector seem to be parasites, but Warren doesn't seem that way.
  - oska 6y ago
    I think his claim to be a beneficial 'allocator of capital' is bogus. He tends to invest in established exploitative companies. His investments have been made on an almost exclusive basis of growing wealth, which in the end is a very sterile end to aim for. > I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty. — Buffett, quoted in Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco I agree he's led a modest life. I am somewhat dubious about his claims to be a philanthropist. I don't see exploiting the world (Buffett & Gates) necessarily redeemed by later posing as a philanthropist. None of this is meant as a critique of capitalism. Just a critique of the kind of sterile, exploitative capitalism that Buffett practises, that he then tries to dress up as philanthropy. "It's ok if I give away all my money at the end" - well he can't take it with him can he? And at 89, he still hasn't given most of it away anyway. Finally, here's a link to a much more detailed criticism of Buffett, if you're interested: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/special-investigation-the-dirty-secret-behind-warren-buffetts-billions/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/special-investigat...
    - unreal37 6y ago
      That article starts with an incorrect premise. "America isn’t supposed to allow moats, much less reward them. Our economic system, we claim, is founded on free and fair competition." That's called a straw man. No one has ever said America "doesn't allow moats" and that there is "free and fair competition". The whole point of business is, within the law, to build a moat that makes it impossible for a late-starting competitor to compete with you. Patents are moats. Immense capital is a moat. Brands are moats. Regulations are moats. When Disney pulls its movies from Netflix to start its own streaming service, it's using its moat to block a competitor. I bet almost every dollar you spend in your life goes to companies that legally try to stop you from spending money with their competitors. From your phone to your bank to your car to your airline. The Fed is currently propping up the price of assets through $3 Trillion of asset buying. This isn't a free economy.
      - projektfu 6y ago
        Funny, I thought the point of business was to exchange goods and services in mutually beneficial ways. The rest is rent seeking.
        unreal37 6y ago
        That quote is probably right out of a business school textbook. Any Apple customer will tell you they "benefit" from spending all their computer and phone money with Apple. Apple trying to build a moat around their ecosystem doesn't preclude mutual benefit.
        projektfu 6y ago
        The vast majority of businesses are what I describe. The large economic profits are mostly rents accumulated by a small fraction of businesses, in a Pareto distribution. I argue we’d do fine with less of the rentiers.
        oska 6y ago
        I think most Apple customers will tell you that Apple products are too expensive. Most 'moats' are not beneficial to the consumer. What's beneficial to the consumer is competition, and companies innovating, not building moats, to stay ahead of their competitors.
  - badpun 6y ago
    > He's giving almost all of his money to philanthropic causes His current net worth is $70b, for your statement to be true he would have to give away trillions.
    - bitcurious 6y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge One can be running a marathon and still have 40km left to run.
      - badpun 6y ago
        This only means that, so far, he's only talking about giving most of his money away, not actually doing it. If he'd be doing it at any significant speed, we'd be seeing monthly/yearly drops in his net worth.
wernsey 6y ago
Thanks for that. I have often thought that boy, I would really have suffered had I been born in medieval or Roman times because I don't know what I would've done if I didn't work in IT. I would describe the feeling as guilt, and it took me some time to just accept that things are the way they are.
- cheerlessbog 6y ago
  I figure without tech, I'd be a monk or clerk.
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    From what I gather, the actual monk-monks in your average abbey, the ones doing the routine of daily prayers and reading & writing in an established and bookish order, were largely children of aristocrats or otherwise well-off. There were very few of these relative to the total population. The rest of the folks living at an abbey lived some of the routine but were largely excluded from the life of study and learning, instead doing manual labor to keep the place running. They were usually classified as something less than full brothers/sisters. Most weren't literate and there was typically no serious program or intention to make them so. Yes there were exceptions and various orders work differently, but talking about in general and during times when there were quite a few—though still not that many—full-on monastics sitting around writing commentaries on Augustine and such. Some orders took a work-and-prayer approach for everyone to keep their order afloat, but those generally seem not to have lasted long before morphing into collecting rents and relying on patrons. Turns out it's really hard to have a life of the mind & spirit without a bunch of other people working to support you—if you're doing the necessary work yourself, it's all you have time for, meanwhile a competing order nearby's adding a wing to their abbey with the money they're collecting from a share of a mill, rents on three commercial properties in town, and 30 acres of land worked by peasants, their wine cellar is full, and their abbot has significant influence in the court of the Duke. So. Maybe that seems like a better idea.
- seisvelas 6y ago
  Ancient Rome is legendary for engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_engineering There is this notion I see going around that in the past people survived by being brutish animals and smart people would have died quick. In fact, it's the opposite. We outcompeted other animals because we are NOT like them. Because we engineer. In a hunter gatherer society someone who builds traps, designs better huts or tents, etc could be extremely valuable. Buffet's self-deprecation is admirable but lacks imagination.
koheripbal 6y ago
...and that's why he also said on Monday: "If you took someone and asked them, without them knowing whether they'd be born boy or girl, black or white, with or without any relevant talent, or to rich or poor parents, and asked them when and where they'd like to be born. They'd answer, 'The US, in modern times'. There is no place on Earth, and no time in history, that a person can make the most of their talents, as today in the US. As hard as it is to be in the bottom 10% here and now, it would have been much worse any time in the past." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69rm13iUUgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69rm13iUUgE
- nicbou 6y ago
  Modern times, sure. The United States not so much. If you aren't sure about any other factor, you might want to be born in a society that provides most of its population with the tools they need.
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  There’s a subtle issue with that quote: one of the predicates is “with or without any relevant talent”, but the answer of the modern US seems to assume talent that one can make the most of. Why not pick a modern country with a better social safety net, lower inequality, and greater economic and class mobility?
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    > Why not pick a modern country with a better social safety net, lower inequality, and greater economic and class mobility? If you have no talent or ambition, that definitely makes sense. You are better off in Sweden, Germany, or France.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  The problem with the that quote is that "it's better now than before" is used my large political movements to justify cancelling the effort that got us here, and letting us backslide.
  - 6y ago

