Wealth does not make you smarter

http://scripting.com/2014/01/31/beingWealthyDoesNotMakeYouSmarter.html

by jaredsohn • 12 years ago

66 73 12 years ago

windupgirl• 12 years ago

Lovely piece. Really. I know from my own personal experience that the time in my life where I most successful by the society surrounding me standard I was also the most unhappy. Sure, financial wealth helps you in certain areas in life and alleviates some worries, but in the long run others can creep in instead and you don't end up happier. It's that mix of being appreciative of other people from all walks of life and finding gratitude for what you have that I think can help you be happier. My thoughts anyway. Great piece.

RankingMember• 12 years ago

I agree that wealth allows you a greater degree of freedom to be isolated from the rest of humanity. Really, though, I think (as he alludes in the final lines) that this isn't a uniquely-"rich guy" issue. The not-rich who are sequestered geographically (rural areas) or people who shut themselves away on purpose are in equal danger of being out of touch with reality. These people are the ones most-susceptible to the subtle perspective-distortions of media, whether they originate from Fox News or MSNBC.

smtddr2• 12 years ago

>wealth allows you a greater degree of freedom to be isolated from the rest of humanity.

Not just giving you the freedom to be isolated; it pretty much forces it. You almost cannot live among the middle class if you're rich. Imagine living in some middle-class area then suddenly you win the lotto; 674 Million dollars.

It would take the strongest of will-powers to stay where you are and not move to some millionaire neighborhood; if only for safety-reasons. And you probably don't need your fulltime job anymore. And to learn how to maintain that money, you'll probably have to spend more time with people of the same financial level. Suddenly, most of your time is with the elite rich in your neighborhood & meetings & parties. Any friendships you had previously will probably fade away slowly, except the _closest_ friends you've known since you were a kid or something. You just won't have that much in common to talk about anymore. Dan will be joking about how he really wanted the white yacht, but his wife wanted the light-grey one while you sip coffee at a cafe in paris or something.

Or... the most humble way you could maybe do it is... http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/

I like to think I'd be like Jerry if I'm rich, still mellow and can enjoy sitting down at a humble coffee-shop chattin' about life.

noonespecial• 12 years ago

Counterpoint: Warren Buffett

Edmond• 12 years ago

I think it is fairly easy to live amongst middle-class folk regardless of how much money you have. It is a matter of knowing how to live rich (it takes skills:) )... I think you can easily find upper-middle class towns and neighborhoods where you can live amongst normal people without concern for your safety.

It is even easier if you move to a big city where wealth doesn't isolate.

Personally I have never gotten the appeal of rich people moving to exclusive areas, I think I would feel very boxed-in in such environments...but again I have never been rich :)

aestra• 12 years ago

It would take the strongest of will-powers to stay where you are and not move to some millionaire neighborhood; if only for safety-reasons.

Why would you need to live in a millionaire neighborhood for safety? It isn't like you'll be keeping wads of cash around. You can get alarms and such, and I'm sure that will be fine. I doubt you'll be a target anyhow, especially if you live in a modest house.

And to learn how to maintain that money, you'll probably have to spend more time with people of the same financial level

Once again. Why?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/lottery-winners-spend-money/s...

Mannix's ShopRite has been lucky once before. Six years ago, a group of 10 bakery employees split a $19 million ticket. Nine of them, says Mannix, decided to keep working and are still on the job. None went wacky or became a drunk or wound up in jail. Some, he says, "bought their dream house." Others salted away the money, to be used later to pay for college for their grandkids. Some paid off mortgages. A few took trips. "They didn't spend foolishly," says their boss. "They're hardworking, blue collar people. It's a great story with a great ending."

I also saw a special about celebrity lives and some famous country singer lives among the common folks, she does her own laundry, cleaning, shopping, lives in a modest middle class house, etc. People are sometimes surprised to see her at Walmart.

