Seriously. Jeff Bezos got super-rich by literally being bad at his job.
Failing upwards
It is a meritocracy … whoever can be the most ruthless, greedy, selfish, egotistical, ignorant, arrogant, immoral, unethical and wicked can more easily become enormously wealthy.
For someone with a bit of ability, knowledge and training, they can easily make thousands fleecing the elderly, poor people, widows, or the mentally challenged. It takes a really ruthless person to do it but it is relatively easy money.
You can also become a drug dealer and buy trade and sell illegal, immoral and life destroying drugs and easily make a lot of money fast.
Someone in a developing country can also start a small business based on slave labor, children or indentured workers paid little or no money.
And that’s just the bottom of the barrel. Professionals in first world countries deal with these people to generate wealth for themselves. Then billionaires sit on top making more money on those below them … all the wealth if you follow it is based on taking advantage of weaker individuals. The whole system is based on taking advantage of lesser people.
It’s a meritocracy … a meritocracy of immortality, whoever can become the most depraved gets to win the world.
EDIT: … it’s amazing because I just finished watching this the other night
https://youtu.be/-FcRj3HHS7I?si=-7hua35Ad3npmsoo
Basically a con artist that stole money from elderly, physically disabled and mentally challenged people, made millions and now lives the lap of luxury outside the country and no one can do anything about it. The infuriating part of it is, it wasn’t just him, there was a whole chain of lawyers, bankers, financial people and professionals that either enabled him, supported him or just allowed him to do what he did because everyone was making money … off of poor people!
The rich don’t magically get rich by being nice to others … they get rich because they abandoned their morals a long time ago and collect their money from as many poor people as possible, either directly, indirectly, secretly or distantly. And the wealthier they become, the more easily it is for them to do it and get away with it.
The system is built for abuse and moral depravity … is it any wonder we are destroying ourselves little by little.
I think all the temporarily embarrassed billionaires are downvoting you. In their meritocracy they will be considered the worthy who can take everything, not these imposters like bezos. (bezos is a removed…)
While the system does select for psychopathic behaviors, it’s not a meritocracy because you don’t need to be exceptional at being ruthless, greedy, selfish, egotistical, ignorant, arrogant, immoral, unethical and wicked to become enormously wealthy. There are plenty of deplorable people who never make it big under capitalism. It’s mostly just a birth lottery. People who are lucky enough to be born into money, who end up having family connections, and are plugged into the oligarchy are the ones who statistically make it.
And there are actual studies showing that luck is the major factor
Nice paragraph and NASCAR is trash
I would do so much to improve the world if I had even one billion dollars. Rocket ships don’t help the homeless. Mars won’t solve the lack of money in education. A car flying through the void of space does not create public transportation. A mega yacht doesn’t feed the hungry.
Please let me handle your money, billionaires. You’ll look so good at the end of it.
While Musk is undeniably a massive dickhead, let’s not devalue space exploration because of him. Many things we rely on today such as GPS, certain types of medical treatments and drugs, even eye surgery, were only possible due to the advancement of space technology.
Rocketships don’t help people directly, but for isntance, they put satelites in orbit that help farmers have a more precise control and understanding over their crops, putting more food on our plates.
You’re right. I don’t mean discredit all space-related activities. Satellites help make our world function, and rockets are needed for that.
I meant to emphasize the desire to go to Mars. I see no net-benefit for the world. It’s a vanity project.
I mean the super rich generally did a lot of things on their way there. The wake up call is usually around the things they do and people they exploit, not equating the difference to dumb luck.
Millionaires often worked for their money. Billionaires often worked for their first millions too. Problem is, difference between a billion and a million is about a billion.
On the other side of the argument, the amount of people that work harder and smarter than any given billionaire and have nothing is simply staggering. If it wasn’t down to luck, they’d all be billionaires.
So yeah, it is dumb luck. Randomness is not uniform, and someone ends up being close to the time and place of a local spike.
I would say that willingness to exploit other, be selfish and have low ethic also play a big role.
