While I agree to some degree this also sounds overly dramatic.
First, there's a ton of evidence that people also get promoted/appreciated for the right reasons, not just because they're a fancy Markov chain of buzzwords (example: serial entrepreneurs, like Musk).
Second, there's underlying reality that eventually comes crushing people that fail to meet the expectations that they had built around themselves.
Sure, the correlations between X1:{IQ, conscientiousness} and Y:{income, educational attainment} are stronger than between, say X2:{agreeableness, height, race} and Y.
Y are examples of what people want (wealth). X1 are examples of "valid" reasons to be recognized as useful and therefore attain wealth, X2 are examples of "less valid" or "completely invalid" reasons.
Your opinions are not evidence no matter how much you dress them up in notation. I asked for evidence as I could use it.
Self-discipline is a better indicator for income and education than IQ.[0] So I know for a fact that your a priori fact is not valid. It's all good to share opinions, but please do not present them as reality when they are not.
And I didn't bother to point out particular studies validating my claims because much of this has been known to humans for close to a 100 years. In the same vein as linking to a proof of the undecidability of the halting problem would be excess references given the nature of HN community.
If you want an example study look at the "Health and longevity" section on the above linked Wikipedia page.
Or to directly support my thesis about X1 and X2 separation, first look at Wikipedia IQ page and the "Social correlations" section, it's generally around 0.5:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
Well that is genuinely impossible to tell apart. I mean you can always claim that a system or a person is "overfiting", and given enough time and/or data they/it will be proven wrong.
First, there's a ton of evidence that people also get promoted/appreciated for the right reasons, not just because they're a fancy Markov chain of buzzwords (example: serial entrepreneurs, like Musk).
Second, there's underlying reality that eventually comes crushing people that fail to meet the expectations that they had built around themselves.