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Comment on J.K. Rowling and the Chamber of Literary Fame

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Financial wealth and intelligence are also uncorrelated, probably because of wealth's dependence on butterfly effect like initial conditions (race/sex/parents/country/economy), inertia, path dependence, network effects and random environmental variables (being the lucky one out of a group of 1000s).

It is a liberating experience when one finally realises that the world truly is a random place, and that a great many things that occur in one's life are not in fact a product of one's own actions, but rather those of extraneous conditions that are forced upon us.

It's also incredibly depressing.

To randomness.

It turns out that, while wealth and intelligence are uncorrelated in most studies, income and intelligence are positively correlated.

Wealth is dominated by inheritance and outliers, so this is less surprising than it first appears.

Financial wealth and intelligence are also uncorrelated,

I wouldn't be surprised, because nobody gives you money because you are smart. You have to make a sustained, focused effort to create things of value in order to obtain wealth.

Intelligence without drive is like a car with a powerful engine but no wheels. One of the smartest guys I've known worked as a janitor and never had any money - while being smart, he just never stuck with something long enough to make it pay off.

"great many things that occur in one's life are not in fact a product of one's own actions"

Well, this also implies that none of our actions have any foreseeable outcome. And since we're defined by our own actions, that means we have no means to define ourselves. And that's a scary proposition.

It also means we can just watch TV all day, and our chances of making it are the same as someone who gets out and hustles. I don't buy that for a minute.

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