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Nine things I learned in ninety years

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Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#171

Post by AaronAPU »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #87
ropable wrote: post #36

> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.

It's wild how much of what we chalk up to merit is really just the invisible scaffolding of luck: being born in the right place, with the right wiring, at the right time...

If things generally worked out very well for you, it feels good to believe you got there because of your virtues, and that those who didn’t got there because of their vices.

It’s the narrative of least resistance.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#172

Post by latexr »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #82
darkwater wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. Based on what, exactly? I think you have cause and effect inverted.

Nope. Statistically, having children before you get married is much more likely to result in worse outcomes. Maybe cause and effect is inverted, but maybe the better option is to not run a social experiment in fatherless children as we have been doing for the past couple of decades with absolutely no research to suggest that it can result in positive outcomes and loads of data to show that it's almost definitely can'…

Statistics without context can be misleading. It’s reasonable to assume that the cause is the prior situation which lead to it, not the act itself.

Picture two scenarios:

1. A loving unmarried couple, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or child bearing, lives in an affluent neighbourhood, in a rich country, have steady incomes, and decide to have a child. After ten years they decide “I love you so much. I don’t need a piece of paper to prove that, but let’s get married. It’ll be a great opportunity to connect our friends and family, and it’ll give us some legal and financial protection when one of us dies”.

2. In a poor neighbourhood, a woman who was mistreated all her life marries her high school sweetheart, who turn out to be abusive. He not only beats her, he rapes her regularly. Like too many victims of domestic violence, she’s afraid to move away. Eventually she becomes pregnant and has the child against her will.

Which of those do would produce the better outcome?

Being fatherless isn’t in itself the issue, but everything which came before to reach that point might be. There is a huge difference between not having a father because he abandoned you, or because he died, or because your mother as a single affluent woman with the means to do so decided to do in-vitro fertilisation.

I highly recommend “New Family Values”, by Andrew Solomon, to get a feeling for the different types of families which work. It goes way beyond “one mother, one father, married”.

https://andrewsolomon.com/books/new-family-values-audiobook/

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#173

Post by [deleted] »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #156
latexr wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true to an extent, but has severe limitations. Of the five thing your parent comment listed (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy), only one (geography) is truly under your control, and even then it can be very hard to change depending on where you start and the other four (and more).

I object to those 5 things. Parents and genetics are one thing, but geography, society, and the wider economy are for everyone to navigate so make your own luck.

[deleted]

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#174

Post by mytailorisrich »

latexr wrote: post #169
mytailorisrich wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I object to those 5 things. Parents and genetics are one thing, but geography, society, and the wider economy are for everyone to navigate so make your own luck.

If you were born poor in a society which sees part of your genetics as undesirable or outright criminal—none of which were your choice—you’ll find yourself in very dire straits and changing your situation—heck, even knowing a better life is possible—will be extremely difficult. It is not reasonable to tell a child sold into slavery or forced to be a soldier to “make their own luck”, that “society, and the wider econo…

I am not saying that it is easy or that everyone starts with the same opportunities. But you can make your own luck in any case to improve your life or at least to have a better shot at it.

If you believe that you are a victim that nothing you can do will make a diference, and therefore don't even try then you will definitely not improve your situation!

Now if you are born in poverty as an albino in Africa, orphaned at a young age, sold to slavery and then to a witchdoctor for organ trafficking are you fucked? Probably but that does not change the point. [I am pushing your reply ad absurdum to highlight that it is not a counter-argument...]

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#175

Post by erenst »

koolba wrote: post #157
bregma wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serendipity favours the prepared mind.

Damn straight. Often, being at the right place at the right time is more of a matter of predicting the places to be and arriving there in advance of said right time.

I like to call it "Exposing yourself to luck." You can't win lottery if you never play. Play the lottery with the best odds and play it as much as you can.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#176

Post by bluGill »

koolba wrote: post #157
bregma wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serendipity favours the prepared mind.

Damn straight. Often, being at the right place at the right time is more of a matter of predicting the places to be and arriving there in advance of said right time.

You won't always be right but you can be there often enough to matter. goals need to be reasoneble - the luck needed to be a billionair is unlikely, but if you settle for millionair that luck is likely if you invest your money in the right place.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#177

Post by Poomba »

erenst wrote: post #175
koolba wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn straight. Often, being at the right place at the right time is more of a matter of predicting the places to be and arriving there in advance of said right time.

I like to call it "Exposing yourself to luck." You can't win lottery if you never play. Play the lottery with the best odds and play it as much as you can.

Other than moving to the right location, what are other ways to expose yourself to luck?

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#178

Post by malnourish »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #162
darkwater wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you need to run any experiment. Being married or not is just signing a paper. What matters is if the couple live together and in harmony. You can do so without being married and having children, and it's everyday more common. That's why I'm saying you have cause and effect in the wrong order: children issues are tied to one or both parents not caring about them, and a symptom of that was having children…

> Being married or not is just signing a paper. If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years, then yes. If we redefine marriage to not mean what most humans that have ever used the word meant by it, then yes. But why would we do these things? If you call all relations between two human beings marriage, you gain nothing, you just lose a word. Marriage is a covenant between two people, a man and…

I'm married to my wife. We lived together happily for more than a decade before we married. We are childless atheists in a neighborhood of other childless, atheist, married couples, some of whom have been together almost as long as my wife and I have been alive.

By your definition, are we all unmarried or living in disharmony?

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#179

Post by Lyngbakr »

b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #138
psychoslave wrote: post #71

>“It’s not so difficult to be a buddha,” says Thich Nhat Hanh. “Just keep your awakening alive all day long.” And it’s not too complicated to be a permanent tightrope walker either: just stay calm, still and balanced. While ninjas with ignited swords jump all around you and acid-proof sharks lurks at you from the sour sea waiting your fall. Sleepwalking, that’s a perfect title for our current Zeitgeist indeed. Ok, th…

I wonder if it's a mistranslation and Hanh means it's not complicated to be a Buddha. Many things in life are very simple, and also very hard.

I'm sure most folks here have seen the talk, but Rich Hickey's Simple Made Easy# is a superb discussion about this in the context of software.

# https://youtu.be/SxdOUGdseq4?si=fbRmd27oY80LZxw6

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#180

Post by jtr1 »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #40

Since he might not be known to most (especially a younger audience), the author is a writer best known for many of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were hugely successful in the 80s. Jimmy Maher wrote about them recently https://www.filfre.net/2025/09/choose-your-own-adventure/

Thank for noting this! I had no idea while I was reading the piece, but I loved those books as a kid. What a delightful connection.
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