I know someone who lives in the same town as the guys from the TV show American Chopper. I don't know how wealthy they are, but they have a popular TV show and successful business at least so they must be pretty well off. She has seen them around doing shopping and such.

EDIT: According to http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/paul-te... the older American Chopper guy has a net worth of $15 million.

badman_ting2• 12 years ago

Hmm, maybe. But midtown Manhattan, and more generally corporate America, are their own sort of ideological bubble. I would probably substitute "out of touch with reality" for "out of touch with what people in coastal cities think" in what you wrote.

ghaspland• 12 years ago

I agree with this sentiment. Everyone exists in some sort of bubble created by their geography, culture, ethnicity, wealth, etc. It's an inherent limitation of the human mind. The claim that the rich are more out of touch than the poor or middle-class is to simply place a value judgement on whose "reality" is more "real". For instance, does the fact that the average lower income american have a substantially better existence than millions in rural Africa, India, and Asia make them out of touch with reality? Isn't it probable that a poor Somalian would say that an American working at Walmart who complains about his or her suffering is "out of touch" with "reality" as defined by the majority of humanity?

My biggest concern with American politics is that everyone sees the other side as evil or wrong. We could have a much more productive debate if we did a better job of understanding the positions rather than just dismissing them as "out of touch with reality".

blakeweb• 12 years ago

Agreed, the author paints it mainly as a rich vs not-rich divide, and while he in the end admits that it's broader than that, the core of it seems to be the country/suburbs vs city-dweller divide. Do you want to be in the mix of all the humanity happening, or do you want to stay away from it? For the last several decades, you don't need to be what we'd call rich to live in the suburbs. At least in most of the US.

thesimpsons10223• 12 years ago

one of those channels has a much larger and stronger distortion field. I'm tired of false equivalencies.

sokrates• 12 years ago

Related: Being smart doesn't automatically make you wealthy.

maxerickson• 12 years ago

As originally stated, Godwin's law was an observation.

Any thread about fascism that gets shut down by someone chirping 'Godwin' can't have been that interesting to begin with.

Edit: It's even a sardonic observation, lamenting the quality of effort that has someone screaming "NAZI" over some piffling matter.

nullc• 12 years ago

Thank you for pointing out that its a sardonic observation, this goes too often omitted— and it's an omission that had irritated Mike Godwin greatly.

crimsonalucard4• 12 years ago

I'd rather be wealthy than smart.

gamerdonkey• 12 years ago

I disagree with this sentiment, but you could not have stated it more perfectly.

crimsonalucard4• 12 years ago

Would you pick 20 IQ points over 20 million dollars? I guess it would depend on how rich you already are...

izzydata• 12 years ago

than

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crimsonalucard4• 12 years ago

fixed

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rahimnathwani• 12 years ago

I'd rather be wealthy then smart.

Did you mean:

I'd rather be wealthy than smart.

I'd rather be wealthy, then smart.

EDIT: crimsonalucard corrected the typo in their comment

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chadwickthebold• 12 years ago

If any rich people would like to get closer in touch with the rest of humanity, I would like to offer my services by taking one half (50%) of your money. You will then be less rich and more happy and I will be less poor and more happy.

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vmarsy• 12 years ago

Isn't what socialist countries do ?

Tax more the richest to be able to tax less the poorest so that overall the poorest are more happy ?

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Jtsummers• 12 years ago

What you're describing is progressive taxes [1]. Those predate socialism by a good bit, and have been present in the US for over 150 years. And in England even longer, certainly predating any notion of "socialist countries".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

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bananacurve• 12 years ago

Money is root of evil today, but if you ask for any rise it's no surprise, they're giving none away.

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PeterWhittaker• 12 years ago

Doong chinkachink dung dung dung dung

(Well, that's as close as I can get to that particular riff. It's hard to spell a riff. Especially one that sounds like a cash register.)

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nostrademons2• 12 years ago

So, I'll agree that wealth does not make you smarter.

