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Basing our world around a system that on average funnels the least empathetic, most callous, greedy and power hungry psychopaths and sociopaths to positions with the most influence surely cannot possibly backfire in a major way for the rest of us.
It will be studied in the far future the way we study monarchy or the Roman Empire.
The self attribution fallacy
https://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution-fallacy/
If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.
The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves.
Is there any system that reward talent, hard work or skill ?
In theory yes but in practice greedy leeches have found their way
If you try to do that you need metrics for evaluation and then you get people gaming the metrics. One example is academia.
You would think, but actually there’s been some recent research that I think has interesting conclusions. The example, which is semi-related, is performance as a manager. When promoted using merit based, people tended to perform worse bcz they are promoted based on past performance in unrelated roles. When promoted randomly, the people who excelled at being a manager stayed in that position, and outperformed others who were promoted based on merit.
The point being, you don’t know who’s going to be good at something based on past performance in unrelated roles. We’ve built an entire system based on that concept, and it’s not really that surprising that it doesn’t work that well. If I can find the research article again, I’ll link it.
Edit: found it
The point being, you don’t know who’s going to be good at something based on past performance in unrelated roles.
What’s surprising to me isn’t that the random promotion system works over the performance in past unrelated roles system…
What’s surprising to me is that you practically never see the only other logical conclusion used in the business world much.
Aptitude testing.
True I honestly find the random promotion thing to be super unintuitive, and would struggle to do it if I was in a position to make those decisions.
Academia, sometimes.
That is true. Sometimes. But then again the people with the most funding get the most papers and recognition. But agreed.
Sports, kinda. It’s possible to go unrewarded with them, but it’s very hard to go rewarded without them.
If you mean economic system, not really. Capitalism rewards having capital over everything else, communism (if we ignore the flawed attempts and go for theory) rewards everyone equally irrelevant of how hard you work or what your skills are. Though being skilled in something that’s actually pleasant as a job is a reward in itself as you won’t have to work manual labour.
Don’t know about sports even. Probably at least a base level to get on the threshold of celebrity, but then they can lean on personality and antics rather than performance in their sport.
Okay, you’re right on that too. But outside of super high earning sports that have a lot of entertainment factor (mostly team sports involving balls), it really is all about your performance. You don’t get to do track and field at the Olympics based on your personality for example. Though it would be hilarious if you could!
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No, don’t be anti-education. Uneducated people make easy prey.
We can value education without commodifying it the way we’ve done. In my opinion, the current system rewards diploma mills and devalues education anyways.
I think education should be both inexpensive and completely voluntary, so that the only ‘reward’ for going to school is the knowledge you leave with.
No you create such a divide. Try learning with 3 jobs
Well if we’re imagining a better world anyways, why would anyone have three jobs?
The current system creates luxury for some at the cost of creating poverty for others. I think the best course of action would be to stop doing that - then education could be about learning instead of about earning.
bro, even with education they are easy prey. There simply is no getting around the bell curve of humanity here.
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As make educated people, because they can’t judge their education, neither before choosing nor after being formed.
Actually, the research says to do that
Promoting people into leadership positions based on past unrelated experience does not make better managers and leaders.
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Knock it all you want. This was done by Italian researchers, no affiliation with the U.S. government.
Edit Here’s the actual research paper It’s pretty short actually
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Okay, we seem to be in a bit of a loop here. I’m going to go do something else with my time. Talking to you is a waste of time.
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No, because it would be up to people to assess talent/hard work/skill and people are imperfect.
Also would you even want that system? Reward a bunch of John Henrys for killing themselves when their work should be done by machines? Reward artists for art that no one can appreciate? Reward skill that doesn’t ultimately benefit anyone?
Well you could also ask if that’s fair. People are just born with more or less talent or skill. Nothing they can do about it. Should they be rewarded for that? Or saying it the opposite way: should people be punished for something they can’t change?
Life is never fair. not for humans and not for any living being.
If you try to make it fair by paying the person with lower skill same as skilled person, the skilled person won’t feel the need to use their skills anymore.
To make it fair you need a magic mirror that print statistics about each person (skill level, talent level, physical strength) and use these numbers to decide who used all their abilities and who pretend to be dumb to avoid using their brain/body
True I’m not saying it’d be the best option or anything. Just something to think about. Should live be fair or not? Also, it’s not black and white.
That’s if you force people to work. If you let them choose freely, most will align with their skills because it is the most rewarding.
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Very true. That’s a way to deal with it for sure. Social safety nets are an important part of developed civilisation.
The capitalist country achieved that to convince people of capitalism. It was highly motivated.
