> What if it really takes two generations to be good at something?
This really is the recipe for success. The majority of success is intergenerational.
Someone can come from nothing and become wildly successful, it's true. But it's extremely unlikely. With 8 billion people, occasional rags-to-riches stories are going to happen; even if it's a 1-in-100,000,000 chance that would be about 80 people. These are not the stories to aspire to; they're random anomalies. The stories we should aspire to are the ones of humans setting up future humans for success. Ideally, not even just their children...
> This really is the recipe for success. The majority of success is intergenerational.
I think it's better said that the majority of success is from _iteration_.
In lots of ways, I'm not just a product of my parents' (lack of?) success or their parents' (lack of?) success and so on, but also a product of my iterated local communities and iterated larger society.
> The stories we should aspire to are the ones of humans setting up future humans for success. Ideally, not even just their children...
Be wary of claimed benevolence, for it justifies corpses in the name of the greater good.
History has shown that rising tides lift all boats. We are all the product of millennia of selfish pursuits by bigots, rapists, war profiteers, etc. And yet, the long-term trajectory for the masses is up -- because success iterates not just along family lines, but broadly across society.
This really is the recipe for success. The majority of success is intergenerational.
Someone can come from nothing and become wildly successful, it's true. But it's extremely unlikely. With 8 billion people, occasional rags-to-riches stories are going to happen; even if it's a 1-in-100,000,000 chance that would be about 80 people. These are not the stories to aspire to; they're random anomalies. The stories we should aspire to are the ones of humans setting up future humans for success. Ideally, not even just their children...