I think, though, that people are missing the broader point of Scott Adams' piece: what is being said is being buried underneath how it was said. And yeah, it was pretty stupid of Tom Perkins to phrase things in a way that invites everyone to immediately focus on how he said things rather than on his actual point.

But I'm neither wealthy nor famous, and I'll come out and say this: I believe that the underlying emotional motives behind the protests in the San Francisco are the same underlying emotional motives behind the Holocaust. In both cases, you have people worried that their fundamental economic survival is threatened, unaware of why it's threatened or what to do about it, and looking for a scapegoat (techies in SF, Jews in the Holocaust) to blame for it. That does not mean that I believe there will be another Holocaust, or that the magnitude of these two is anywhere close to equivalent. But I do think it's worth focusing on the substance of people's concerns and addressing them before it becomes a situation where such concerns are warranted.

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badman_ting2• 12 years ago

It's still wrong, and deeply intellectually dishonest. Perhaps there are similarities, but we can find similarities between many things, no? Rich, or relatively wealthy, people moving into SF are causing real problems. The ideological function played by "the Jew" in Nazi thought does not resemble this.

The reference point is wrong - I am more reminded of pro-life campaigns. A flyer made the rounds recently, identifying the residence of a Google employee and going on to describe how he had assisted the military. The implication is that this is a violent person, and violent acts against them are therefore justified. This resembles the info pro-lifers would publish about abortion doctors, implying the same - any actions taken to stop/hurt/kill this person are justified. I expect a George Tiller-like scenario to happen.

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skybrian• 12 years ago

He has a point (yes, it's scapegoatism), but the counterpoint is that these protests are pretty marginal. They're news because they're unusual.

Making extreme comparisons exaggerates the seriousness of the issue. This is nothing compared to what people who do genuinely controversial work have to deal with all the time.

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walshemj• 12 years ago

Agreed its similar to the well know quote "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools" where some progressives in the 19th century embraced antisemitism blaming jews for the ills of capitalism.

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lexcorvus• 12 years ago

Perkins' analogy was tone deaf but, as you note, not completely out to lunch. A much more apt analogy would have been to the French revolutionaries, particularly the Jacobins. Characterizing the anti-tech protests as neo-Nazi is a stretch at best; characterizing them as neo-Jacobin isn't a stretch at all. Indeed, with the rising popularity of publications like Jacobin (https://www.jacobinmag.com), it's even a label they might wear with pride. After all, what could possibly go wrong with liberté, égalité, fraternité? Um, this? http://bit.ly/1n3dnrS

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melindajb3• 12 years ago

comparing it with the french revolution is appropriate in many ways. The message should be clear--if they persist in their Marie Antoinette ways, someone will pick up a brick. if that happens, we all lose, the middle class in many ways worst of all. that's why this guy upsets me to no end. I don't fault him being rich, I fault him and people like him, like the Kochs for ruthlessly lobbying for lower taxes and less support for the poor.

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sd8f9iu2• 12 years ago

I don't think Tom Perkins was thinking of the San Francisco protests in his letter, and if he was, then he is delusional as to the current state of class relations in the US. Protests in one city over problems that are not endemic to the entire country (skyrocketing housing prices, for example) are not a rational justification for accusing the opposition of Nazi attitudes. Protests aside, inequality is a major problem in the US right now, and Perkins' response is out of touch with reality.

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melindajb3• 12 years ago

he actually mentioned the SF protests in his interview with bloomberg, so you would be correct about his delusions.

I quote:

Now I used the word because during the occupy of San Francisco by the Occupy Wall Street crowd, they broke the windows in the Wells Fargo Bank. They marched up through our automobile strip on Venice Avenue and broke all the windows in all the luxury car dealerships. And I saw that. I remembered that the police just stood by frozen. And I thought, well, this is how Kristallnacht began. So that word was in my mind, but I did – I don’t necessarily need to read from this letter, but if you’re interested I can."

