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Comment by qanael | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure the largest predictor of your wealth during your life is whether you were born wealthy, regardless of how strategic you are.

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That's a tautology, like saying the largest predictor of how many languages you will speak is if you are born into a multilingual home regardless of how well your language centers develop.

The better metric would be correlating someone's socio-economic class at birth with deltas in wealth later in life. I'd be very surprised to find a radically different conclusion, but at the least it'll give us more actionable data. After all, trying to eradicate advantages-by-birth might be the most futile exercise in human history but maybe we can adjust for them as we grow to learn more about the statistical relationship.

> After all, trying to eradicate advantages-by-birth might be the most futile exercise in human history

A 100% inheritance tax would be nigh-impossible in practical terms but in abstract it would go a long way to further the end of creating a society more closely based on merit.

It might be predictive, but given that inherited traits exist and that there are selection effects that favor the stronger traits, that may not tell the whole story.

The thing about wealth transfer is it doesn't depend on genes at all.

I'm sure there are literal lapdogs endowed with more net worth and power than I have by their owners.

edit: I should clarify that wealth is not correlated with gene quality or fitness, but it may follow familial/social/emotional connections of the wealthy that seem to point to a "good lineage". Case in point: royal families

You misunderstand, I'm saying the traits that allow one to succeed (e.g. intelligence) can be inherited and correlate with the accrual of wealth. Though you are absolutely correct that social connections to other wealthy people create new opportunities as well.

Inheritance, assuming the families have on average more than one child in each generation and the split is even, dilutes a family's fortunes over time. It would be correct to point out that the rules of some dynasties take this into account (head vs. branch families) and prevent this.

Um, it almost tells the whole story. Other traits are hardly interesting compared with how much wealth you are born with.

I'm not disputing that one's starting position is important, I'm just saying it's not an unchangeable fact of life. One of the reasons YC exists is to help people find the opportunity to become wildly successful by making some of the necessary conditions (money, connections) more accessible to those with talent. And that's a wonderful thing.

Even for myself, I used to do grunt work in a factory. Now I work from home at a cushy software job thanks to things I obtained here. Maybe I won't ever make billions, or become the next Elon Musk, but I'm happy enough just to celebrate my own successes and work to improve my own lot in life.

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