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Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

nautil.us

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Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#221

Post by greggman »

colanderman wrote: post #103

The article (and some comments here) seem to conflate luck and what I will call lot . "Luck" I define as random happenstance during one's life. You can manage luck. Doing so is the central theme of many board games. You can increase your luck "surface area" by taking more chances. Entire industries (e.g. insurance) exist to manage luck. Your "lot", on the other hand, I define as what you were born with. How you were…

I've seen lots of examples of luck. This is not to suggest that tenacious people wouldn't succeed in some way or another but only that their current positions would be different.

Some good examples: Ed Catmull in his own book mentioned all the luck he had becoming Pixar. Pixar was a computer hardware division at ILM. ILM wanted to get rid if them. They almost got sold to a computer company (lucky they didnt). They got bought by Steve Jobs who bought them to make computers. He spent $70 million dollars on them for them to make computers which they failed at. They then pivoted to animation. It's pretty lucky to find some person willing to blow $70 million on you and you don't have to earn a dime.

Bill Gates is a smart guy but being president of Microsoft that makes the OS for the majority of PCs seems like lots of luck. Luck that he was in the right place at the right time to sell MS-DOS. Lucky that none of his competitors shipped something more popular. From that piece of luck the rest follows. Without that luck he could just have easily been like the president of Lotus or the president of Borland.

IIRC Howard Lincoln, the first President of Nintendo of America got the job because he met the president of Nintendo at a layover in Chicago O'Hare Airport. The president of Nintendo said effectively, "Hey, I need someone to head up my USA division, how about you?" Without that luck Howard Lincoln would probably have just been a successful lawyer we'd never heard of.

In my own life I know a guy that was just a game designer. The founders of the company he was working for sold out and he was made president. He's done very well but jees that's some serious luck. There was no struggle it was just handed to him.

The head of the Chamber of Commerce in HK had the 3 guys above him leave. He was like 28 and inherited the job.

Google, tried to sell to Yahoo. Where would they be if that had happened?

Where would Facebook be if Friendster hadn't failed?

I'm not in any way suggesting you shouldn't work hard to increase your chances of success. But there is also tons of luck in most big success.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#222

Post by Altay- »

awa wrote: post #144
criddell wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cory Doctorow pointed to an interest article that described the subsidies that flow to wealthy households: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/03/low-income-us-households-ge... I wonder if your father thinks of his mortgage interest deduction as an example of receiving help he doesn't deserve?

I am not sure why mortgage interest deduction gets such a bad rap. It allows a lot of people to be able to afford homes which they couldn't otherwise. It helps the housing market/industry and banking industry. Apart from that a lot of other countries has it. If I had to change something I would actually add a rental deduction to help those who can't afford to buy housing instead of removing mortgage interest deductio…

That's like saying you don't understand why the government just sending Altay a $1billion check with the pre-condition that he spends it all gets a bad rap.

There's no reason to favor home ownership -- look at home ownership rates in Germany vs S. Europe. Then look at the health of their economies and living conditions.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#223

Post by q-base »

Swizec wrote: post #117
colanderman wrote: post #103

The article (and some comments here) seem to conflate luck and what I will call lot . "Luck" I define as random happenstance during one's life. You can manage luck. Doing so is the central theme of many board games. You can increase your luck "surface area" by taking more chances. Entire industries (e.g. insurance) exist to manage luck. Your "lot", on the other hand, I define as what you were born with. How you were…

I would add a third category: fortune . Lot is what you were born with. Luck is when random things do or don't happen regardless of skill. You can manage it to an extent. Bad luck through being careful and various types of insurance, good luck mostly through participating. Buying bitcoin 3 years ago and selling at great profit now is pure luck. Maybe you influenced the market to grow, probably it was pure luck. Fortu…

"Saying I was lucky negates the hard work I put in and spits on that guy who’s freezing his ass off back in Brooklyn." - of course you can't tell people how they should take your comments. But saying that you/he/she was lucky does not negate the fact that they may have worked hard. Saying it was ONLY luck does.

Working hard of course put you in a position where you could gain from the luck. You won't suddenly end up as a world renowned producer if you work as a fireman. You invest in your future with a lot of hard work and then perhaps you are one of those who make it.

A lot of people work hard on whatever they have put their mind into. A lot of people are talented and great at what they do. But a lot of people from both groups never really gets the recognition/success/financial breakthrough as others of similar and perhaps even objectively less hard-working/talented people. They just had a little extra "luck".

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#224

Post by wyager »

rrrx3 wrote: post #173
colanderman wrote: post #103

The article (and some comments here) seem to conflate luck and what I will call lot . "Luck" I define as random happenstance during one's life. You can manage luck. Doing so is the central theme of many board games. You can increase your luck "surface area" by taking more chances. Entire industries (e.g. insurance) exist to manage luck. Your "lot", on the other hand, I define as what you were born with. How you were…

This definition of "luck" sounds more like "risk mitigation" to me. Luck has a clear and easily understood definition.