Except life is much more complicated than that.
Working hard and being smart doesn’t equal to having lots of money.
Luck also doesn’t equal having lots of money. How many “lucky” people have won the jack pot? And lost it all in a manner of months/years?
Not saying luck doesn’t play a part maybe even a huge part but it just seems silly to attribute someone’s success to luck.
Please reflect on the fact that until you joined the discussion, we didn’t talk about equating success to luck.
Afterwards, you will likely notice that your jackpot argument reinforces mine.
Please reflect on the fact that until you joined the discussion,
Please lets not be condescending here. I will rephrase, instead of success I will say wealth. I used the two interchangeably as many people judge your success based on your wealth.
we didn’t talk about equating success to luck.
Didn’t you say this here.
On the other side of the argument, the amount of people that work harder and smarter than any given billionaire and have nothing is simply staggering. If it wasn’t down to luck, they’d all be billionaires.
Wealth itself is a stronger predictor for future wealth than individual performance.
That quote of mine doesn’t talk about success, nor wealth itself for that matter. You’re ignoring everything in the message to argue against a statement that was never made in the first place.
Wealth itself is a stronger predictor for future wealth than individual performance.
I agree with that.
Yes just saying it’s only luck is just wrong.
Even the rich (not the super billionaire rich), yes they had luck but there is definitely more. Like I work as a freelancer in software development. Lots of people I have worked with are smarter and more talented than I am, but I still make more money. Because they never took the risk of going freelance and keep working for a company that takes halve the money a client pays.
Some people just don’t like to take risks
These super rich people usually took big risks, worked for almost free for a while until it started to pay off. Of course for every billionaire there a 1000s of people that took the same risk and completely failed.
If you can take multiple large, failed, risks without ending up on the street then you have immense privilege.
It’s hard for most people to “learn from their failures” and keep taking “big” risks, unless the risk to their own life circumstances was never actually that “big”.
I don’t think it’s immense privilege. Like when Zuckerberg started Facebook he was 19. When I was 19 I lived with my parents and had almost no costs. I also just partied and didn’t even try to start anything.
I’d say luck will sometimes make you rich, and being good at what you do will sometimes make you rich. Being good at what you do and also lucky has more of a chance of making you rich
It’s *usually not entirely luck, you generally have to sort of know what you’re doing
Is that Nigel Mansel?
I thought it was Keke Rosberg. The mustache checks.
It’s Dale you damn animals
Removed by mod
I was born in America and had to do absolutely nothing to be better off than at least 3 billion people. I’m very lucky and this system is completely unfair
Seems like the conclusion of the article ends up admitting luck plays a large role. From the article you linked: “It is important to note that this research can not explain why a particular individual does well or poorly financially. Luck, timing, parents, choice of spouse and many other factors play important roles in shaping an individual’s circumstances.”
Except IQ is psuedoscience, and so its a predictor of nothing
It’s a predictor to how much fascist violence you’re going to be subject to.
Here’s the catch: When we say “wealthy” or “financially successful,” those are really squishy terms. One person may mean the attorney down the street bringing in a cool quarter million each year from her practice. Another person may mean billionaires.
The linked study mentions correlations between IQ and earnings in the 5 figure range for the highest IQs. Wealth inequality is so out-of-control, the curve so steep, that the highest IQ people have an annual earnings advantage in the dollar range of what the super-rich collect in mere seconds.
The billionaires would need to have 5- and 6-digit IQ scores for the correlation to hold up. Bill Gates does seem pretty smart, but not that smart. Jeff Bezos seems slightly above average. Maybe. Elon Musk has an IQ above room temperature, for sure, but clearly not by that much.
So, given that wealth inequality is so stratospherically high, I read these memes as complaints about the super-rich, not your cousin who owns a large plumbing contractor business.
How lucky one would be to have those successful personality traits. Oh wait…
I guess if you think about it that way then everything is luck and we live in a deterministic world where none of your choices matter. That still wouldn’t support the argument in the OP meme though.
