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Comment by stinkbeetle

14 hours ago

> It’s not that surprising that many successful people seem to be strong fans of heritability, or more broadly, of the idea that metrics like IQ point to some sort of “universal independent” metric of value. To do otherwise requires living one’s life in cognitive dissonance; how could they be worthy of such riches while others struggle to just pay the bills?

It doesn't require any such thing. It doesn't take a super genius to understand the roles of chance and circumstance have on one's lot in life.

I agree it doesn’t take a super genius to understand that, but it does require something like deep emotional intelligence and ethical sense for someone immensely successful to truly accept that chance and circumstance may be largely responsible for their success.

There aren’t a lot of billionaires out there acting in a way that shows this. At best, they give the idea some lip service.

  • > There aren’t a lot of billionaires out there acting in a way that shows this

    What would that be?

    • Complex question that depends on one’s ethical views, but I’d say not pushing the idea that inequality is good, or retweeting people that are obviously ideological making heritability claims, is a good start.

      From there, the sky is the limit. Directly helping underserved communities access the same networks/resources is another. A handful of billionaires have also donated their entire wealth, but the laudability of that depends on your ethical stance of course.

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