6 ms·
If only more billionaires would start sounding as aware as this 95 year-old one: > But Lady Luck is fickle and – no other term fits – wildly unfair. In many ca
by neilv 1y ago
If only more billionaires would start sounding as aware as this 95 year-old one:
> But Lady Luck is fickle and – no other term fits – wildly unfair. In many cases, our leaders and the rich have received far more than their share of luck – which, too often, the recipients prefer not to acknowledge. Dynastic inheritors have achieved lifetime financial independence the moment they emerged from the womb, while others have arrived, facing a hell-hole during their early life or, worse, disabling physical or mental infirmities that rob them of what I have taken for granted. In many heavily-populated parts of the world, I would likely have had a miserable life and my sisters would have had one even worse.
> I was born in 1930 healthy, reasonably intelligent, white, male and in America. Wow! Thank you, Lady Luck. My sisters had equal intelligence and better personalities than I but faced a much different outlook.
> [...] A Few Final Thoughts [remaining 7 paragraphs possibly directed at current events]
- andsoitis 1y ago> Dynastic inheritors have achieved lifetime financial independence the moment they emerged from the womb, while others have arrived, facing a hell-hole during their early life or, worse, disabling physical or mental infirmities that rob them of what I have taken for granted. In many heavily-populated parts of the world, I would likely have had a miserable life and my sisters would have had one even worse. Yes, this sounds unfair to our individualist ear. However, I am also cognizant that there could be another lens that is more top down, not acknowledging our sense of individuality, but rather a layer at the species level with crests and troughs distributed and fluctuating across the individuals that come into existence and whose offspring HAS to be affected by the uneven environment in which they find themselves. An organic feature of the natural world?
- Tostino 1y agoWhat other creatures show this kind of hoarding pattern in nature? Storing more of a thing than can (reasonably) be used in hundreds, or thousands of lifetimes? I don't know of any (others) that do so, and then pass the hoard down through the generations.
- tomrod 1y agoChipmunks and Squirrels.
- kelnos 1y agoDo they hoard unnecessarily, or do they hoard what they need to get through winter months, without much surplus?
- SoftTalker 1y agoThey hoard instinctively. They can't count; they don't have a sense of "this is enough." They hoard until it gets too cold, then they hibernate/hunker down until it gets warm.
- formerly_proven 1y agoSquirrels don't really hoard in the sense trillionaires do ("gathering a great quantity for one's own private collection"), they take seeds and bury them all over the place, which is meaning #2 in the dictionary ("save in one's mind for a future need or use"). The squirrel and other animals eat them later, the 50+% nobody finds to eat can take root. That way, squirrels play an important role in seed dispersal for many species of tree. I suppose the trillionaire analogy would be they themselves investing money.
- MattPalmer1086 1y agoI remember reading recently that it had been disproved that squirrels can actually remember where they bury all their nuts and seeds. Maybe some, but quite a lot they cannot. They end up eating food buried by other squirrels as well as their own.
- fruitworks 1y agoyou're splitting hairs. Squirrels evolve to save more food for themselves, everything else is an accident
- marcus_holmes 1y agoI have found that it's incredibly hard to get successful entrepreneurs to acknowledge that a lot of their success is down to luck. I think it's got something to do with the Protestant Work Ethic - that if they were smart and worked hard then they "deserve" their wealth , but if they just got lucky they don't "deserve" it. So acknowledging that luck played an important part in their success gives them bad feelings, and they don't want to feel bad. Conversely there's a lot of unsuccessful entrepreneurs who blame bad luck entirely for their failures. There's a lot of "I didn't deserve that. I worked hard, I made smart decisions. I should have succeeded".
- cal_dent 1y ago“All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage“
- bawolff 1y agoAt the same time i dont think luck is something prople really want to hear about. It makes a terrible story. You can't emulate luck, you can't control luck, you can't explain luck. I suspect luck has less to do with Buffet's fortune than most billionaires since he's in investments, so he gets compared to other hedge funds with similar starting resources. He seems to have made it work over the long term and not just had one lucky break.
- wbl 1y agoChance favors the prepared mind.
- MonkeyClub 1y agoAnd compounding works wonders over the long run. Apparently he started his first investment at age 11. 8 decades is a long time to compound even at low rates.
- adrianN 1y ago