Elon Musk is currently worth about $12 billion. There are about 100 people in the world with a net worth that high. Elon Musk may be more diversified in his businesses than most billionaires, but he is not unique.

And no one is saying it only takes luck to be successful, just that luck is a key factor. Perhaps even the most important factor in becoming a billionaire. That can't be said for becoming a millionaire, which almost anyone can do with just hard work and almost no luck (other than perhaps being born in the developed world).

That is a bit of a red herring when trying to limit the role of luck in monumental success stories. No one really thinks they can win the lottery without buying a lottery ticket. And they don't think they can become a billionaire without having ownership stock in a company.

Some people simply understand that a large percentage of people who do take smart risks still end up failing regardless of their level of ability or persistence. Its likely even the majority of persistent and highly skilled entrepreneurs end up never succeeding. This is important for people to understand when they are deciding what risks to take in life.

I will certainly concede a lack of knowledge on Greek religious culture, and as long as your characterization is accurate (and I have no reason to doubt it) I would guess Greek religious tendencies have more to do with a strong religious culture than their economic woes. They are certainly not unique in the world, although they are fairly unique in the developed world.

Here is the first study I came across detailing the demographics or religious belief in Russia. It appears that in 2008, 53% of 16-29 year old Russians believe in God, compared to 69% of ages 70+. It also showed that the religious beliefs of ages 16-69 are pretty constant, it is only those ages 70+ which are more religious. So I guess we can both see what we want to see from those stats, since even though there is a sharp drop-off for those under 70, there is no additional drop-off for the millennial generation.

It is odd that belief in God was inversely related to belief in the afterlife. I have no idea what to make of that.

When discussing religion, I guess I use the word "belief" as meaning religious belief. So lack of devotion to a deity is the same as lack of belief. So in this context the opposite of belief is not dis-belief, just lack of belief. I hope that adds clarity to my original statement, since I don't disagree with most of your more precise statements in the above quote.

I do disagree with the "EACH" qualifier you added in the second sentence though. Many agnostics believe there probably are god(s), they just have no idea what qualities they may have. Many agnostics also believe there is the same probability of god(s) existing as there are of unicorns being real. For instance I self-identify as both an atheist and agnostic (as most atheists educated in the subject do), so obviously I am on the latter end of the spectrum. And while this is purely anecdotal, every agnostic I have met who doesn't also claim to be atheist has been someone who has admitted to not putting much though into religion.

This is simply a product of trying to label complex beliefs with simple terms. Labeling all atheists or agnostics the same would be just as inaccurate as labeling all Christians the same. Or perhaps even labeling all religious beliefs as the same. To give just one example my mother and father are both Methodist, but they have very different opinions on the Bible's literalness.

Obviously, and I bear no ill will or judgement because of this.

One thing I found interesting when reading a publication by the Child Trends organization was the relationship between economic advancement and religiosity. From a summary section: As countries develop economically, there is less emphasis on dominant religious traditions and
values and more emphasis placed on secular institutions. This study was from 2000, but it does help illustrate why a country like Greece would be seeing an uptick in religious belief even though Europe as a whole does not show this trend (to the best of my knowledge).

I would assume that any country where religious belief was suppressed by force would see that religion return once the oppression is lifted. It would be interesting to see how that religion returns based on generational demographics though. If the youth are returning to religion at a lesser rate than older adults, it would show this religious resurgence is short lived. I couldn't find any statistics quickly on this though.

That is true, but they are on average more accepting of those with no religious beliefs. The lack of adherence to a particular set of dogma make them more open minded in general. That was what I meant by them creating an environment where lack of religious belief is not looked down upon.

They most certainly do not "believe" in God since they aren't sure gods even exist. Agnostics fill the full spectrum from assuming god(s) probably exist and assuming god(s) probably don't exist. But what they almost universally lack is faith in a deity, or else they would not self-identify as agnostic. They would instead identify themselves as religious but still harbor some doubts, which probably describes most religious people.

I have never run into a study on religious belief where people who believe in God but are not 100% devout are identified as agnostic. Agnostic and atheist both have very loose definitions, but a lack of faith in a deity is one sure piece of common ground.

Seriously, just Google the term "scientific basis for morality". You could spend the next few years just reading various scientific explanations for various ethical or moral problems.

The research found in the article link shows young people are far less likely to be religious than old people. Around half as likely in fact. So it is likely many of the gains we have seen in the last decade has just been from older generations dying off. So regardless of how open minded you are, you will be off his "hit list" in due time. You will be replaced by someone from a younger generation who far less likely to be religious. And in 20 years the next young generation will hopefully be far less religious than today's millennials.

As an atheist myself, I am perfectly happy with people considering themselves agnostic since by my definition they are basically the same thing. Virtually every atheist is agnostic, and vice versa. Atheism is just a lack of religious conviction, which is something all agnostics share or else they would be worshiping their deity of choice. People who have no affiliation are not necessarily atheist or agnostic, but they do at least help create an environment where lack of religious belief is not looked down upon.

