Famous For Being Indianapolis - Issue 44: Luck
▻http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/famous-for-being-indianapolis-rp
When Kim Kardashian was 4 years old, a University of California economist named Moshe Adler wrote a six-page paper explaining the means by which she would eventually attain worldwide renown. Published in the The American Economic Review, “Stardom and Talent” made the unsettling claim that fame could just be a matter of luck. Even an insignificant incident (like the unauthorized release of a sex tape) could escalate into superstardom by a sort of positive feedback loop: The more famous an entertainer becomes, the more readily you can talk about her with your friends; the more she gets talked about, the more her fame expands.The underlying phenomenon is not unique to Kardashian or entertainers or even humans. Other researchers have shown that random noise can get amplified in businesses (...)