71–76 of 76 posts
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Totally true. Anxiety saps all kinds of brain power.
I'm not so sure. I've found a certain level of anxiety can make me perform better at things. Complacency can be dangerous too in my experience.
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I think in your search for a contrary example, you're looking at it in the wrong way. The focus of the unlucky pessimist will lead them unerringly to the stairs, whether or not that's the best option. The lucky optimist won't foolishly do what no one should ever do, but instead notice that the open elevator shaft has a ladder that someone else just safely used to escape. Being lucky doesn't mean you have to be stupid…
Take this thought experiment to its extreme and the unlucky should have gone extinct. The fact that both lucky and unlucky personality types persist, suggest both have advantages.
Dammit, where's Eliezer Yudkowsky when you need him. I'm pretty sure he'll have an interesting take on this.
BEHOLD, I AM HERE! MBlume posted the article to LW here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1b9/do_the_unlucky_systematically_un... If you want me to say something stunningly intelligent about it, um... ah... okay, how about this: Since we know at the start of the problem that luck in the supernatural sense doesn't really exist, we would expect people experiencing systematic exogenous runs of genuine good or bad luck to be rare…
It is at that point where I would inject your perspective. What other measurable differences are there? Are "lucky" people wealthier? Healthier? Laid more? Etc.
Then there's the matter of training people for greater "luck." I agree, the article is sketchy here, and I'm not sure of a reliable way to measure an increase in "luck" (unless we assume that the "unlucky" can be expected to flunk the photo count indefinitely).
In essence, I think the article is 1/3 of the way there. True, "lucky" people differ from "unlucky" people. So let's figure out if they differ in ways that we care about, and if we can make "unlucky" people become "lucky." Then we'll have something.
Parcel this up as a message about making your own luck or being determined, taking advantage of opportunities or consciously priming your selection bias in your favour, and some kinds of people are all over it. Parcel up the same message as positive thinking, cosmic ordering, the law of attraction or subjective reality, and the same types trip over themselves to be the first to ridicule it. And it does seem to be the…
Yeah? Let's train people in the law of attraction and compare them to people trained to be non -supernaturally lucky, and see who gets luckier.
Dammit, where's Eliezer Yudkowsky when you need him. I'm pretty sure he'll have an interesting take on this.
BEHOLD, I AM HERE! MBlume posted the article to LW here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1b9/do_the_unlucky_systematically_un... If you want me to say something stunningly intelligent about it, um... ah... okay, how about this: Since we know at the start of the problem that luck in the supernatural sense doesn't really exist, we would expect people experiencing systematic exogenous runs of genuine good or bad luck to be rare…