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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

> accumulation of wealth with genius

Where did I say genius? They did something impressive so a useful model is to say "they know something about this world" or "there is something unique about them".

Not sure what you're referring to as anti-social behavior, but yeah I imagine extreme wealth generation means the person is likely to have some personal characteristic that could manifest as anti social. The smartest people I know are all ADHD or some other abnormality.

How exhausting must it be to think that anyone with success got so through illicit means or luck. It's much healthier to come in with the assumption that there's something to learn from that person.

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I think the crux of this is that wealth is equated with success at the expense of all other qualities or accomplishments.

As a result of this perspective, hoarding of wealth has become the norm and even the goal for many.

If wealth means success, then make number go up = success, even if that incentivizes bad behavior. If wealth means success, our role models become degenerates.

I am not making a moral judgement that wealth is success or should be pursued.

I am simply saying some people pursue wealth, like others pursue raising a family, excelling in a sport, starting a YouTube channel, whatever.

If they're successful at it, I assume they know something about the world.

Successful marriage and raising good kids: I assume you know something about psychology, the human condition, relationships

Sports: I assume you know something about training and hard work

YouTube: Marketing, trends, production

Starting a business and becoming a billionaire is another pursuit and if you're successful I assume you know something about the world. You're successful in the sense that you set out to start a business that made a lot of money and you succeeded. That is all.

I don't think pursuing one is greater than the other. I'm glad people in the world pursue all these things. Personally I don't want my children to try to become billionaires (or athletes, YT stars for that matter). If they have talents in this space, it may be worth pursuing but it's a great sacrifice in all other aspects of life. But chasing it without the talent or unique insight into the world would almost certainly fail.

> They did something impressive so a useful model is to say "they know something about this world" or "there is something unique about them".

It may be tempting to say "they must know something others don't" or "there's something unique about them." But that's exactly the kind of thinking GP is pushing back against. Whether or not you say "genius" or not is semantics. But it's true that in some cultures, being rich is seen as a sign of wisdom or superiority. I see it sometimes on HN and I've definitely seen in public discourse. But I can't relate very much to it.

This may be a cultural gap but where I come from, wealth doesn't carry that kind of moral weight. It's like, sure Alex might be super rich. But are they honest, humble, and kind? Those qualities matter far more than how much money and assets they have.

Yes, there are billionaires where I'm from too, but no one treats them as inherently special. What people truly admire are virtues like groundedness and community service. When someone uses their skills with sincerity and a spirit of giving, that's when people say, "there's something unique about them." And this is going to be true as much for a rich bloke as it'd be for a poor bloke. Wealth has nothing to do with it.

No one is talking about moral weight. You keep bringing morality into it.

A lot of people want a lot of money (for their family, personal or vanity purposes)

Some people accumulate a lot of wealth in their lifetime.

We can look to those people to gather insights as to how to accumulate wealth. We do that in literally every other field. People read about how Michael Felps or Lebron James trains, or how Magnus studies chess.

No one thinks James or Felps or Magnus are somehow morally superior, they're just good at their craft and work hard. If you want to get good at swimming, basketball or chess, it's worth considering insights they have into the craft. No one should treat any of these people special, but there is something unique about them and you can learn from people. That is all.

Some people have been indoctrinated into looking at others and feeling envy (cultural gap?) but don't be delusional into thinking its all random and there's nothing to learn.

I could agree with most of your comment except for this:

> Some people have been indoctrinated into looking at others and feeling envy (cultural gap?) but don't be delusional into thinking its all random and there's nothing to learn.

Envy is a natural human emotion. What do you feel envy about? Rhetorical question. Not expecting an answer unless you want to volunteer this information. I'm no psychologist nor a philosopher but I'd hazard a guess that whatever you feel envy about says something about what you or your culture thinks are desirable virtues.

It looks like you are somehow projecting your type of envy onto me and my culture. I don't think I've ever felt envy about someone being rich. Someone is super rich? Very good for them. I am not super rich but I earn well to live a comfortable life. Good for me too.

But I feel envy too when I meet someone who is an absolute gentleperson who is not only doing very well for their family but also for the community around them. I admire them. At the same time I feel envy.

Now, I'm not saying one envy is better than other. Not at all. I'm just saying cultural differences can be big and it's sometimes very hard to imagine or visualize each other's culture because our own culture seems so natural to us that the other culture seems unnatural.

So to your rhetorical:

> cultural gap?

Yes, absolutely!

> but don't be delusional into thinking its all random and there's nothing to learn.

Absolutely! A person who wants to become super-rich has a lot to learn from someone who is super-rich. I don't want to be super-rich. I want to be excellent in other virtues which I think were mostly indoctrinated by my culture. So I look up to people with those virtues and learn from them. That's kinda why we don't really look at a super-rich person and immediately think "there is something unique about them" (which is where this thread began above) even if it's true. But we do see a person with great community spirit and think "there is something unique about them".

Can you point to a billionaire who didn't achieve that fortune without some nefarious skullduggery going on? You don't earn a billion dollars, you take a billion dollars. They're all sociopaths.

It depends on from where, and while JK Rowling, Notch, Rhianna, Jim Simmons, and Taylor Swift's money isn't 100% absolutely clean, because that money comes from somewhere, they also aren't Saudi princes having people eat poop. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg might count. Dolly Parton isn't quite a billionaire in terms of dollars, but is proof that you don't have to be a shitbag to have a lot of money.

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