oska 6y ago

Somehow I think Buffett would have ended up a parasite in any society. There's always been a niche for the Buffett type.

wegs 6y ago
Why do you think he's a parasite? He seems to live a modest life, and work very hard to make the economy work more efficiently. He's giving almost all of his money to philanthropic causes, and seems to campaign for all the right causes. He maintains a pretty low profile for his level of success (he doesn't even support philanthropy through his own family foundation; he went with Gates, since he thought they'd do a better job). I think he's had about $10 million in frivolous spending in his life (a plane, and a home in California). I agree most people in the financial sector seem to be parasites, but Warren doesn't seem that way.
- oska 6y ago
  I think his claim to be a beneficial 'allocator of capital' is bogus. He tends to invest in established exploitative companies. His investments have been made on an almost exclusive basis of growing wealth, which in the end is a very sterile end to aim for. > I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty. — Buffett, quoted in Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco I agree he's led a modest life. I am somewhat dubious about his claims to be a philanthropist. I don't see exploiting the world (Buffett & Gates) necessarily redeemed by later posing as a philanthropist. None of this is meant as a critique of capitalism. Just a critique of the kind of sterile, exploitative capitalism that Buffett practises, that he then tries to dress up as philanthropy. "It's ok if I give away all my money at the end" - well he can't take it with him can he? And at 89, he still hasn't given most of it away anyway. Finally, here's a link to a much more detailed criticism of Buffett, if you're interested: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/special-investigation-the-dirty-secret-behind-warren-buffetts-billions/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/special-investigat...
  - unreal37 6y ago
    That article starts with an incorrect premise. "America isn’t supposed to allow moats, much less reward them. Our economic system, we claim, is founded on free and fair competition." That's called a straw man. No one has ever said America "doesn't allow moats" and that there is "free and fair competition". The whole point of business is, within the law, to build a moat that makes it impossible for a late-starting competitor to compete with you. Patents are moats. Immense capital is a moat. Brands are moats. Regulations are moats. When Disney pulls its movies from Netflix to start its own streaming service, it's using its moat to block a competitor. I bet almost every dollar you spend in your life goes to companies that legally try to stop you from spending money with their competitors. From your phone to your bank to your car to your airline. The Fed is currently propping up the price of assets through $3 Trillion of asset buying. This isn't a free economy.
    - projektfu 6y ago
      Funny, I thought the point of business was to exchange goods and services in mutually beneficial ways. The rest is rent seeking.
      - unreal37 6y ago
        That quote is probably right out of a business school textbook. Any Apple customer will tell you they "benefit" from spending all their computer and phone money with Apple. Apple trying to build a moat around their ecosystem doesn't preclude mutual benefit.
        projektfu 6y ago
        The vast majority of businesses are what I describe. The large economic profits are mostly rents accumulated by a small fraction of businesses, in a Pareto distribution. I argue we’d do fine with less of the rentiers.
        oska 6y ago
        I think most Apple customers will tell you that Apple products are too expensive. Most 'moats' are not beneficial to the consumer. What's beneficial to the consumer is competition, and companies innovating, not building moats, to stay ahead of their competitors.
- badpun 6y ago
  > He's giving almost all of his money to philanthropic causes His current net worth is $70b, for your statement to be true he would have to give away trillions.
  - bitcurious 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge One can be running a marathon and still have 40km left to run.
    - badpun 6y ago
      This only means that, so far, he's only talking about giving most of his money away, not actually doing it. If he'd be doing it at any significant speed, we'd be seeing monthly/yearly drops in his net worth.

