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Aug. 19th, 2015 01:31 am"A few years ago, my students and I studied exactly this question by setting up an experiment in which roughly 15,000 participants were asked to listen to, rate, and download songs by unknown bands off a website we created. Some of the participants had to make their decisions independently, while others had information about which of the songs other people liked. We found two results. First, in the “social influence” condition, popular songs were more popular (and unpopular songs less popular) than in the independent case. But second, it became harder to predict which particular songs would be the most popular.
What these results suggest is that in the real world, where social influence is much stronger than in our artificial experiment, enormous differences in success may indeed be due to small, random fluctuations early on in an artist’s career, which then get amplified by a process of cumulative advantage—a “rich-get-richer” phenomenon that is thought to arise in many social systems."
Replace songs, with books. Or entertainers. Or comedians. Or employees. Or even just simply, people. The same thing would happen.
What does this tell me about the world?
It tells me that randomness, luck, chance has a bigger role than any successful person ever wants to admit. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about big successes or small ones, either - whether we're talking about million-dollar recording contracts, or whether a man or woman lands the love of his or her life. In the case of financial wealth, though, the researcher admits that the snowball effect is quite real, much to my own discontent. As well, it is probably accurate to say that in the realm of the social world, popularity falls under the sway of the snowball effect, too.
Life isn't fair; there is no meritocracy; there is no rhyme or reason to any of this. There is no path to success, no path to love, no path to wealth. There might be a path to happiness, but most people aren't comfortable with the prospect of eradicating their egos and lowering their standards to the bare minimums of human survival - which is exactly what happiness would have to be for the billion people starving on the planet, suffering in abject poverty.
What these results suggest is that in the real world, where social influence is much stronger than in our artificial experiment, enormous differences in success may indeed be due to small, random fluctuations early on in an artist’s career, which then get amplified by a process of cumulative advantage—a “rich-get-richer” phenomenon that is thought to arise in many social systems."
Replace songs, with books. Or entertainers. Or comedians. Or employees. Or even just simply, people. The same thing would happen.
What does this tell me about the world?
It tells me that randomness, luck, chance has a bigger role than any successful person ever wants to admit. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about big successes or small ones, either - whether we're talking about million-dollar recording contracts, or whether a man or woman lands the love of his or her life. In the case of financial wealth, though, the researcher admits that the snowball effect is quite real, much to my own discontent. As well, it is probably accurate to say that in the realm of the social world, popularity falls under the sway of the snowball effect, too.
Life isn't fair; there is no meritocracy; there is no rhyme or reason to any of this. There is no path to success, no path to love, no path to wealth. There might be a path to happiness, but most people aren't comfortable with the prospect of eradicating their egos and lowering their standards to the bare minimums of human survival - which is exactly what happiness would have to be for the billion people starving on the planet, suffering in abject poverty.