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in small, communal societies, people would be assigned to the tasks they’re best at. humans lived this way for millenia before industrialism and common education standards. i lived on a small commune for an internship, we had people who specialized in: maintenance, caretaking (animals), medicine, cleaning, etc
I thought engineers and doctors were the better paid professions
Artists are incredibly well paid off you get to the top of the game, like Taylor Swift or Spielberg
Not sure why you think labourers are harder working than artists or engineers
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The c suite isn’t in the example, but I wonder how many executives are engineers or scientists. But if an engineer is doctor enters the c suite, do they stop being engineers or doctors
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I work in healthcare. Majority c-suite at hospitals, clinics, or practices have both a science masters or doctorate AND a business degree. Same goes for directors and most managers.
Healthcare is one of the largest industries. So you’d be excluding tens of thousands in Manager and above.
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My company’s CEO started was a software developer at the company…
They do stop being engineers and doctors, because now their job title is different? A doctor is someone that practices within their field, as with an engineer. They may still carry the qualification, and to a degree the skills necessary to be an engineer and doctor again, but that’s not their job any longer, thus not the appropriate title.
Yes? If you stop doing engineering work, then you’re not a practicing engineer.
(Unfortunately) you don’t get paid for the work you put in, or else there’d be UBI. You only get paid for what you do, and sometimes not even that.
In terms of their skillset? Probably not immediately (skills may deteriorate due to lack of use over time). In terms of what they will be doing as part of the job, and how they use their skillset? To a certain degree, I would say yes.
Taylor Swift works hard by modern standards but she would sit in the corner and cry after a day doing the work that we make immigrants do
You are talking out of your arse
You think she’d be ok after a 15 hour nursing home shift?
going up the classes is hard, especially so for those at the bottom.
Tailor Swift and the likes are more capitalism than artistry.
When does one stop being an artist and turn into a capitalist
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And some of the wealthiest people alive are also some of the dumbest losers I’ve ever heard open their mouths.
I’m an engineer and I still can’t afford a modest house. I’m paid well but I’m far from the biggest beneficiary of capitalism.
Labourers are harder working because they typically have longer hours and work some of the worst jobs.
You, sir, are daft.
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Doctors can do well, but I’ve never heard of a billionaire doctor. Engineers do well, but they’re not billionaires. Both doctors and engineers work hard, but not in the same physically demanding, body-harming way that laborers work. Laborers can even be paid deceptively well, with construction labor sometimes paying something like triple the minimum wage. But the cost to the laborer is paid with body breaking down, and you can bet that job-site they’re contracted for doesn’t provide health insurance. So they accumulate injury, breaking down their body, thus limiting how much of that physically taxing job they can do. So, in effect, they’re not being paid nearly enough. Because the pay doesn’t compensate their loss of bodily function. Think of it like an NFL defensive lineman. They’re paid very well, but their body takes a huge toll. A lot of former NFL players are not doing well, despite their huge initial earnings.
Just to add in, that a CEO definitely doesn’t work as hard as their hardest working employee, and the avg. CEO pay is roughly 325 times that of their average worker.
u think contrarians should be paid more?
Can we call them what they are; physicians. Calling them doctors undermines anyone with a Ph.D.
Capitalism rewards fraud. It’s the true american way.
Case in point - when imitation crab came out in the 80s it was freakin’ delicious - tasted just like crab, and dirt cheap in comparison. But over the years they seem to have beem putting in less and less of whatever actual crab material gave it crab flavor, so now it’s pretty much just nondescript fish + orange dye. A bad imitation of imitation crab. Instead of enjoying wonderful inventions like these we have to ruin them a little at a time so somebody can make a teensy bit more profit each time, until they’re crap.
The boiling frog metaphor comes to mind.
It also rewards putting words like Freedom and Liberty in the names of laws that restrict freedom and liberty.
We need MAFA. Make America Free Again.
The problem is both parties hate freedom when it suites them. Which is most of the time.
No, it also rewards authors of protect-children-laws with underage sex
It’s in the name. Capitalism rewards capital.
I’m all of those and I’m super rich
an yet, you’re on lemmy with the rest of us…
fake and possibly gay
Hey, we all love you if you’re gay. Fake, however, that’s unforgivable.
Oh shit
just kidding, homie
Capitalism rewards capital. It’s literally in the name.
Do you have money? No? fuck you
as a product of generational wealth, money is not good
…the problem is I’m allowed to think about it and bitch without any agaency…
Surgeons and engineers make bank last I checked, so that’s a bit of a funny example. Markets do reward in-demand practical skills.
What societies (in general) really reward is dumb luck and networking, though.
The thing society rewards most is already having lots of capital to throw around. No skill, talent, work ethic, or even connectedness is as important as simply having assets. Our society has regressed to reward being rich over everything else.
If you go down the list of big billionaires, most of them didn’t start as billionaires. For the most part, they started out in the comfortable “upper-middle” class, like a lot of Lemmy users, and then got involved in a startup that took them to the top (edit: luck).
It’s not surprising, really. If you just have inherited capital and no extra luck, the best you can do is the same 10% rate of return as everyone else. (Although coming from a rich family is both luck and connections, itself)
Our society has regressed to reward being rich over everything else.
