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The Role of Luck in Life Success

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#31

Post by matt_wulfeck »

cdancette wrote: post #14
ythn wrote: post #6

You can improve your chances of success with hard work/perseverance though. 1. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail 2. Give up vs. 1. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail 2. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail 3. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail 4. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail 5. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail 6. Try -> (luck roll) -> success!

Only if you have enough resources to continue.

1. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

2. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

3. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

4. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

5. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

6. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> success!

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#32

Post by caymanjim »

axiom92 wrote: post #3

I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

Anecdotally, I've found the opposite. The most successful people ascribe their success to their own hard work first and foremost, discounting all the benefits that luck has brought them, most especially the accident of their birth (rich country, rich parents, race, gender, date, etc.). On the other end of the spectrum, those who are less successful tend to blame all their failures on bad luck and discount their own contribution.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#33

Post by CalmStorm »

It seems that King Solomon already figured this out:

“Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.” ‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭9:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#34

Post by eeZah7Ux »

axiom92 wrote: post #3

I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

> anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life

...or want to attribute every part of it to their behavior.

Survivor bias is strong, especially in cultures where people are exposed to the idea of just world, aka meritocracy, from an early age.

Perhaps 95% of Hollywood narratives are around good guys vs bad guys and the good guys always win.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#35

Post by delete2 »

caymanjim wrote: post #32
axiom92 wrote: post #3

I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

Anecdotally, I've found the opposite. The most successful people ascribe their success to their own hard work first and foremost, discounting all the benefits that luck has brought them, most especially the accident of their birth (rich country, rich parents, race, gender, date, etc.). On the other end of the spectrum, those who are less successful tend to blame all their failures on bad luck and discount their own c…

The "You didn't build that" types vs. the self-made man with a million dollar trust fund types.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#36

Post by confounded »

bluetwo wrote: post #18
axiom92 wrote: post #3

I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

"The harder you work the luckier you get..."

Perhaps true, though working-smart and being affable/networked seems more important than grinding. Still, IME, that variable amount of luck is tiny relative to ‘starting luck’, or straight blind luck.

I think it is fair to say that luck ‘compounds’ like interest. Being in a good position generally confers more frequent and higher-value opportunities to get into a better one. Getting lucky early is very important, and the earliest luck you can get is the circumstance of your birth.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#37

Post by balabaster »

chongli wrote: post #24
citilife wrote: post #8

If you sit on the couch all day doing nothing, you wont get lucky. Sure, we can identify "luck" as a path to success, but honestly that seems more like survivor bias.... There are a nearly infinite number of events that had to take place for everything to exist in its current state. We can call it "luck" or "randomness" which then leads to specific actions leading to success. However, in reality we are designed to re…

You're already lucky if you have a couch to sit on. Plenty of people have no house, let alone couch to sit on. Who you are is substantially a matter of luck, too. Somebody who has two driven parents that spend enormous amounts of time and effort raising them is far more likely to be driven and competitive than a person whose parents lay around smoking weed all day.

What if one parent was never to be found and the other was always at work to ensure you had a roof over your head and as such you were frequently a feral kid?

Your genetic makeup is a product of the genetic histories of two people that (perhaps, but not necessarily) fell in love and had a baby. If they were genetically predisposed to large amounts of self discipline, then perhaps you will be too, perhaps not. I'd say this can count as lucky... or unlucky(?) beyond that, all you've got is your own toil, sweat, tears and guile.

"Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's"

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#38

Post by chefandy »

caymanjim wrote: post #32
axiom92 wrote: post #3

I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

Anecdotally, I've found the opposite. The most successful people ascribe their success to their own hard work first and foremost, discounting all the benefits that luck has brought them, most especially the accident of their birth (rich country, rich parents, race, gender, date, etc.). On the other end of the spectrum, those who are less successful tend to blame all their failures on bad luck and discount their own c…

Fact.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#39

Post by jellicle »

axiom92 wrote: post #3

I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

It usually goes the other way around: people who say that luck isn't important are precisely those that have been very lucky. They have no self-recognition of it. Rather, because they've achieved success with little effort, they have learned and believe that anyone making as little effort as they know they did should also be as successful, so by definition if you aren't successful, you must be lazy as hell.

"I'm a self-made man! I turned that $100 million I inherited from my Dad into a billion by picking the right investment firm!"

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#40

Post by jellicle »

citilife wrote: post #8

If you sit on the couch all day doing nothing, you wont get lucky. Sure, we can identify "luck" as a path to success, but honestly that seems more like survivor bias.... There are a nearly infinite number of events that had to take place for everything to exist in its current state. We can call it "luck" or "randomness" which then leads to specific actions leading to success. However, in reality we are designed to re…

On the contrary, the largest factors of luck, such as being born a white male in a first-world country to wealthy parents, can all be achieved while you are playing Xbox and won't disappear even if you do spend your days on the couch.

"Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event."

Will lead to success? This statement of results simply isn't true. What leads to success in the USA, more so than many other countries, is being born lucky, not hard work. That's your best bet. Many many many people will work very hard for their entire lives - harder than you - and never earn more than a subsistence living, because they had the wrong kind of birth luck.

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