The Role of Luck in Life Success

I don't understand this artificial distinction between talent and luck. Isn't one lucky to possess the talent in the first place? What one does to develop that talent into something meaningful is of course a different matter.

> Many people deny this Maybe, but nobody brought it up before you did.

>People tend to think luck is heavily about positioning >yourself to succeed.

>I think that's true, but I also believe that the most >important factors to putting you in those lucky positions >are not in your control.

>Someone who is not already born into a lucky position has >to get even more lucky to succeed.

That we all agree on, what we disagree on is you trying to elevate race above all other uncontrollable factors in ones life. I don't know if it's true or not, but you probably don't have the data to back that assertion up.

> You telling me to simply stop talking about something that I believe is an important point to make is very strange.

Because we are trying to have a civil and deep discourse about an important subject . Any social issue under the sun can be related to racial issue, from violence to education level to health; It's doesn't mean that adopting a racial frame is the best way of discussing,reflecting and solving those issues. We aren't even sure to which part race is a causing vs a correlating factor. What we do know however is that race is such a polarizing subject (in the US at least) that trying to shoehorn race into a debate is a sure way to derail it. Not to mentioned the blatant disrespect to all the other type of human experience that somehow you think are worst than being black in america (mental health and devellopmentale issue for example, and yes see we can all play the game of who as it worst...)...

So ultimately it's not that race is not important, it's that it's not a useful frame for every subject.

And yes i am black, and on my wish list of stuff i want to change about myself higher social status, more money, higher overall sexual attractiveness come way before race...

Right place at the right time is a stacker, like so many (most?) things.

Being in the right place at the right time, is probably worthless without the necessary skill/s (where studying/learning/education can come in) and attributes to take advantage of the opportunity in question.

Maybe you meet an elite investor in an elevator and have an opportunity to pitch them. You lack the technical skill or experience to bring it home. You perhaps never really had a shot at that right place + right time moment (so was it ever an opportunity at all? Is it a sliding scale? debate loop).

Some of what we can be is defined at birth. If your brain wiring is very heavily tilted toward being an artist, you likely will not be the next John Carmack. Adrian Carmack could not do what John could no matter how hard he tried (I know they're not related, I couldn't resist). I know there are exceptions to these rules, they're exceptions however.

Around 2001, a cohort of recent grads was working on an obscure experimental thing at Microsoft that never went anywhere. Half of the group went to Mountain View, and half stayed in Redmond. The first half are all millionaires now, and the second half are just well-off.

You can look at this from many directions. Did the natural hustlers hustle their way to Google, while the naturally complacent stayed put? Did the Googlers just go there because that's where their friends went, or because they thought it was cool? Did the Mountain View people catch the fever after the fact, and become hustlers, while the Redmond people absorbed the relatively relaxed culture there? Did everyone just go where they thought was best and then it turned out one of those places was saturated in money?

My point is: Your experiences taught and reinforced that lesson. It's turtles all the way down.