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rayiner2• 12 years ago

That's reductio ad absurdum. You can take pretty much any conflict between groups of people and reduce it to: Group X feels its economic survival is threatened; looks for a scapegoat in Group Y to blame for it. Conflict between fast food workers and restaurant companies, car companies and auto workers, car dealerships and Tesla, can thus all be analogized to German persecution of Jews.

Do people who are suffering and feel threatened, sometimes lash out at people who they see aren't suffering? Sure. Is building an entire editorial on this unremarkable observation a sign that your strengths lie more in spreadsheets than public discourse? Surely.

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Crito4• 12 years ago

"That's reductio ad absurdum. You can take pretty much any conflict between groups of people and reduce it to: Group X feels its economic survival is threatened; looks for a scapegoat in Group Y to blame for it."

Because you are correct, because it is possible to reduce (most) conflicts down to that, it is therefore vital to realize that and come to gripes with that. We aren't going to go anywhere pleasant by ignoring the underlying issues (hatred fueled by economic disparity and jealousy) just because the scapegoats are softer targets who are more fun to pick on.

"Tech workers [are] spending their energies figuring out how to put ordinary people out of work"

Neo-luddism. The solution is social reform, particularly focusing on reeducation and safety-nets for those who can no longer productively contribute, not smashing machines.

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michaelochurch2• 12 years ago

I believe that the underlying emotional motives behind the protests in the San Francisco are the same underlying emotional motives behind the Holocaust.

What. The. Fucking. Fuck. You could not be more offensively wrong on this one.

In both cases, you have people worried that their fundamental economic survival is threatened, unaware of why it's threatened or what to do about it, and looking for a scapegoat (techies in SF, Jews in the Holocaust) to blame for it.

No. What fueled the Holocaust was not economic anxiety. That probably drove the acceptance of political extremism in general. But behind the Holocaust was a belief that some races were immutably inferior and should be extinguished in the (abused) name of "eugenics".

Before Hitler, Germany wasn't any worse in terms of racism than other European societies. There were respected and prominent people in the U.S. and Great Britain with the same disgusting views. Still, you cannot seriously argue that what turned mid-century Germany into a mass murder machine was economic anxiety. It was racism.

"Techies" (I fucking hate that word) are not a race.

Take a "techie" out of the Valley and confiscate his Google Glass and he's just a computer programmer and no one has a problem with him. Move him to a city without a dysfunctional housing market (say, to Austin or Portland) and he's likely quite welcome. On the other hand, being ethnically Jewish is not something a person can change.

No one hates "the rich" as some immutable class. Aside from criminals (who are motivated by greed, not hatred) virtually no one targets anyone for violence because he is rich. What people are reacting to is behavior-- often, really shitty behavior that even most people in tech despise. Behavior, unlike bloodlines, can be changed.

"Techies" are being asked to stop being assholes. Jews in Nazi Germany, on the other hand, had armed men coming to kill them, and if they tried to escape or hide in attics, the people who assisted them were also killed.

No comparison.

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melindajb3• 12 years ago

thanks for saving me the time of writing this reply. I'd add that billionaires are not being prevented from marrying non billionaires, nor are they being forced to walk around with patches signifying their possession of an attribute <i>that cannot be changed</i>. To that end, no one's suggesting we create forced work camps where billionaires are put to death. No, what people want is a fairer system. And people like Tom Perkins and this poster can't seem to separate the two.

For such smart people, some of the people on hacker news are just stupid. For the last time, the analogy doesn't work, it's inappropriate, and those who persist in this line of thinking really should have their heads examined.

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codegeek3• 12 years ago

"But I don't think being rich equates to being smart."

Possibly. It depends how one got rich. Did they inherit wealth from previous generation ? They may or may not be "smart" by the book. But if you got rich on your own (think entrepreneur, gambler whatever), then I am sure there is some element of smartness involved but the important thing is to define smartness. For example, are you smart with money management? Boom, you could possibly get rich over time if you do it right. stuff like that.

