Self Made Billionaire: Myth or Reality?

The lotto winnings are compiled by people buying a ticket, hoping to win. Interestingly, if I don't deserve to win, then that's true of every player that built the pot. And no one does. They all built the pot, and they all deserve to lose.
"Deserve to win" and "deserve to lose" rather than "deserve the money". That's an interesting direction you're going with there. I don't think those are all the same philosophically, but its certainly worth thinking about. For my part I'd agree to extend that reasoning into... "Since no lotto winner deserves the money, no lotto player deserves to win and all lotto players deserve to lose." I'm comfortable with that, because it means that when you win its not because you deserve it... to quote my favorite William Munney line "Deserve's go nuthin to do with it."
But the ratio of luck is going to be confusing. Kardashian inherited looks.
If you think her "looks", meaning the ultra-glamourous look she (or any of them FTM) displays publicly and is so famous for was "inherited"... I've got this bridge in Brooklyn...
If I play Russian Roulette with a hostage, whether I deserve a murder charge is based on luck.
No. You' deserve an attempted murder charge regardless, which generally carries the same penalty. Criminal law punishes intent, not results.
But you'd also said that actively trading crypto didn't accumulate deserved wealth.
No. In your hypothetical, as I understood it, there was no "trading". The hero made one purchase and one sale. It wasn't like he spent months or years poring over charts and articles, studying market trends and flipping trade after trade to work his way up to a billion dollars. The way you posed it, he just got lucky and hit the jackpot with his first and only purchase. To me that's too much luck to make a case for "deserving" anything.
 
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Some do seem less horsehocky than the football ones.
 
You deserve an attempted murder charge regardless, which generally carries the same penalty.
You'd get an 'attempted murder', which obviously, I agree. But you'd not deserve a murder charge if the chamber came up blank.
In your hypothetical, as I understood it, there was no "trading". The hero made one purchase and one sale.
I'd deserved to have my hypothetical read properly :(

I had three components, each of which you disputed
- public service cleaning up litter
- purchasing a luck-based asset, but knowingly so
- successfully trading a meme-based asset class, but fighting against the damage

Interesting that you disputed that the Kardashians got their looks with luck. Like, 50% chance they were even female in the first place. They definitely groomed them,
 
I had three components, each of which you disputed
- public service cleaning up litter
- purchasing a luck-based asset, but knowingly so
- successfully trading a meme-based asset class, but fighting against the damage
Picking up litter as a public service, incentivized by the redemption fees. I buy that, but again, I'll point out that this is not the only reason for the redemption fee. Among other things, its to discourage litter in the first place, and encourage/facilitate recycling.

As for the luck-based asset. You seem to think that the "knowingly" part imbues "deserve". I think its exactly the opposite. I think the fact that they know its luck-based means they knowingly waive any claim to "deserve" the winnings... its pure luck!

On the third point... where was the trade? You said he purchased it and then sold it. If by "trade" you mean he traded money for the asset, then traded the asset for more money, then OK, fine. If there was something else I missed let me know. Not sure what you mean by "fighting against the damage" but if you're just romanticizing the fact that he sold it before it went bust, then OK, good for him. I still think the hypothetical is way too luck-based to rise to the level of "deserves a billion dollars".

Now that hero in the sequel? The one who spends 60 years going around collecting a million dollars worth of cans? THAT guy deserves the money. No question. Every penny. He's a folk hero, a regular Johnny Appleseed... we'll call him Johnny Tincan.
Interesting that you disputed that the Kardashians got their looks with luck.
I did no such thing.
 
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You seem to think that the "knowingly" part imbues "deserve" into the buyer.
I don't think that. I created a billionaire using (roughly) three factors, because I was trying to unpack the conditions of 'self-made' easily.