While your second statement is obviously true, that does not help validate your first statement. Every limitation can be overcome, even being a religious scientist. I equate it as being similar to a professional basketball player who is under 6' tall. It is absolutely possible but it does impact your play.

Neil Degrasse Tyson has a great lecture which goes over how religious thought has impacted some of the greatest minds in history. He also writes about the concept in an article titled "The Perimeter Of Ignorance." As I understood his point, there have been times when great scientific scholars have stopped their pursuit of knowledge because they were content with the "God did it" explanation.

Newton stopped investigating the movement of planets once his current mathematical knowledge was put to the task of understanding how planets affect each others' orbits. This was the man who invented Calculus and wrote the Principia, but even he was guilty of not pushing forward the boundaries of science because he was content with the "God did it" answer. If not for his religious beliefs, perhaps he would have added inventing perturbation theory to his list of accolades and could have introduced it a century before Laplace did.

I am not arrogant enough to think I could keep religious beliefs from impacting my ability to investigate the world rationally if even geniuses like Newton couldn't.

The most troubling causational link he highlights is how the Islamic world lost its place as a center of scientific progress when a radical version of Islam took hold in the 12th century. Over the centuries that followed, the Islamic world went from being the place Algebra was invented to having 0.6% of Nobel laureates in Physics/Chemistry/Medicine with 23% of the world's population.

My favorite concept from his lecture is the danger of Revelation Replacing Investigation. It is at the core of why scientific thought and religious thought are at opposing sides, even though they can both exist within the same human being.

Unfortunately Slashdot doesn't have an "Obvious But Still Important To Say" option, so Insightful will have to do.

In this case though I would agree that Informative is a better mod, since his statement isn't that insightful it is just correcting the previous post when he stated climate change deniers are skeptical. While they may be skeptical in the "skeptical science is the best way to gain knowledge" sense, they are not the good kind of skeptical that actually help the debate on what to do above climate change.

This thread was already mixing individual income ($89k average tech-pro salary) and median income ($51k median HH income) so I was merely following the convention. I agree that we shouldn't be looking at HH income at all though, and should focus on average college grads making $51k and average tech-pro workers making $89k. These stats are slightly different since one is median and one is the mean, but I doubt there are many 1%-ers skewing the tech-pro salaries.

We are already ignoring the population that lack college degrees since the $51k/yr figure only includes college grads. And while many people have fairly useless college degrees, many IT workers not qualified for much more than tier-2 help desk support.

IT salaries should probably be fairly mediocre compared to STEM fields as a whole. It is on the very low end of necessary training / skills except in some very specialized sub-fields where workers do average six digit salaries.

IT workers need to stop using salaries in the 90's as evidence that IT salaries have stagnated. Pay in the 90's was bloated, and there was a massive correction after the bubble burst.

The S&P 500 finally reached its 2000 peak in April 2015. Considering the tech sector was a major contributor to the stock market crashing in 2000, it makes sense that IT wages would not be much higher than they were 20 years ago.

Also, most IT sector workers have their salaries stagnate at around $100k per year because they have trouble transitioning their career into a senior level / management role. If you don't have more responsibilities than you did 10 years ago, you shouldn't make more money other than cost of living raises.

Median male salary with a Bachelor's degree is $50,916 according to your own source. That is still much less than the average IT worker.

IT workers typically do not make what a person with a Professional degree makes, because the amount of education and certifications is not similar at all. A professional degree is essential a doctorate. That is not universally true, but the vast majority of professional degrees are doctorates. They are also almost universally licensed as a requirement to practice in their field. That is not the same thing as an A+/CCNA/MSCE/etc certification.

Comparing average IT workers with doctors and lawyers is disingenuous. There are many highly skilled IT workers who do have a similar level of education and training as professional degree holders, and they tend to make similar salaries as professional degree holders. The vast majority of IT workers fall into the same level of education as average Bachelor degree holders.

Don't people tend to stay at their job longer during a poor economy? As long as they aren't laid off that is (and the above study looked at employed people).

I would expect that employees would do far more job hopping from 1992 - 2000 than they would have in 2004 - 2008. The late 90's was one of the best economies in history (if not the best) so job mobility was probably very high.

I'm more interested in the odds of working at the same employer at least 20 years when starting there in 1965 as compared to 1995. Averages can be very misleading (like when using average salary instead of median salary).

Also, the above statistics don't seem to mention changing careers, just changing employers. That is a very different thing.

Wish I had mod points, this is the perfect response.

The trades cannot be off-shored, but they can be flooded by ex-employees of jobs that were off-shored.

There simply is not such thing as a safe good paying job. If you want above average income, you need ongoing above average effort in managing your career. For anyone under the age of 40 that usually means many career pivots before retirement. Very few industries will stagnate for 40 years in a row in order to provide someone a clear and easy career path.

Requiring a physical presence may stop a particular job from being off-shored, but it does not stop it from being affected by off-shoring. As the jobs that can be off-shored leave, those former employees start competing for the jobs that cannot be off-shored. So any IT related job that needs to stay local now has many more applicants, thus driving down wages.