Reddit Reddit reviews Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy

We found 9 Reddit comments about Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Business & Money
Books
Economics
Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy
University Press Group Ltd
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9 Reddit comments about Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy:

u/Randy_Newman1502 · 7 pointsr/badeconomics

A better financial history type book is the Reinhart & Rogoff one.

As long as you are building a list, let me share my to-read list after I finish reading my current book:

u/Bgolshahi1 · 6 pointsr/niceguys

Agree totally here -- social media skews perception, and these issues are too individualized. Psychology is much more complicated than simply being told something one way or another. People often develop things like learned helplessness and may require therapy to work through issues or challenges. This is one big reason I hardly use Facebook at all. Too much direct comparison can drive you mad!

A bit of an aside but if you think about it the way the system is set up affects these outcomes. Bullying in schools for example is affected by wealth inequality. Why? Because people's status is either implicitly or explicitly related to their level of wealth. When I was growing up I felt marginalized, spent a lot of my time playing video games, and as I grew older it was difficult to make up for the necessary social skills and how to talk to women I hadn't developed as well as more extroverted peers as a result.

More people would have all of those things if the society we lived in wasn't so massively imbalanced. As wealth equality gets better within society, so does every other indicator of happiness, including in relationships. That's why places like Denmark is considered one of the happiest places on earth along with Sweden.

It's true that someone will always lose - but how much do they lose by and by how much is dependent on how the society is stratified. In a hyper competitive capitalist society the "winner" however you define that is the one with the most wealth period - and the way to win the game is not always about providing what people need in a system, merely what is profitable. And if you're a "winner" you'll have an enormous piece of the pie while someone who is arguably nearly as skilled but lacking in opportunities statistically ends up with far far less.

https://www.amazon.com/Success-Luck-Good-Fortune-Meritocracy/dp/0691167400

The individualistic language of "self care" makes a broader societal and social issue your fault:

https://thebaffler.com/war-of-nerves/laurie-penny-self-care

This applies to all aspects of life, and certainly in relationships. In more egalitarian counties, gender roles are more balanced for men and women and studies show this leads to more happiness:

http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/gender-equality-key-to-wealth-and-happiness-in-nordic-countries.27-03.html

In a hyper capitalist society, incentives are more skewed by monetary gain. So the one who makes the most money attracts a much larger share of attractive or or otherwise desirable women. In other words, it's like a pyramid shape -- dating also becomes much more competitive than it actually need be, and this leads to a lot of misery as people are more lonely.

Then the solution people tell you is well stop focusing on it so much and focus on this instead -- but that's just a slogan. It's not reality -- people have real human needs. But in terms of strategy being able to train oneself to be more social is what helps a ton. It's a skill like any other -- and it's true that those of us who began life as introverts may have a certain ceiling we can hit relative to others but ultimately socializing is a skill and can be vastly improved with practice.

Bit of a rant I went on there but I'm kinda high hahaha

u/Jackytar · 3 pointsr/askphilosophy

Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy

Just released title on this topic by economist Robert Frank for those interested.

u/chemiesucks · 2 pointsr/GetMotivated

How the hell stupid is that? You're trying to equate luck in betting against luck in career? It's looking at superstition you Maroon. Clearly not the same. The stats applied to gambling are the same stats applied to a career. There's no such thing as a talented slot lever puller. Just like in a career, it's hardly the the most talented that rises to the top.