Overall, I think that being smart is necessary but not a sufficient condition (hello logic class) to be rich on your own. What do you all think ?

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jaredsohn• 12 years ago

Based on what you just said, smartness is not necessary for wealth.

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codegeek3• 12 years ago

you are right. I updated my comment with "on your own".

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thesimpsons10223• 12 years ago

one can be smart or gifted in their field but not very logical or intelligent about other things. also, logic and intelligence aren't neccesarily linked. so you can be smart but irrational.

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Iftheshoefits3• 12 years ago

"Becoming rich" and "being smart" are entirely unrelated except by the occasional chance correlation. The wealthiest people alive today either started wealthy or born into affluence. Very few individuals ever "become rich" when starting out in the middle- or lower classes, regardless of their intelligence.

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Crito4• 12 years ago

"The wealthiest people alive today either started wealthy or born into affluence"

I would expect that depends on what bar we set for "rich".

Is the bar: "1%"er billionaires? Then you are probably right.

Is the bar: "SF Tech workers"? Well newsflash, most google employees are not trust-fund babies.

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beachstartup• 12 years ago

smart money management doesn't buy you a mansion in woodside, which is the kind of rich the author is talking about. you aren't going to save your way to being larry ellison's neighbor.

that kind of money is either inherited or made by founding companies. only one of those involves smartness, and i'm pretty sure that's the kind of rich he means.

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codegeek3• 12 years ago

agreed. That's why I said necessary but not sufficient.

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pfisch• 12 years ago

People who are "gamblers" win powerball like lotteries very frequently...

Of course a lot more of them lose.

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klochner• 12 years ago

It's neither necessary nor sufficient, unless your definition of "smart" is "not severely learning disabled". Many many people get rich on their own without having a ton of smarts.

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keithwarren• 12 years ago

He was doing real good up until the last paragraph, then he threw in some playground BS and called half the country stupid because they don't agree with him. It added nothing to his point, in fact it detracted from it.

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adaml_623• 12 years ago

It may have detracted from his argument but it isn't playground BS and you shouldn't call it such. If you parse each of his sentences he quite likely means them in a serious way.

The fact is that many poor Americans seem to oppose the implementation of some government policies designed to help them as poor people. This is a very frustrating phenomenon from a liberal perspective.

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debacle• 12 years ago

Wealth doesn't make you $x, but it's nice.

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thesimpsons10223• 12 years ago

idk why but it really bothered me when he threw in a "imho" in the middle of the article. the rest was well written and it felt out of place and made him lose some credibility.

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danielweber2• 12 years ago

Sometimes ordinary people, not rich, act like they're inbred rich people. I think that's what the Fox News phenomenon is all about, and why people vote Republican

Yes, people who have different beliefs than you are stupid and/or have been tricked. It's not possible they genuinely have reasons for their beliefs.

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rwj• 12 years ago

If two parties disagree, then one side (or both) must be wrong. Someone has made a mistake (or been fooled...). This doesn't justify becoming arrogant, but trying to identify errors in the reasoning of one or both parties is certainly part of rational debate.

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waterlesscloud• 12 years ago

"If two parties disagree, then one side (or both) must be wrong."

There are any number of cases where this is obviously not true.

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joshyeager• 12 years ago

Or they could have different incentives, relationships, or resources. It is completely possible for two parties to be simultaneously correct and yet totally incompatible.

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brryant• 12 years ago

Before I clicked through I thought the subtitle would be, "you don't need to be smart to be wealthy". Still sort of applies.

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dfraser992• 12 years ago

This is a good article - kudos to Dave Winer. It hits upon a crucial factor in the psychological divide between the "poor" and the "rich". I am remembering now of articles on how the psychological distance between economic classes is a factor in how the upper classes behave. One, there was an article on how the rich in India treat everyone else as nothing but chattel. Ok, it's India with its caste system, but economic class is tied to other social status categories as well. The second is how the children of the upper upper classes are effectively taught that everything in life is nothing but essentially a financial transaction, and if you aren't gaining the upper hand, or a profit, then you are a loser. This they learn from their interactions with their parents. I think this was a 'Atlantic' article, IIRC. The psychological implications are obvious.