It's not just risk mitigation; it's expectimax optimization, which sometimes involves absorbing additional risk rather than just mitigating or minimizing it.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#225

Post by kornish »

rrrx3 wrote: post #173
colanderman wrote: post #103

The article (and some comments here) seem to conflate luck and what I will call lot . "Luck" I define as random happenstance during one's life. You can manage luck. Doing so is the central theme of many board games. You can increase your luck "surface area" by taking more chances. Entire industries (e.g. insurance) exist to manage luck. Your "lot", on the other hand, I define as what you were born with. How you were…

This definition of "luck" sounds more like "risk mitigation" to me. Luck has a clear and easily understood definition.

Or: pursuing high upside, low-risk situations.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#226

Post by noobermin »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #52
dv_dt wrote: post #23

I think this touches upon one of the biggest weaknesses of the current economic system. We systematically waste the human capability of millions of people because the system essentially randomly gives much better opportunity to some over others. Meritocracy somewhat exists but mostly to the extent that people can maximize the opportunity they've drawn as their lot in life. I like the idea of Basic Income, but it's a…

We systematically waste the human capability of millions of people because the system essentially randomly gives much better opportunity to some over others. We don't do anything. The nature of reality is that there is not equal distribution of [anything]. The universe is a dynamical system - portions of the system will through probability always get stuck at local/global minima.

Hmm, I'm a physicist, and in fact the natural tendency is the opposite, it is towards equilibrium due to the second law of thermodynamics.

That is, unless there is a source or sink in the vector field. Then one has to ask why it's there.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#227

Post by wc23 »

colanderman wrote: post #103

The article (and some comments here) seem to conflate luck and what I will call lot . "Luck" I define as random happenstance during one's life. You can manage luck. Doing so is the central theme of many board games. You can increase your luck "surface area" by taking more chances. Entire industries (e.g. insurance) exist to manage luck. Your "lot", on the other hand, I define as what you were born with. How you were…

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. -Seneca

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#228

Post by ctack »

mindcrime wrote: post #150
jartelt wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring the fact that someone born into a poor family in an inner city like has an underfunded, underachieving public school, overwhelmed and inexperienced teachers, a below average guidance counselor, no role models who have gone to college, parents who do not know anything about applying for scholarships or financial aid, a diet of fast food, and few examples of other people in similar roles who became mil…

an underfunded, underachieving public school, overwhelmed and inexperienced teachers, a below average guidance counselor, no role models who have gone to college, parents who do not know anything about applying for scholarships or financial aid, a diet of fast food, and few examples of other people in similar roles who became millionaires That sounds like my life except for the inner city part. Substitute "redneck-vi…

Do you feel in any way grateful for your success and if so, how?

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#229

Post by ionwake »

Swizec wrote: post #117
colanderman wrote: post #103

The article (and some comments here) seem to conflate luck and what I will call lot . "Luck" I define as random happenstance during one's life. You can manage luck. Doing so is the central theme of many board games. You can increase your luck "surface area" by taking more chances. Entire industries (e.g. insurance) exist to manage luck. Your "lot", on the other hand, I define as what you were born with. How you were…

I would add a third category: fortune . Lot is what you were born with. Luck is when random things do or don't happen regardless of skill. You can manage it to an extent. Bad luck through being careful and various types of insurance, good luck mostly through participating. Buying bitcoin 3 years ago and selling at great profit now is pure luck. Maybe you influenced the market to grow, probably it was pure luck. Fortu…

I agree with your quote but I have to say...

The growing a fortune with bitcoin should be classed as fortune.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#230

Post by brutos »

greggman wrote: post #221
colanderman wrote: post #103

The article (and some comments here) seem to conflate luck and what I will call lot . "Luck" I define as random happenstance during one's life. You can manage luck. Doing so is the central theme of many board games. You can increase your luck "surface area" by taking more chances. Entire industries (e.g. insurance) exist to manage luck. Your "lot", on the other hand, I define as what you were born with. How you were…

I've seen lots of examples of luck. This is not to suggest that tenacious people wouldn't succeed in some way or another but only that their current positions would be different. Some good examples: Ed Catmull in his own book mentioned all the luck he had becoming Pixar. Pixar was a computer hardware division at ILM. ILM wanted to get rid if them. They almost got sold to a computer company (lucky they didnt). They go…

Bill Gates is a good example for OP's lot and luck point:

"In 1980, [Mary Maxwell Gates] discussed her son's company with John Opel, a fellow committee member and the chairman of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other IBM executives. A few weeks later, IBM took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer." [1]

Just an anecdote, but I like OP's point with lot and luck.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates

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