wernsey 6y ago

Thanks for that. I have often thought that boy, I would really have suffered had I been born in medieval or Roman times because I don't know what I would've done if I didn't work in IT. I would describe the feeling as guilt, and it took me some time to just accept that things are the way they are.

cheerlessbog 6y ago
I figure without tech, I'd be a monk or clerk.
- karatestomp 6y ago
  From what I gather, the actual monk-monks in your average abbey, the ones doing the routine of daily prayers and reading & writing in an established and bookish order, were largely children of aristocrats or otherwise well-off. There were very few of these relative to the total population. The rest of the folks living at an abbey lived some of the routine but were largely excluded from the life of study and learning, instead doing manual labor to keep the place running. They were usually classified as something less than full brothers/sisters. Most weren't literate and there was typically no serious program or intention to make them so. Yes there were exceptions and various orders work differently, but talking about in general and during times when there were quite a few—though still not that many—full-on monastics sitting around writing commentaries on Augustine and such. Some orders took a work-and-prayer approach for everyone to keep their order afloat, but those generally seem not to have lasted long before morphing into collecting rents and relying on patrons. Turns out it's really hard to have a life of the mind & spirit without a bunch of other people working to support you—if you're doing the necessary work yourself, it's all you have time for, meanwhile a competing order nearby's adding a wing to their abbey with the money they're collecting from a share of a mill, rents on three commercial properties in town, and 30 acres of land worked by peasants, their wine cellar is full, and their abbot has significant influence in the court of the Duke. So. Maybe that seems like a better idea.
seisvelas 6y ago
Ancient Rome is legendary for engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_engineering There is this notion I see going around that in the past people survived by being brutish animals and smart people would have died quick. In fact, it's the opposite. We outcompeted other animals because we are NOT like them. Because we engineer. In a hunter gatherer society someone who builds traps, designs better huts or tents, etc could be extremely valuable. Buffet's self-deprecation is admirable but lacks imagination.

koheripbal 6y ago

...and that's why he also said on Monday: "If you took someone and asked them, without them knowing whether they'd be born boy or girl, black or white, with or without any relevant talent, or to rich or poor parents, and asked them when and where they'd like to be born. They'd answer, 'The US, in modern times'. There is no place on Earth, and no time in history, that a person can make the most of their talents, as today in the US. As hard as it is to be in the bottom 10% here and now, it would have been much worse any time in the past." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69rm13iUUgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69rm13iUUgE

nicbou 6y ago
Modern times, sure. The United States not so much. If you aren't sure about any other factor, you might want to be born in a society that provides most of its population with the tools they need.
ryanwaggoner 6y ago
There’s a subtle issue with that quote: one of the predicates is “with or without any relevant talent”, but the answer of the modern US seems to assume talent that one can make the most of. Why not pick a modern country with a better social safety net, lower inequality, and greater economic and class mobility?
- koheripbal 6y ago
  > Why not pick a modern country with a better social safety net, lower inequality, and greater economic and class mobility? If you have no talent or ambition, that definitely makes sense. You are better off in Sweden, Germany, or France.
lonelappde 6y ago
The problem with the that quote is that "it's better now than before" is used my large political movements to justify cancelling the effort that got us here, and letting us backslide.
- 6y ago