To add to this, I've been in the UK for 6 years now and have had some dealings with the upper middle classes - not quite rich, but the 'aspirational' rich whose focus is on maintaining their status and ever climbing upwards. This sort of thing goes on in America, sure, but ... I guess I'd say most of the UK is 'working class', which corresponds to 'middle class' or lower in American terms - but the strivers whom Thatcher idolized / glorified tend to be very nasty people, be they Labour or Tory. Rich people who know their place, who know that their wealth is nothing but effectively a roll of the dice and who are able to understand ... "humanity" and whose values are not predicated upon their status, and exploitation of everything they can exploit, but on an understanding of humanity at large, -- I can deal with such people, I respect them (if they respect me).

It is the sociopathic types, whom Thatcher and Bliar (misspelling deliberate) are a prime example, who are the problem. Perkins sounds like such a person - unable to empathize with the Other and willing to see their point of view. I can empathize with the rich, both the decent ones and the assholes, and I condemn the assholes, not because they are rich, but because of their actions and their values that are the cause of their actions.

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djs123sdj• 12 years ago

I have a hard time understanding how an self-admitted very wealthy person living in a 2 bedroom Manhattan apartment, differs significantly from the one living in Woodside estate. He's choosing an ascetic life, but the fact is that he can, without stress, afford many of the basics that the non-wealthy struggle to afford.

Middle and working class grown ups with families don't care about hot tubs and parties, but the things they struggle to afford: decent schools for their children, their mortgage, etc, are things that he never would have to worry about. His decision to live in Manhattan with less stuff doesn't change that reality for them, and I question whether it really puts him in touch with their reality.

Bringing up his personal life choice detracts from the valid point that the wealthy can isolate themselves from the concerns of everyone else if they choose to.

And his argument about wealth vs. smarts is attacking windmills ... nobody seriously believes that having more wealth makes you smarter.

Edit: lost second half, re-added. Edit2: wording tweak

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Iftheshoefits3• 12 years ago

nobody seriously believes that having more wealth makes you smarter.

There are comments in this very thread that indicate there are people who do. Anecdotally, I personally know several "well off" people who very seriously believe that being wealthy implies being smart.

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jobu• 12 years ago

For anyone else out there that had no idea what this article was talking about, here is the link to the editorial by Tom Perkins that started this: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454950...

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ergoproxy• 12 years ago

I'm a big fan of Rowan Atkinson's TV series Blackadder. It follows the Blackadder family over many generations. "As the generations progress, each Blackadder becomes increasingly clever and perceptive, while the family's social status steadily erodes." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder

I used to work on Wall St., and in my experience wealth and intelligence aren't correlated. Luck is more important. Family's socioeconomic status is important. What school one got one's degree from has something to do with it (but not good grades or what one's degree was in). And, unfortunately, being "ethically challenged" was often the key--scammers and fraudsters have a much easier time making the Big Time.

RE: Tom Perkins... In any economic downturn, there will be scapegoats. The poor scapegoat the rich. The rich scapegoat the poor. Social conservatives scapegoat foreigners, non-Christians, women, gays, non-whites...anyone not like themselves. It's not simply that nobody likes to take personal responsibility or that it's easier to blame the other guy...

In the West we associate self-criticism with depression and anxiety, and we seek to suppress it. Source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124511712673817527

Worse, self-criticism is associated with Maoist Communism. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/09/28/china-se...

However, there's certainly a tradition of self-criticism in the West, rooted in its canonical texts: "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7:3-5&ve...

My point is that we need to be a little more self-critical and a little less quick to scapegoat others for our problems. A little self-criticism might go a long way to making us both smarter and wealthier!

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Wealth does not make you smarter

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