[Xotol]

(Original post by TheJ0ker)


All the ideas that made these people super rich was down to luck and not down to creativity and intelligence?

I think you misunderstood the point. There are a lot of different factors that contribute to people becoming 'super rich' (or successful) outside of their own creativity and intelligence... and that's not even including what may have happened to get their creativity/intelligence to that state in the first place that would probably have been completely out of their control.

(Original post by funsongfactory)
Yeah someone who works 20 hours a day isn't responsible for being more successful than someone who works a normal 9-5 day...

In certain situations, yes, but it's worth bearing in mind that the opposite scenario happens quite a bit too. Hard work isn't everything; it's more a combination of a huge amount of different factors that are both under and outside their control, unique to each individual.

[A.J10]

(Original post by jacketpotato)
That its not what Obama said, its an outrageously misleading headline. What he actually said was this:

“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges.”

If this is what he actually said, then I couldn't agree more. Stephen King had a similar thing to say here. Yes, these people worked hard, but they worked hard within the system of government and education and markets and so on that helped them get to their position. Never forget the help you got along the way.

The one argument that gets on my nerves is "but the wealthy people create jobs", because they rely on these jobs to earn their money just as much as the employees rely on them to create that job.

[Joinedup]

Fair enough, some parts of the world you can have a bright idea, work hard, start to make more money and get ahead in life... And then have some prince, warlord or other robber just decide that your business is his business now.
People born into those sorts of countries didn't do anything to deserve it. american teabaggers aught to remember that it's their taxes maintaining the structures of civil society that allow productive capitalist wealth creation to occur.

[TheJ0ker]

(Original post by Xotol)
...

By the same argument you could say the best sportsmen and women aren't responsible for their own success, you could extend it further that no one in this world is responsible for their on success/failure. So really what's the point in the argument?

[A.J10]

(Original post by TheJ0ker)
By the same argument you could say the best sportsmen and women aren't responsible for their own success, you could extend it further that no one in this world is responsible for their on success/failure. So really what's the point in the argument?

He's not saying that they're not responsible for their own success, he's saying that it's silly to say that hard work was the only factor in their success.

[Elipsis]

So he is essentially using predetermination as an argument to tax wealthier people more? That's a new one. Yes, there is a strong argument that we are born into a world with our fixed DNA acting in it, and we therefore don't have freewill or any control over which direction we go in. But i'd rather just play the game and pretend that we all have a part to play in where we end up life.

[thealpz]

That's just stupid, if we say that everything is predetermined then life makes no sense at all...
You are determined by your genes and the conditions that you lived in. That would mean that we have no free will at all, and we just do what we were programmed to do, and that's kind of depressing :/

[A.J10]

(Original post by Elipsis)
So he is essentially using predetermination as an argument to tax wealthier people more? That's a new one. Yes, there is a strong argument that we are born into a world with our fixed DNA acting in it, and we therefore don't have freewill or any control over which direction we go in. But i'd rather just play the game and pretend that we all have a part to play in where we end up life.

Where did you get predertermination from? I don't have thr source (people have neglected to post it) but apparently the thread title was rather misleading.

[A.J10]

(Original post by thealpz)
That's just stupid, if we say that everything is predetermined then life makes no sense at all...
You are determined by your genes and the conditions that you lived in. That would mean that we have no free will at all, and we just do what we were programmed to do, and that's kind of depressing :/

Go ask a neuroscientist about free will You start to get all depressed and melancholic. Best thing to do is ignore it and move on with life.

[thealpz]

(Original post by A.J10)
Go ask a neuroscientist about free will You start to get all depressed and melancholic. Best thing to do is ignore it and move on with life.

That's what I've been doing

[Ajibola]

So hard work isn't a factor?

[Elipsis]

(Original post by A.J10)
Where did you get predertermination from? I don't have thr source (people have neglected to post it) but apparently the thread title was rather misleading.

O I went straight to posting. Saying that there is an element of luck in being successful cannot be denied, but I don't think it is completely luck. If I had to put a number on it i'd say it was 50:50.

[Llamageddon]

Maybe it should be rephrased as "solely responsible".

[funsongfactory]

(Original post by akash11)
Does eveyone have the oppertunity to work 20 hours a day? Does eveyone have the oppertunuity to work/find a field where the wealth you put in proptional to the wealth you get?

If you don't choose to work in a field where you have the option of putting in the hours and the hard work to become wealthy then that answers the whole question of this thread - that in choosing not to work in a field where wealth was a possibility, you were responsible for your own lack of success, and thus vice versa the wealthy are responsible for their own success.

[thealpz]

(Original post by Ajibola)
So hard work isn't a factor?

Hard work is a factor, but the amount of work you are willing to put in is determined by your genes and the way you were brought up and all the things that influenced you in life.

