The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
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The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
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Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#2I'm not quite getting how can you put talent vs luck, when talent is based on luck you got from your genes, parents, environment etc.
I see it as the same thing.
Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#3The original model was so abstracted that it was absurd.
There is no such thing as “luck”, it is only a name for what we call the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Both can be controlled. People tend to think opportunities are random and based on chance – they aren’t. They are the result of smaller intersections of preparations and opportunities that happened previously.
Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#4The original model was so abstracted that it was absurd. There is no such thing as “luck”, it is only a name for what we call the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Both can be controlled. People tend to think opportunities are random and based on chance – they aren’t. They are the result of smaller intersections of preparations and opportunities that happened previously.
For the purpose of this discussion, the precise definition of luck doesn't matter, and can be taken to be anything that isn't talent.
Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#5The original model was so abstracted that it was absurd. There is no such thing as “luck”, it is only a name for what we call the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Both can be controlled. People tend to think opportunities are random and based on chance – they aren’t. They are the result of smaller intersections of preparations and opportunities that happened previously.
For the purpose of this discussion, the precise definition of luck doesn't matter, and can be taken to be anything that isn't talent.
There is no such thing as talent either.
No one is born with a natural skill to do something unnatural. Genetic traits are not talents, they are traits. To be born with a talent would be to be able to do whatever it is you do from the moment you are born, if you had the physical capacity for it. Otherwise, any “talent” you display later is really just the result of effective learning and practice, but that is just what you would call a skill, there is no need to build it up with all the mythology of “talent”. Just another form of ladder kicking to discourage others from thinking they could achieve that same level of skill.
So if neither definition matters, then in essence this discussion is about nothing.
Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the purpose of this discussion, the precise definition of luck doesn't matter, and can be taken to be anything that isn't talent.
There is no such thing as talent either. No one is born with a natural skill to do something unnatural. Genetic traits are not talents, they are traits. To be born with a talent would be to be able to do whatever it is you do from the moment you are born, if you had the physical capacity for it. Otherwise, any “talent” you display later is really just the result of effective learning and practice, but that is just wh…
Luck is anything the individual cannot control. You don't get to choose your parents, for example. I don't see what your point is.
Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the purpose of this discussion, the precise definition of luck doesn't matter, and can be taken to be anything that isn't talent.
There is no such thing as talent either. No one is born with a natural skill to do something unnatural. Genetic traits are not talents, they are traits. To be born with a talent would be to be able to do whatever it is you do from the moment you are born, if you had the physical capacity for it. Otherwise, any “talent” you display later is really just the result of effective learning and practice, but that is just wh…
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Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#8I still think the focus on wealth/income inequality rather than on absolute poverty is irrational. I've seen people justify it to me on the grounds that people care about relative poverty, which to me reads "people are jealous". But then the result is:
1) A focus on inequality is irrational. 2) People focus on inequality for irrational reasons.
This means that if policy-makers and intellectuals fully give in to the people's wishes, we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely. If this sounds like a strawman, it's because we have "backstops" to inequality-decreasing wealth-destruction. But why should we tolerate any wealth destruction at all?
And if reducing inequality is possible without wealth destruction, why focus on inequality?
(This is besides the "Oxfam problem" -- there never is a coherent definition of "wealth" and Oxfam never seems to fully value people's homes and work animals and suchlike in poor countries.)
Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no such thing as talent either. No one is born with a natural skill to do something unnatural. Genetic traits are not talents, they are traits. To be born with a talent would be to be able to do whatever it is you do from the moment you are born, if you had the physical capacity for it. Otherwise, any “talent” you display later is really just the result of effective learning and practice, but that is just wh…
Luck is anything the individual cannot control. You don't get to choose your parents, for example. I don't see what your point is.
If that is all luck is, then is there ever a point to these discussions? No one is going to leave with an understanding of how they can “be more lucky”. You just either are, or you aren’t and that’s all you’ll ever be. Either that or it becomes a contest for who is the most or least lucky.
Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
#10> It could be that the results were built into the model’s design.
Every true mathematical proposition is a tautology. I don't find this point particularly convincing. As long as the model's predictions match reality in interesting ways, it can lend possible insights on why reality might have certain characteristics.
> Like getting an improbable series of heads when flipping a coin long enough, improbable clusters of events are bound to occur for at least some agents in a large enough set.
Yes, but what's alarming is how most agents' capital fell from bad luck alone, and how good luck only seemed to benefit a very small subset of the population, and talent was not any kind of guarantee. These characteristics of life are denied by many people, so to see it reflected in such a simple model is, I hope, instructive.
> Why should capital growth only occur on chance events, when most workers are paid wages in exchange for their work?
The way I see it, chance events that exponentially increase wealth drown out one's piddling wages. Wages don't seem particularly relevant to why Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have billions, and many people live paycheck to paycheck.