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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

#101

Post by KozmoNau7 »

xer wrote: post #42

From my experience you can increase your luck in life by exposing yourself to more choices. This can be something as simple as having saved up money so you can quit your job whenever you want to. That in turn gives you the "luck" to get a better job if the opportunity presents itself.

It is also a matter of having the resources to act on that lucky opportunity.

So it's two-fold, one is that you have the resources to expose yourself to more possibly lucky situations, the second is being able to actually do something about it.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#102

Post by athenot »

spicymaki wrote: post #44

America's aversion to the role of luck is based on the Protestant work ethic. There is no chance and everything is predetermined by God's grace. God's grace is demonstrated by hard work, frugality, and discipline. There is a concept of double predetermination where you already need to be saved to be saved. Which means the poor is poor not because of chance, but because they lack God's grace.

The irony is not lost on Catholics, who are the recipient of much criticism from Protestants who view "saved by works" as an insult to God's grace. (The theology is actually a mix of both since faith without actions is inconsistent, but I'm refering to the stereotype from the Protestant side.)

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#103

Post by MadSudaca »

aerique wrote: post #59
spicymaki wrote: post #44

America's aversion to the role of luck is based on the Protestant work ethic. There is no chance and everything is predetermined by God's grace. God's grace is demonstrated by hard work, frugality, and discipline. There is a concept of double predetermination where you already need to be saved to be saved. Which means the poor is poor not because of chance, but because they lack God's grace.

Convenient.

Excessive belief in luck seems more convenient to me. At least by trying to work hard you're taking responsibility for yourself.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#104

Post by stewbrew »

thanatropism wrote: post #8

I 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 p…

The focus on inequality is irrational only for rich people or machines. Humans are social beings right from the start. You always compare yourself to others. Given that wealth mostly depends on your birth and not on your efforts given your resources, the focus on inequality is very rational.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#106

Post by aje403 »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #76
aje403 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what to tell you, people who have built organizations that employee thousands of people have contributed more to society than average. If that needs further justification then I'm not even sure how to respond to that. You're reading things into what I'm saying - if Elon Musk raises a campaign fundraiser for his favorite candidate, do I mind that? Do I mind him having more "power" in that people listen to…

> I'm not sure what to tell you, people who have built organizations that employee thousands of people have contributed more to society than average. If that needs further justification then I'm not even sure how to respond to that. A very large portion of those people have contributed more suffering to the world, and continue to do so through the continued exploitation of the worker class and lower classes.

Should probably bow out after this one; I don't think there is much room for rational discussion for my viewpoints here.

I agree that walmart is a piece of crap, but you don't really know what suffering is. Please ask your grandparents what options their grandparents had in life.

If you have some notion that corporations that try to profit are a blight on society and that their abolition will lead to some dream world, then by all means. Please knock over all the establishments, nationalize all corporations and divy profits amongst the workers, redivide the wealth of every millionaire, publish a list of banned words like 'wealth', and so on, and then point me to the nearest democracy.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#107

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

drieddust wrote: post #66

Where Warren Buffet would have landed if he was born in Afghanistan? I have thought about this question a lot recently without any satisfaction.

Buffett himself has raised the same point, saying that he won the "ovarian lottery". He doesn't deny that he's uncommonly talented, but readily acknowledges that his particular talents wouldn't be such an advantage if he hadn't been born into a society where they are highly valued.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#108

Post by aje403 »

brut wrote: post #75
aje403 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a distortion. Young men see rich men with beautiful women flying to anywhere they want on the planet. Only a few of them will get that when they're older, and it oftens boils down to intelligence, work ethic, cleverness, other abilities like athletics and looks, and a few lucky breaks that they take advantage of. Exceptions being inherited wealth. Law of averages, those who do make it are hard working and int…

You are distorting the argument as well. The correlation between money earned for work and the relative value of that work is rather low. There is no "group, who by and large, has contributed more to the society". There is only "society", nothing exists in a vacuum. Do you think Steve Jobs could have achieved what he did had there not been any firefighters, primary school teachers, steelworkers, lumberjacks, bus driv…

What specifically are you suggesting happen? Did I say anywhere in my post that tax rates should not be raised for the wealthy, or that the estate tax should not be raised?

I am making a specific counterargument to a post arguing that wealth correlates with power, power is the true measure of inequality, and that it should thus be normalized instead.

I am thoroughly questioning the reading comprehension skills of virtually everybody responding to me.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#109

Post by wmsiler »

This is not directly related to this article (which I liked), but instead to the topic in general.

I heard of a study a few years ago where researchers divided a bunch of teenagers into a few groups (each of which was quite large), and each teen was allowed to go to a website and hear a collection of songs (same songs for everyone). Each person could then vote on which was their favorite and, importantly, they could see how many votes that song had already gotten just within their group. The researchers wanted to see if the same songs were picked as the favorite across different, isolated groups. The result was that each group had chosen completely different songs as their favorite. These groups were large enough that they were probably all statistically similar. Once people in a group saw that some song already had a lot of votes, they were more likely to pick it as their favorite as well. This suggests that in the world of pop music, success may have more to do with luck and social influence than with talent.

Ah, I found a link to a description of the study: https://www.npr.org/2014/02/27/282939233/good-art-is-popular...

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood

#110

Post by [deleted] »

thanatropism wrote: post #83
scott_s wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your comments, but I want to add to it. I agree that wealth inequality leads to power inequality. And I agree that curtails freedom. But I think it also tends to societal instability. Closing the loop, we care about wealth inequality because we don't want society to collapse.

Are there historical examples of societal collapse due to wealth inequality? (Honest question)

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