>Now introduce chance by randomly assigning each participant a “luck” score. That score, however, can play only a tiny role in the ultimate outcome, just 2 percent compared with 98 percent allotted to skill. This minor role for chance is enough to tilt the contest away from the top-skilled people. In a simulation with 1,000 participants, the person with the top skill score prevailed only 22 percent of the time. The more competition there is, the hardest it is for skill alone to win out. With 100,000 participants, the most skilled person wins just 6 percent of the time. http://www.bloomberg.om/news/articles/2016-09-01/why-luck-plays-a-big-role-in-making-you-rich


Perhaps since you clearly don't like reading, not even your own source, you can give this a listen

And if you want something you can really ignore...

u/sanderica · 2 pointsr/SandersForPresident

Instead of "impulsively rejecting opposing points of view", I suggest that you take the time to analyze data, math and logic and see whether your arguments are valid. I am NOT trying to say hard work is useless, but only that EVERYONE MUST properly acknowledge the role of luck in life. It is VERY EASY (especially in the face of success) to dismiss luck and appropriate all success to hard work and brains, but that is disingenuous.

You will see many "good humble rich" immediately acknowledge the role of luck in life. See Bill Gates and Buffett mentioning that they have been very lucky in life. Bill Gates does it without math (I think he mentioned that his high school was the only school with an advanced computer when he grew up in Washington State) and Buffett gives example WITH math. I am not "siding with them" at all and I don't subscribe to their philosophies, but suggesting some articles that you can read on this topic.

https://www.amazon.com/Success-Luck-Good-Fortune-Meritocracy/dp/0691167400

u/ILikeSmug · 1 pointr/todayilearned

The article only addresses starting wealth, dispositioning approximately 60% of the crowd as having significant starting handicap. Of the remaining ~35% the article does not discuss their network (e.g., maybe daddy didn't give them $10MM at age 18 but he got them a cherry job, or held back the competition, or somehow influenced the playing field), or simply having a big leg up from parents paying for things like college and making sure there's a safety net. They hint at the latter (born in the batters box) but still attached a numerical money figure to it, when in many cases simply having a leg up and not a big check is enough to tip the playing field, but I'm putting too fine a point on the wrong issue.

More importantly, let's not forget the MASSIVE role luck plays. This book is fantastic ... https://www.amazon.com/Success-Luck-Good-Fortune-Meritocracy/dp/0691167400/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472582341&sr=8-1&keywords=Success+and+Luck%3A+Good+Fortune+and+the+Myth+Meritocracy .. essentially such a small # of people make it huge because of sheer dumbass luck.

I think there's only one person on the planet (hyperbole) who qualifies as rags-to-riches and that's this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Johnson_(inventor)

Poor family. Genius in highschool. Lots of scholarships. Invents a widget that everyone wants. Done and done.

TL;DR. The idea that someone can become a self-made billionaire requires so many lucky / privileged events that the term "self made" is radically incorrect. The narrative implies anyone can do it through puritanical perseverance, and that, clearly, is false.

u/Option_Select · 1 pointr/Destiny

Read this here:
Clicky

The book basically makes the argument that in Winner-Take-All contests, even though all contestants might be very skilled and worked very hard, the winners (people who get the sought after jobs) are almost always the luckiest and not the best.

Luck can be defined as genetic, social or truly random circumstances , like your competitor getting the flu on the day of the interview, that put you ahead of your competition without being earned.

>Destiny later says he's never heard of someone who gave it their all at something and never made it.

Depends on the skill people develop. If it's a Winner-Take-All contest for a very lucrative position that requires a very specific skill that has no carry-over into other fields, then chances are very high that people will not make it.
If it has some carry-over and you can take a position further down, then one can argue that the contestant expended too much effort trying to get the position and did not get rewarded appropriately.

u/DarthRainbows · 1 pointr/philosophy

The economist Robert Frank has just written a book called Success and Luck talking about the importance of luck in success.

I have not read it, so can't say if its any good or not. Might want to check it out if you're interested though.

u/CothSin · 0 pointsr/vancouver

You can always see it from both sides... know how many shop owners work hard and fail? know how many people try to become a doctor but don't?
Doctors are also not the best example, take a look in the corporate world and see how many people try to succeed but dont.
Your statement is quite ignorant :).

Here you can read some about it:
https://www.amazon.ca/Success-Luck-Good-Fortune-Meritocracy/dp/0691167400/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=