If I am correct, tha author says that you are not responsible for anything because everything you are is a product of your genes and influences in life

[Aramiss18]

Hard work IS NOT proportional to wealth and I'm fed up of people blindingly parroting this without considering it fully. There are millions of people who work incredibly long hours, in poor conditions all their lives and get squat likewise many people who are wealthy who haven't completed a hard days work in their lives. There are many factors including education, stability of family whilst growing up, values instilled by parents/peers etc. Also, whether or not what you happen to be good at is marketable.

Let me ask many of you would-be lawyers, economists,doctors etc whether or not you truly believe you work hard for your potentially career making grades or whether you are fortunate enough to have a natural aptitude for study? Honestly, some people could work twice as hard as me and never get to where I am in my field of study and it took me a long time to realise that my natural aptitude didn't make me any more deserving than them- just lucky.

[Benniboi1]

(Original post by Miracle Day)
I agree.

For the past 2 days I've been in a magistrates court and out of about 20 cases I've observed only 2 of them didn't look like complete wasters who were brought up in good homes. The others were chavs that grew up on estates that have been offending and re-offending since they were juevenille.

You could take Mother Theresa, let her grow up the same way as these criminals have and she'll be a chavvy slag who sells herself for heroine.

I may not agree with your taste in music, but I certainly agree with you on this

I've got a lot of respect for Obama for saying this because I doubt I would even say it when having a chat with mates at the pub because they would probably kick off about how ridiulous it is to think like that.

Cameron would never say something like that, he's too busy trying to look cool all the time.

[emthedrummer]

(Original post by Aramiss18)
Hard work IS NOT proportional to wealth and I'm fed up of people blindingly parroting this without considering it fully. There are millions of people who work incredibly long hours, in poor conditions all their lives and get squat likewise many people who are wealthy who haven't completed a hard days work in their lives. There are many factors including education, stability of family whilst growing up, values instilled by parents/peers etc. Also, whether or not what you happen to be good at is marketable.

Let me ask many of you would-be lawyers, economists,doctors etc whether or not you truly believe you work hard for your potentially career making grades or whether you are fortunate enough to have a natural aptitude for study? Honestly, some people could work twice as hard as me and never get to where I am in my field of study and it took me a long time to realise that my natural aptitude didn't make me any more deserving than them- just lucky.

This.
A lot of people put a lot of bloody hard work in to rubbish jobs and get really low pay for it. A lot of people put a lot of bloody hard work in to top-end jobs and get really high pay for it. And some people don't put any work in at all, and have low aspirations, and what causes a person to get like that? Nature or nurture?

Not to sound big headed, but I'm so lucky to have parents that have pushed and supported me and to have a natural aptitude for academics. And I do work hard, but that's because I was brought up to believe education is your ticket out, since my parents never really had the opportunity till later in life, and I'm so grateful for it. Other people haven't had anywhere near the opportunities I've had, who am I to say that's because they haven't worked as hard as my parents or as me?

Edit:

(Original post by Benniboi1)

Cameron would never say something like that, he's too busy trying to look cool all the time.

LOL. True.

[Xotol]

(Original post by Aramiss18)
Hard work IS NOT proportional to wealth and I'm fed up of people blindingly parroting this without considering it fully. There are millions of people who work incredibly long hours, in poor conditions all their lives and get squat likewise many people who are wealthy who haven't completed a hard days work in their lives. There are many factors including education, stability of family whilst growing up, values instilled by parents/peers etc. Also, whether or not what you happen to be good at is marketable.

Let me ask many of you would-be lawyers, economists,doctors etc whether or not you truly believe you work hard for your potentially career making grades or whether you are fortunate enough to have a natural aptitude for study? Honestly, some people could work twice as hard as me and never get to where I am in my field of study and it took me a long time to realise that my natural aptitude didn't make me any more deserving than them- just lucky.

I think 'working hard' is a misnomer in this instance. If anything, it's about working smart (cliche, I know, but still...)

While natural aptitude may sometimes a factor, people who invest their time wisely are more likely to be successful than someone who spends hours and hours working towards nothing.

[NB_ide]

(Original post by Drewski)
My point is though that the same could be said about thousands if not millions of other people. But they're not billionaires. Not even millionaires. What's the difference? Among a few things it'll be work ethic. They worked extremely hard to make their products work. It's not all blind luck.

"working hard" is the most meaningless and ****y concept there is. How can it be measured? How can it be ranked? Why do you think that "effort" correlates well with achievement, and how do you even define effort/work?

The luck/chance that people are talking about goes far beyond "omg they grew up in America" kind of thing. The history of any successful business, say, is basically a string of crossroads and junctions, one road being taken from each that at the time the operators could not have possibly known would lead them to where they are today. At the same time, a thousand other people and companies were doing exactly the same thing but simply didn't make the right choices. These grand games are subtle and complex, it's not like digging a hole where whoever grafts the hardest and longest will dig the biggest hole. It's about cleverness, wit, manipulation and fortune.

If, when working towards something, it feels to you like hard work then you can bet you'll never be comparatively successful. Because to someone else it feels easy, natural and not like work at all, and they'll always beat you no matter what you do.