You say that like bloodline first and then wealth was better. That is what came before.
Ehm mister or not,
What engineers does society in 2026 reward? Last time I checked everyone is fucked
The people at FAANGS (or whatever they’re calling it now) famously start with wages that would be the absolute peak of someone else’s career. Never mind comparing to an unskilled worker.
I know less about what physical/“real” engineers make in 2026, but I doubt it’s changed that much.
Real engineer here, mechanical working to design medical devices like plates and screws for trauma cases.
We average around $100k across the US, and on the extreme end can top out around $200k, but that’s a rare case. Typical top end is $150k with I’d say at least 12 years if experience.
Starting salary typically $70k.
This is for places that are average COL, so not San Francisco, and also not Alabama.
Yeah, that’s decent. Not fuck-you money, but decent.
OP asked for any example, so I went with FAANGS, but wages there are inflated by being a bunch of monopolies all headquartered in the same place. Last I heard a senior dev in Canada makes like 60k.
A senior dev in Canada also makes 6 figures.
But some recruiters label beginner positions as senior for whatever reason.
Well, maybe the guy I was talking to was underpaid. It’s definitely a lot less than in the 'states, though.
Yeah, buddy, hate to bring it to you, but software engineers are not the real engineers. We’re just monkeys repeating something that we barely heard of.
You can start working as a software engineer just after school. Imagine an aerospace, civil, or electrical engineer without proper education.
Okay, sure, the guy that mostly copy-pastes/vibecodes javascript is not on level with a rocket scientist. What about, like, Linus Torvalds, though? The complexity involved in a big codebase outstrips even the most complicated aircraft. Nobody’s saying mathematicians aren’t serious thinkers, and yet, we’re putting in a whole lot of effort, with things like Lean, to catch up with coders.
They aren’t accredited like “real” engineers, but that might be a matter of where we are in history more than anything. Charles Parsons didn’t have to certify anything when he was building the first dreadnoughts. Both fields are about designing new technology, and that’s basically what defines the word “engineer”.
Median salary for a surgeon is $450,000/year.
Someone with $10,000,000 in VOO can withdraw $450,000/year, and still compound their wealth year over year, without working at all. The absolute worst case scenario is that they start doing this at the start of a recession, like mid 2007, in which case, they would STILL be compounding their wealth year over year, with the exception of the short time it took to dip.
Simply having $10,000,000 and sitting on your ass > Being a surgeon.
Oh yeah, and that’s all before taxes.
So yes, to some extent, society rewards skill. But it is FAR more rewarding to the people who already have wealth.
Yeah, but how do you get 10 million dollars?
While these answers are correct, it’s doesn’t really say much about what traits are rewarded. It’s kind of tautological - if we assume you’ve started ahead, you’ll be ahead. Otherwise, it’s mostly luck, with a bit of knowing the right people, which is also down to luck.
Maybe what you meant is that wealth shouldn’t be permanent(-ish). Which is valid. It’s just not a matter of personality, like everything else on the list in OP.
Yeah, but how do you get 10 million dollars?
It doesn’t matter. Investments do not care where the money comes from.
You worked as a surgeon for 20 years while living with parents and not paying bills? $10 million.
Your great great grandfather was a plumber and built up some wealth and your great grandfather was an electrician and built up more wealth, and… your father works in real estate and all of these people set you up with a trust fund and you start out with $2 million, and then you withdraw 100k per year to live on, doing nothig else for 17 years, and your fund slowly climbs to $10 million. Well, that’s also $10 million.
You’re one of Nancy Pelosi’s kids and she gives you a $10 million fund on your 18th birthday? Thats $10 million.
Do you see now how having $10 million doesn’t reward the traits of any of these people? It only rewards having $10 million. It does not matter how you acquired it.
Yes, those are some great and realistic examples.
I don’t want to be obtuse, here, repeating myself more than necessary, but this bit was important:
Maybe what you meant is that wealth shouldn’t be permanent(-ish). Which is valid. It’s just not a matter of personality, like everything else on the list in OP.
FWIW my best guess for how OP would have ended it, is “it rewards being evil”. Usually that’s where people go.
I guess luck isn’t really a personality trait, either, but it’s what you can personally have that allows you to climb relative to other people with the same start.
and that person with $10 million succesfully escaped being a wageslave with the help of their predecessors
Also, Fauci made bank off of covid. And everyone agrees he’s a scientist.
Uhh… source?
This implies neurosurgeons aren’t talented
Well, it’s not rocket science…
Spoken like a true butthurt neurosurgeon
Surely matters how we measure talent.
Gamblers
And nepotism
Mostly nepotism tbh. Stock market is only gambling for the masses, Wall Street has enough information that it’s no longer gambling for them.
*inside traders
Capitalism rewards the lucky and the sociopathic.
I need more upvote power.
