You say financial success as though it is completely independent of pretty much everything. "How could I be wrong, look how handsome I am"

To create great wealth in a vibrant capitalist society you have to have some model about the world you can exploit. It can be a better rocket design, some insight into human psychology that can help you raise money, or something else.

Some people fall ass backwards into money through luck, but that's rare, and people with great wealth don't have that luxury because they would squander it away and won't be able to grow what they have been given. At any extreme, you have to have both luck and skill. The best athletes are both incredibly gifted and incredibly hard working

They could be wrong on some things but to pretend they don't have a somewhat functional world model that is different enough from the consensus that it allows them to exploit it for great wealth is just naive.

I think the flip side would be "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" I prefer why aren't you happy myself, but sure, random person commenting on the internet about how the wealthiest people in the world don't know anything about the world, why haven't you exploited your superior knowledge relative to said billionaire to amass great wealth for yourself?

> You say financial success as though it is completely independent of pretty much everything.

I never made a suggestion that financial success is completely independent of anything.

> They could be wrong on some things but to pretend they don't have a somewhat functional world model that is different enough from the consensus that it allows them to exploit it for great wealth is just naive.

It's naive to think that financial success sometimes blinds people into thinking they are generally an expert in all areas?

> but sure, random person commenting on the internet about how the wealthiest people in the world don't know anything about the world

Also, never said anything to this effect.

> why haven't you exploited your superior knowledge relative to said billionaire to amass great wealth for yourself?

How could you possibly know if I have, or have not?

Your entire reply is effectively an unrelated tangent to what I said.

> Some people fall ass backwards into money through luck, but that's rare

You and I have vastly different mental models of the world. Or, at least, very different definitions of “luck”. For example, I would probably say that anyone who is rich through a “family business” has quite a bit of “luck” to thank (by my definition), except for the founder. And even then, the founder is usually “lucky” by connections (e.g. generous government contracts).

> and people with great wealth don't have that luxury because they would squander it away and won't be able to grow what they have been given

If I had to guess, it probably takes about an IQ of 90 to not lose generational wealth, unless there’s an addiction at play. Maybe even less.

The greatest philosophers are rarely the wealthiest people. Wealth generally comes from being presented with opportunities, putting in the work to make the most of those opportunities, and being lucky enough that they end up being good. Intelligence can be an asset here, but bigger assets are knowing people already in positions of power, already having resources you can leverage, and being willing sacrifice years of your life in pursuit of wealth. Those factors don't require you to be well reasoned, logical, or intelligent.

I think Marc might be referring to "navel gazing". If introspection is so important, we wouldn't need to do experiments to figure out what is reality. He could be advocating for Empiricism. You will find quotes like "If unsure, take a decision and make it right later. Don't get trapped in analysis paralysis". Basically two camps are fighting here : those who think reality can be figured out by thinking alone. and those who think we need to get out there and collect data and analyse it. I am personally biased toward Radical Conversatism.

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) was a British theoretical physicist and mathematician whose work on the Dirac equation (1928), which merged quantum mechanics with special relativity, predicted the existence of antimatter, specifically the positron. His approach to this discovery was deeply rooted in a mathematical philosophy that valued elegance, consistency, and a belief that nature is fundamentally mathematical, often placing him ahead of experimental validation.

Radical conservatism in physics, often associated with John Archibald Wheeler, is a philosophical approach that adheres strictly to established, successful principles—like quantum mechanics or general relativity—while pushing them to extreme, unexpected logical conclusions. It involves modifying as few laws as possible (conservative) while daringly following the math to radical insights.

Hmm, I think this statement needs some support "To create great wealth in a vibrant capitalist society you have to have some model about the world you can exploit."

Money simply invested in a market fund generally creates wealth, and that doesn't require a model of the world that's much more sophisticated than the average person's.

"Some people fall ass backwards into money through luck, but that's rare," This feels unsupported as well. How could you even attempt to quantify what percent of success is due to luck, much less establish confidence that this percent is going down?

> To create great wealth in a vibrant capitalist society you have to have some model about the world you can exploit.

As an individual? No. There's an interesting paradox here.

The paradox is that almost no matter what game you're playing, you want to play safe when you're winning and take chances when you're losing. That's what most rich people actually do, and naturally they take as few chances as they can.

But the richest of the rich, aren't going to be those. The very richest are going to be those who are comfortably winning, but still feel the need to take high-risk bets. Usually because of a pathological need to prove themselves.

A few of them, that is. For every Jobs, Musk etc. there's going to be twenty rich failsons who failed in their big bets. You just don't hear about them - why would you, they're now a much lower tier of rich.

So I don't think it's necessary to assume the super-rich has a better model of the world than average. Because of this effect, I think they're more likely to have deeply flawed models of the world, and in particular, deeply self-destructive personal values.

There are a number of recent antics from Musk and Trump in particular which I think can illustrate that well. You'd think they'd both be happier people if they were more content with what they had and weren't so eager to fuck up the world for the rest of us - but their messed up personal values get in the way of that.

I think the answer for most people is one of "I wasn't dealt the right hand of cards by fate" and/or "I don't want to spend my life acting like a sociopath and exploiting others for a small chance at great wealth."