The first was to earn public dollars, which I think we agree is 'deserved'. I'd even say that any money someone earns there is 'self-made', but people here have defined away the concept. Honestly, that's fine. That's just semantics. I don't mind shifting semantics within a conversation. Communicating merely requires that we understand what the other person means
I think its exactly the opposite. I think the fact that they know its luck-based means they knowingly waive any claim to "deserve" the winnings... its pure luck!
That's fair. Though it's a bit weird to have an entire community create an outcome, and then not have it viewed as a 'deserved' outcome. Obviously, 'the group' deserves that one of the group be the winner, but at the same time, that winner (who helped build the outcome) doesn't deserve it. Honestly, it's just interesting. I can't really object.
On the third point... where was the trade? You said he purchased it and then sold it. If by "trade" you mean he traded money for the asset, then traded the asset for more money, then OK, fine.
I'd said "actively traded" and gave average costs and redemption values, which seems to be where the breakdown is in the communication. Crypto trading was chosen because (a) it's kinda useless but (b) it's a mix of skill and luck. I intentionally took out pimping the crypto . "Fighting the damage" was advertising against crypto, since an individual crypto purchaser does very little to affect its price, but the price is what causes environmental damage. Meanwhile, pimping crypto is an attempt to increase its price.
I did no such thing.
Here we're just running into me being too pedantic with 'inherited'. We (many times) used 'she' in our discussion, which is just luck in the first place. I just don't think that the same success would have been possible if she'd been born a man with a cojoined twin coming out of his neck. Obviously I agree that you need effort to cultivate an appearance that you're born with. But you're born with the appearance first. This is just semantics, so I don't care. I don't mind calling the Kardashians 'self-made', even if I'd actually dispute 'deserve'.

But then we're back into the scale of luck. Being born as a 'woman who can be glamorized' is going to be at least a 1/10 thing. I definitely cannot do it. But while it's luck, it's also a very different scale of luck from the one in ten million of the lottery.
 
But you didn't. No, they don't, but the fact that you think they do is telling.Of course you did, because what else could you have meant? You're still wrong.I'm older than my avatar (the actor, not the character) so that's both unlikely and irrelevant.You don't say. Fascinating. "since before you were born" you said?
Talking to you is useless.

You think you know what I think, what I listen to and who I am. I feel sorry for haters like you.
 
I don't think that. I created a billionaire using (roughly) three factors, because I was trying to unpack the conditions of 'self-made' easily.

The first was to earn public dollars, which I think we agree is 'deserved'. I'd even say that any money someone earns there is 'self-made', but people here have defined away the concept. Honestly, that's fine. That's just semantics. I don't mind shifting semantics within a conversation. Communicating merely requires that we understand what the other person means

That's fair. Though it's a bit weird to have an entire community create an outcome, and then not have it viewed as a 'deserved' outcome. Obviously, 'the group' deserves that one of the group be the winner, but at the same time, that winner (who helped build the outcome) doesn't deserve it. Honestly, it's just interesting. I can't really object.

I'd said "actively traded" and gave average costs and redemption values, which seems to be where the breakdown is in the communication. Crypto trading was chosen because (a) it's kinda useless but (b) it's a mix of skill and luck. I intentionally took out pimping the crypto . "Fighting the damage" was advertising against crypto, since an individual crypto purchaser does very little to affect its price, but the price is what causes environmental damage. Meanwhile, pimping crypto is an attempt to increase its price.

Here we're just running into me being too pedantic with 'inherited'. We (many times) used 'she' in our discussion, which is just luck in the first place. I just don't think that the same success would have been possible if she'd been born a man with a cojoined twin coming out of his neck. Obviously I agree that you need effort to cultivate an appearance that you're born with. But you're born with the appearance first. This is just semantics, so I don't care. I don't mind calling the Kardashians 'self-made', even if I'd actually dispute 'deserve'.

But then we're back into the scale of luck. Being born as a 'woman who can be glamorized' is going to be at least a 1/10 thing. I definitely cannot do it. But while it's luck, it's also a very different scale of luck from the one in ten million of the lottery.
I generally agree with everything you're saying here, particularly where our communication got tripped up over semantics. Overall, this conversation has helped me realize that my objection to the term "self made" was partly just semantics. I still like "deserve" better, but I now realize that its because of what "deserve" conveys/means to me. For another person, the same understanding could be better wrapped around the term "self made". I think @amadeus was trying to make a similar point to me earlier.

