The intellectual dark web

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Care to comment on the example I gave or are you only interested in (capable of?)drive by comments?

Honest question: Do you believe that the average employee in any given organization can perform as well or better than the CEO in the CEO's chair, if both individuals were afforded the exact same starting point in life?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Honest question: Do you believe that the average employee in any given organization can perform as well or better than the CEO in the CEO's chair, if both individuals were afforded the exact same starting point in life?

I'm not sure I buy this observation, but some say:

21 percent of CEOs are psychopaths.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.05cc4642dfe9

https://www.psychology.org.au/news/m...er2016/Brooks/

[Matata]

To be CEO of a large corporation, you need to spend decades working 60-120 hour weeks, accumulate a great deal of wealth, out fox the other people doing the same, and then come to the conclusion that what you need to do, is work more. Of course they're ####ing psychopaths.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Honest question: Do you believe that the average employee in any given organization can perform as well or better than the CEO in the CEO's chair, if both individuals were afforded the exact same starting point in life?

The correlary is do you believe that CEOs if placed in different initial life circumstances would have the same outcome of becoming a CEO.

I don't think the average employee would be better than a CEO but given the cohort of workers that the CEO started with I would be willing to bet that a small % of them would be better if given the identical work path. (I'm not sure how big that % is but I don't think the selection method through a career and the actual job of a CEO line up to optimize performance.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

...but I disagree with the notion that the individuals who succeeed do so as a result of being naturally smarter and more productive than others.

Given this, how would you explain the positive correlation between high IQ and high levels of income?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by you&me

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Not at all. You should re-read the post I was responding to and my full response to it instead of taking one sentence out of context to make an argument against.

The number of people that achieve any meaningful level of success, despite not being naturally smarter and / or more productive than others are the exception. A complete anomaly. A fluke.

Opportunity matters. Some people don’t get the same opportunities as others regardless of how intelligent or productive they are. It’s really that simple. A company could make a clone of their CEO to be an exact match in every way, but only one of them will be able to be the CEO of that company despite being identical candidates because the opportunity would not be there for both.

Telling yourself otherwise might be comforting ("he's not smarter than me, he's just luckier" or "She doesn't work harder than me, I just got a ####ty break"), but that's all it is.

I wish I could pretend things like nepotism and economic barriers didn’t exist.

Through my career and work experience, I'm fortunate enough to meet and interact with a lot of very successful people, like the top 1% of the 1%. I can say, without exception, than none of the people I know in this group are anything but exceptionally intelligent and (at least and one point in their lives) highly productive. I'm sure some of them have been extremely lucky and some of them might be ####ty people, but none of them are anything less than intelligent and hard working.

What does this have to do with what we’re discussing? I haven’t stated that people who are successful aren’t hardworking or intelligent. I was arguing against Dirac’s position that successful people are successful because they are naturally smarter and more productive than the population at large because it ignores a number of factors that can contribute to or limit success.

Top 1% or the 1% eh? If you happen to run into Galen Weston jr would you mind asking him if he beat out all other candidates to become CEO of Loblaws due to his intelligence and productivity or if there were other factors involved and let us know what he says? You can do the same if you happen to run into Ivanka Trump as well.

I think most in this conversation seem to agree that there are a number of factors that contribute to overall success. I suppose opinions will vary when it comes to the degrees of importance of those factors, but (IMO), the single greatest common factor when it comes to determining success is intellect.

I don’t disagree that it is a very important factor, and it may be the most important one.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Not at all. You should re-read the post I was responding to and my full response to it instead of taking one sentence out of context to make an argument against.

It wasn't taken out of context. The rest of your post was a fabricated example. The part I wanted to address was the part I quoted.

Opportunity matters. Some people don’t get the same opportunities as others regardless of how intelligent or productive they are. It’s really that simple. A company could make a clone of their CEO to be an exact match in every way, but only one of them will be able to be the CEO of that company despite being identical candidates because the opportunity would not be there for both.

I wish I could pretend things like nepotism and economic barriers didn’t exist.

Of course opportunity matters, but an individual still has to be able to take advantage of any opportunity. There are very few low-intelligence individuals that can be come very successful based solely on opportunities. Again, they would be the exception.

What does this have to do with what we’re discussing? I haven’t stated that people who are successful aren’t hardworking or intelligent. I was arguing against Dirac’s position that successful people are successful because they are naturally smarter and more productive than the population at large because it ignores a number of factors that can contribute to or limit success.

Top 1% or the 1% eh? If you happen to run into Galen Weston jr would you mind asking him if he beat out all other candidates to become CEO of Loblaws due to his intelligence and productivity or if there were other factors involved and let us know what he says? You can do the same if you happen to run into Ivanka Trump as well.

Like I said, I acknowledge that there are exceptions and outliers.

