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Yeah it is. Maybe you get some more tickets through passion and work but that's the full extent of it. You can be brilliant, passionate and set new levels of ha

by harry8 6y ago

Yeah it is. Maybe you get some more tickets through passion and work but that's the full extent of it. You can be brilliant, passionate and set new levels of hard work and not have your number come up. Most vastly wealthy inherited. Don't kid yourself. Risk is risk. The only inevitability is death. (Remember when that used to be "Death and Taxes." We should go back to when taxes were in that list).

mjburgess 6y ago
My point wasn't about luck. It was about the route to wealth. A lottery requires no specific sort of character. Making a million, often, does. The sort of determined character that isn't going to wake up one morning and "stop doing what made them rich". Because it was never about being rich, it was always about what they were doing. It's why Jerry Seinfeld, a billionaire, continues to do stand up. He's on stage for netflix, not "fishing".
- harry8 6y ago
  Bob Hope played golf because he didn't need the applause. Randy Newman says he does need it. So what? What's Jordan doing? What's Ringo Starr up to? It sucks that there's not much "justice" in getting hugely rich but the fact remains. All kinds of folks get there. All kinds don't. Some work hard. Some just fail upwards. Don't fall for the cherry picked BS of "which of you sublime charter traits ensured your success" It's crap and it smells bad too. "Get up early. Strike oil." Doesn't matter what style of person you are.
  - mjburgess 6y ago
    I don't think they're sublime. But they're pretty reliably present traits: autistical, narcissitic, risk-taking, etc. Don't fall for the leftwing resentiment of hating the rich either. The reality is that there's huge amounts of social mobility across all wealth brackets, and enmass, those moving in/out of the top 5% do have quite reliable characteristics. Eg., of the "top 1%" almost everyone in that class is only it in for, on average, 9mo in their entire lifetime. The risk-taking needed to get you there, equally, knocks you out. The reality of a functioning economy is that a certain kind of "competence" (even if its psychopathic) is selected for. Regardless of the handful of celebrities and strike-it-rich anecdotes you can analyse in tabloid fashion. The comment i was replying to expressed surprise that a rich person would be doing anything other than wasting time on a holiday: thus they express their (relative) poverty. Very few rich people would find it remarkable they weren't wasting time: that is precisely what they have never done.
    - harry8 6y ago
      > that is precisely what they have never done. That is /exactly/ what I'm disputing. To the point where you can't even generalise about so-called "self-made" rich people. But beyond that, I'm not left-wing. At all. There's nothing left-wing about being a bit contemptuous of the successful who believe their monetary success is proof of themselves as superior humans. And there are at least some successful people who agree with that. Takes all kinds. Some fail upwards.
      - mjburgess 6y ago
        I agree. But you're still slightly misreading/moralising my point. I'm not saying anyone deserves anything. I'm not saying anyone is superior. I'm saying that commonly, amongst people who become millionaires, you find a certain set of characteristics. In particular, you often find an obsessive interest in something which is greater than their desire to vacation or to spend frivolously: typically their business. Poorer people misunderstand wealth. To them it is essentially just a series of inexplicable lotteries, "falling up" as you say. But in functioning societies most people who become wealth don't just "fall up" -- there is a pattern to their personality (including risk tasking, say) which facilitates this movement.
        harry8 6y ago
        >I'm saying that commonly, amongst people who become millionaires, you find a certain set of characteristics. I continue to disagree strongly with this. There are /all/ kinds. We're now talking past each other. Some are successful for reasons one can attribute to their nature. Some just fail upwards. Really they do. It's actually hard to miss examples of this when you look a little critically. I'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion such people don't exist... Luck is always a huuuge factor, even among the best of us. Anyway, best.

by harry8 6y ago

mjburgess 6y ago

My point wasn't about luck. It was about the route to wealth. A lottery requires no specific sort of character. Making a million, often, does. The sort of determined character that isn't going to wake up one morning and "stop doing what made them rich". Because it was never about being rich, it was always about what they were doing. It's why Jerry Seinfeld, a billionaire, continues to do stand up. He's on stage for netflix, not "fishing".

harry8 6y ago
Bob Hope played golf because he didn't need the applause. Randy Newman says he does need it. So what? What's Jordan doing? What's Ringo Starr up to? It sucks that there's not much "justice" in getting hugely rich but the fact remains. All kinds of folks get there. All kinds don't. Some work hard. Some just fail upwards. Don't fall for the cherry picked BS of "which of you sublime charter traits ensured your success" It's crap and it smells bad too. "Get up early. Strike oil." Doesn't matter what style of person you are.
- mjburgess 6y ago
  I don't think they're sublime. But they're pretty reliably present traits: autistical, narcissitic, risk-taking, etc. Don't fall for the leftwing resentiment of hating the rich either. The reality is that there's huge amounts of social mobility across all wealth brackets, and enmass, those moving in/out of the top 5% do have quite reliable characteristics. Eg., of the "top 1%" almost everyone in that class is only it in for, on average, 9mo in their entire lifetime. The risk-taking needed to get you there, equally, knocks you out. The reality of a functioning economy is that a certain kind of "competence" (even if its psychopathic) is selected for. Regardless of the handful of celebrities and strike-it-rich anecdotes you can analyse in tabloid fashion. The comment i was replying to expressed surprise that a rich person would be doing anything other than wasting time on a holiday: thus they express their (relative) poverty. Very few rich people would find it remarkable they weren't wasting time: that is precisely what they have never done.
  - harry8 6y ago
    > that is precisely what they have never done. That is /exactly/ what I'm disputing. To the point where you can't even generalise about so-called "self-made" rich people. But beyond that, I'm not left-wing. At all. There's nothing left-wing about being a bit contemptuous of the successful who believe their monetary success is proof of themselves as superior humans. And there are at least some successful people who agree with that. Takes all kinds. Some fail upwards.
    - mjburgess 6y ago
      I agree. But you're still slightly misreading/moralising my point. I'm not saying anyone deserves anything. I'm not saying anyone is superior. I'm saying that commonly, amongst people who become millionaires, you find a certain set of characteristics. In particular, you often find an obsessive interest in something which is greater than their desire to vacation or to spend frivolously: typically their business. Poorer people misunderstand wealth. To them it is essentially just a series of inexplicable lotteries, "falling up" as you say. But in functioning societies most people who become wealth don't just "fall up" -- there is a pattern to their personality (including risk tasking, say) which facilitates this movement.
      - harry8 6y ago
        >I'm saying that commonly, amongst people who become millionaires, you find a certain set of characteristics. I continue to disagree strongly with this. There are /all/ kinds. We're now talking past each other. Some are successful for reasons one can attribute to their nature. Some just fail upwards. Really they do. It's actually hard to miss examples of this when you look a little critically. I'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion such people don't exist... Luck is always a huuuge factor, even among the best of us. Anyway, best.