I still believe the conclusion I reached was correct, and its the "shifting semantics" that you referenced. Its more important that we are on the same page as to what we are talking about than it is the particular word we use to describe the thing. I think you and I are there in terms of this discussion. For that reason I can see clearly why you find it easier to call the Kardashians "self made" than "deserve". To me that indicates you and I split similar hairs on the meanings of the two terms. FWIW, I think I'd tend to agree with you on the Kardashians. Speaking of the Kardashians looks:

Spoiler Kim with and without makeup :

Spoiler Kylie with and without makeup :
On the right, without makeup they just look like regular people. They have to make themselves look like the person on the left. The person on the left is... self made...See what I did there? :p

About cryptocurrency I admit that I am out of my depth on that, but I thought your hypothetical was just the one purchase and sale, so if I was mistaken that's my fault.
 
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I still like "deserve" better, but I now realize that its because of what "deserve" conveys/means to me.
Making it deserve certainly makes it easier to answer. I am not convinced one way or another if some people deserve more than others, but there is no way some people deserve to control a million times the output of the world than most people.
 
Kim has a gorgeous face and looks way better w/o makeup.
Still talking to me I see.;)

In any case, I agree, and I'll add I think both are beautiful. To me reality is more beautiful than illusion. But it is still striking to see the difference between the reality and the illusion. Its also often the case that illusion is more entertaining than reality. Part of how the Kardashians have prospered is by understanding and harnessing this so well.
 
I'm still fascinated at the way luck plays into 'deserve'. Does the winner of a poker tournament 'deserve' the pot? If someone won a poker tournament and then traded it to a billion, is that meaningfully different from a lottery ticket? How about winning a look-a-like contest?

And there's also scales of 'deserve'. Like, "if someone took their money and gave it to the poor, would we consider it an injustice?". Yes we would for the lottery winner. Maybe less so for the crypto trader. Peter Schiff comes to mind here, where he bought gold and then constantly tries to boost gold's value through debate and histrionics. How's he different from Kardashians selling 'their brand'? Of course, because the zeros are different, we use different metrics. The lottery winner 'only' has millions. Other people have 'billions'.

It's the other thread that triggered my next idea, since people argued about JK Rowling. The inventor of bitcoin could very easily be a billionaire, afaik. That would be an example of creating something the world wanted. Self-made wealth? "Deserve"?
 
I'm still fascinated at the way luck plays into 'deserve'. Does the winner of a poker tournament 'deserve' the pot? If someone won a poker tournament and then traded it to a billion, is that meaningfully different from a lottery ticket? How about winning a look-a-like contest?

And there's also scales of 'deserve'. Like, "if someone took their money and gave it to the poor, would we consider it an injustice?". Yes we would for the lottery winner. Maybe less so for the crypto trader. Peter Schiff comes to mind here, where he bought gold and then constantly tries to boost gold's value through debate and histrionics. How's he different from Kardashians selling 'their brand'? Of course, because the zeros are different, we use different metrics. The lottery winner 'only' has millions. Other people have 'billions'.

It's the other thread that triggered my next idea, since people argued about JK Rowling. The inventor of bitcoin could very easily be a billionaire, afaik. That would be an example of creating something the world wanted. Self-made wealth? "Deserve"?
All interesting questions. The poker tournament winner I'd lean towards "deserve" since poker is more of a skill game masquerading as a luck game. The others I'd have to think more about.
“Luck” and “deserve” are expressions of our egos. You were just lucky, I deserve what I have. You should be thankful that I let you keep it. :)
Yes I think this is right and the conversation with you and @El_Machinae has really helped flesh that out in my mind even more. I talk all the time about how we as humans tend to attribute our successes to our own merit, skill, thrift, cleverness, hard work etc., but our failures we tend to attribut to external factors, the contest is unfair, the other guys cheated, the refs blew the call, the system is rigged against me, etc. When we win and/or accomplish our goals we love to attribute it to our own worthiness, when we lose is all everyone else's fault. I think what you're identifying is an extension of that.
 
To me reality is more beautiful than illusion. But it is still striking to see the difference between the reality and the illusion. Its also often the case that illusion is more entertaining than reality. Part of how the Kardashians have prospered is by understanding and harnessing this so well.

They're both still very preened on the right, if a bit less... glossy-two-dimensional. I dunno, the reality doesn't seem appealing at all.
 
Oh nono. I definitely get the appeal of that they.
 
God is made in your image?
 
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