4 ms·

There are deliberate carrot problems, where the successful person deliberately misleads their audience as to the source of their success, and non-deliberate one

There are deliberate carrot problems, where the successful person deliberately misleads their audience as to the source of their success, and non-deliberate ones, where the successful people themselves doesn't understand why they are successful so tell people the narratives that make them feel the best about themselves. You see this often when someone with prodigious genetic ability doesn't want to admit to others or themselves that their success was determined before they were born, and not due to hard work or some immeasurable character trait.

achenet 3y ago
I think there's a lot of truth to the quote "hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". For top .0001% success in some fields (most sports, for example), you need genetic qualities AND hard work.
opportune 3y ago
I think it’s not that people with prodigious abilities don’t want to attribute that to their success so much as mentioning that as a factor comes across as very narcissistic and unlikeable (even if it’s true) unless you are literally an Einstein/Von Neumann type. For example, even Terry Tao has enough humility to self censor himself not to attribute his success to being a far-outlier-genius. In fact I’d bet a lot more people think to themselves that they are only successful because they are a genius than there are geniuses. Because it’s even more likely that coming from a highly rich or well connected family is truly the key factor in their success, and people would would much rather attribute success to talent or intelligence than daddy. It is definitely true though that prodigious talent isn’t by itself sufficient to be successful. Also, intelligence helping you is kind of a given - it’d be like an NBA player saying “being 6’8” really helps”. There are a lot of really tall people not in the NBA and a lot of prodigiously talented people who aren’t conventionally “successful” either.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  > ...people would would much rather attribute success to talent or intelligence than daddy. Where does one get intelligence from? Your intelligence is inherited from your parents (just like any other physical characteristic), so if your biological parents have an extensive influence on your upbringing, it's completely possible that both nature and nurture, almost your entire existence, all your qualities, can be reasonably attributed to the family into which you were born.
duped 3y ago
> You see this often when someone with prodigious genetic ability doesn't want to admit to others or themselves that their success was determined before they were born I don't think many people asked Yao Ming if being 7'6" helped with his basketball career, or Michael Phelps if his human flipper feet helped win a medal or two. But they have spoken at length about how they trained for their careers, and sane people can understand that being a genetic freak doesn't make you a world class anything. It predisposes you to success if you seek it - and both those people spent an enormous amount of their youth working to get there. The point is that success is not determined before you're born, and reasonable people understand that there's such a thing as variance in human anatomy.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Success in the NBA and most Olympic sports is probably ruled out before you are born. For those for which it is not ruled out, they are a vanishingly small subset: good genes, born in stable country, family wealthy enough to afford training from a young age, parents who support/force the training. (I met an Olympic windsurfing candidate; he was tall, fit, relatively financially independent, born to a community near big lakes with friends enjoying the sport, and obsessed with the sport.) Success financially (depending on what threshold you use) is largely ruled out by birth for most everyone ever born. Exceptions occur, and some places and time periods may have afforded the opportunity to more people, yet always a sliver. So technically success isn't entirely determined before you're born. But for most it is at least off the table, unless the threshold is very low or they are exceptionally lucky and driven.
- atleastoptimal 3y ago
  Being a genetic freak isn't sufficient but is necessary to be world class

achenet 3y ago

I think there's a lot of truth to the quote "hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". For top .0001% success in some fields (most sports, for example), you need genetic qualities AND hard work.

opportune 3y ago

I think it’s not that people with prodigious abilities don’t want to attribute that to their success so much as mentioning that as a factor comes across as very narcissistic and unlikeable (even if it’s true) unless you are literally an Einstein/Von Neumann type. For example, even Terry Tao has enough humility to self censor himself not to attribute his success to being a far-outlier-genius. In fact I’d bet a lot more people think to themselves that they are only successful because they are a genius than there are geniuses. Because it’s even more likely that coming from a highly rich or well connected family is truly the key factor in their success, and people would would much rather attribute success to talent or intelligence than daddy. It is definitely true though that prodigious talent isn’t by itself sufficient to be successful. Also, intelligence helping you is kind of a given - it’d be like an NBA player saying “being 6’8” really helps”. There are a lot of really tall people not in the NBA and a lot of prodigiously talented people who aren’t conventionally “successful” either.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
> ...people would would much rather attribute success to talent or intelligence than daddy. Where does one get intelligence from? Your intelligence is inherited from your parents (just like any other physical characteristic), so if your biological parents have an extensive influence on your upbringing, it's completely possible that both nature and nurture, almost your entire existence, all your qualities, can be reasonably attributed to the family into which you were born.

duped 3y ago

> You see this often when someone with prodigious genetic ability doesn't want to admit to others or themselves that their success was determined before they were born I don't think many people asked Yao Ming if being 7'6" helped with his basketball career, or Michael Phelps if his human flipper feet helped win a medal or two. But they have spoken at length about how they trained for their careers, and sane people can understand that being a genetic freak doesn't make you a world class anything. It predisposes you to success if you seek it - and both those people spent an enormous amount of their youth working to get there. The point is that success is not determined before you're born, and reasonable people understand that there's such a thing as variance in human anatomy.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Success in the NBA and most Olympic sports is probably ruled out before you are born. For those for which it is not ruled out, they are a vanishingly small subset: good genes, born in stable country, family wealthy enough to afford training from a young age, parents who support/force the training. (I met an Olympic windsurfing candidate; he was tall, fit, relatively financially independent, born to a community near big lakes with friends enjoying the sport, and obsessed with the sport.) Success financially (depending on what threshold you use) is largely ruled out by birth for most everyone ever born. Exceptions occur, and some places and time periods may have afforded the opportunity to more people, yet always a sliver. So technically success isn't entirely determined before you're born. But for most it is at least off the table, unless the threshold is very low or they are exceptionally lucky and driven.
atleastoptimal 3y ago
Being a genetic freak isn't sufficient but is necessary to be world class