However, I would take exception with your use of Galen Weston as an example (and the snarky undertone).

Under his stewardship, Loblaws has been a roaring success. It is also a publicly traded company and if he weren't at least qualified (if not the most qualified, then he would likely not be the CEO, regardless of his last name and any implied nepotism. To put it another way, if he had different parents and a different upbringing, he may not have become CEO of Loblaws, but I would expect that he would still be successful.

I don’t disagree that it is a very important factor, and it may be the most important one.

I think everyone generally agrees. Knowing a lot of "successful" people, I sometimes take exception with any notion that they generally don't "deserve it" and are only there through dumb luck, being part of the lucky sperm club, screwing someone over or a dirty combination of all three. Of course there are examples out there, but those are an infinitesimally small portion of "successful" people and I feel the vast majority of successful people probably deserve more credit for their position in life than what is generally afforded to them.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by GGG

He also had unlimited access to computers when very few people in North America did and had a good support system in place that allowed him to seize the opportunity.

Untrue. Gates and Allen had none to very limited access to computers and had to resort to stealing computer time from their university computer which they got in trouble for. They later had to rent computer time from a time-sharing service and mostly wrote code by hand on paper and punch tape.

That's the kind of intelligence, work, and dedication in lieu of having tools to actually achieve something. Contrast with some people today who say they can't even attend a lecture without having the highest end Macbook on which to take notes. (I'm guilty of that sometimes)

[GGG]

Is intelligence an attribute that you do not control like race therefore stupid people don't have equality of opportunity?

[DiracSpike]

Yea, essentially. Life is easier for some people, some have naturally higher ceilings of achievement. File it under example 103847594029 of life being not fair. But it's folly to try and legislate through all these natural differences, that's why I argue that allowing high achieving people to succeed enriches all of us as they invent cellphones, cars, planes, etc.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by GGG

Is intelligence an attribute that you do not control like race therefore stupid people don't have equality of opportunity?

You don't really have control over anything about yourself, in the sense of libertarian free will anyway, so literally everything is in this category. But in terms of what's influenced by genetics, yes, intelligence is quite heavily.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Honest question: Do you believe that the average employee in any given organization can perform as well or better than the CEO in the CEO's chair, if both individuals were afforded the exact same starting point in life?

The results would likely vary greatly from one organization to another but I suppose it’s possible.

[dre]

Originally Posted by GGG

No being equal under the law is not equality of opportunity.

I think this is the error in logic that many people make. The law does not eliminate prejudice or provide mitigations for poverty. So if the initial conditions are different for different people you can't say the opportunity is equal.

My conception differs from yours.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by dre

My conception differs from yours.

Then you don't believe in equality of opportunity. You believe in equality of treatment under the law.

[CliffFletcher]

The traits that correlate most strongly to success in life are intelligence and delayed gratification. To make life even more unfair, both traits are significantly heritable.

There's a place for society to try to mitigate the negative effects of structural inequality and lack of mobility. But that doesn't mean we should pretend the non-structural factors that play a big part in outcomes don't exist. This is where the progressive left has a lot in common with the religious right, in their suppression of science that doesn't suit their sacred values and narratives.

[dre]

Originally Posted by GGG

Then you don't believe in equality of opportunity. You believe in equality of treatment under the law.

I would rather discuss this over a cold pint of beer.

[Bunk]

Maybe the thread title should change to all things so called "Intellectual Dark Web"

[GirlySports]

To call intelligence heritable is a slippery slope.

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

My point though is in a capitalist system made up of consensual transactions, people generating wealth usually do so by creating products or services which everyone uses. These people are naturally smarter and more productive than the population at large so freeing them to rise above makes them richer yes, but also creates products for the rest of us. Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, etc

I think most success comes from those that are not only smarter and more productive, but have the gift of foresight. They ask themselves the question, "What do people need now and are going to need in the foreseeable future?"

This idea became evident to me by tracing my family history. I learned how six Irish brothers, who emigrated to Canada in the mid 1800s because of the potato famine, were successful in establishing their own business. Two were bakers (everyone has to eat), three owned hotels (everyone has to have a roof over their heads), and one owned a hardware store (everyone has to repair stuff).

Of course other factors come into play, like access to capital, ability to take risks, and in exercising many of the basic rules of life penned by Peterson.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Untrue. Gates and Allen had none to very limited access to computers and had to resort to stealing computer time from their university computer which they got in trouble for. They later had to rent computer time from a time-sharing service and mostly wrote code by hand on paper and punch tape.

That's the kind of intelligence, work, and dedication in lieu of having tools to actually achieve something. Contrast with some people today who say they can't even attend a lecture without having the highest end Macbook on which to take notes. (I'm guilty of that sometimes)

Didn't one of Gates' teachers think him going to start a software company is a giant waste of his talent and smarts?