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I would upvote this as insightful if we were still on Slashdot. These one-man pioneers like to further the impression that they are the sole reasons for their
by dm319 5y ago
I would upvote this as insightful if we were still on Slashdot. These one-man pioneers like to further the impression that they are the sole reasons for their success, but the reality is that we all build on the shoulders if giants. I am not shitting on his ability to make his endeavours successful - I am just saying that the proportion of his responsibility for it is much lower than most people think.
I'm not sure what it is about some societies that like to make a single person out to be an idol. We see it in team sports, scientists who work in large teams, businesses where CEOs are deemed several thousand times more of a factor than other workers, medicine where doctors are placed on pedestals. I guess people like a hero, and the alternative explanation, that hundreds of hard working and bright people came together to make something happen, is less compelling.
- andrepd 5y agoI would also mod your comment insightful ;) Egocentric individualism makes people forget that everyone, absolutely everyone, is indebted to people past and present, from his current fellow co-inhabitants of earth to the past generations all over the world that bequeathed him the world and the culture he inherited.
- newbamboo 5y agoAd hom is pushed by the media because “small minds talk about people,” and that sells ads/clicks. Another example beyond personal fanboyism is the vilification of a person which surpasses rationality. Or the vilification of other groups of people. In all of these you will see fundamental attribution error, ignoring the situational factors and placing all perceived agency on the individual, like most all of our media were doing from 2016-2020. The reality is, few humans are all that important in and of themselves, and those that are often have become so as the result of external factors like the quality of the people that surround them, or “luck.”
- _qzu4 5y ago> small minds talk about people This rings so true for Elon Musk fanboys. I also like the full quote, "Small minds talk about people. Average minds talk about events. Great minds talk about ideas."
- browningstreet 5y agoMusk mentions both his team, and his family office, in his communications to Twitter, and includes transcripts of those in his SEC filing.