4 ms·
Absolutely, people seem to find/get jobs for reasons that look very much like insane luck. I found my current job through a long chain of "crazy" coincidences.
by hodwik 11y ago
Absolutely, people seem to find/get jobs for reasons that look very much like insane luck. I found my current job through a long chain of "crazy" coincidences.
In reality, what looks like luck is very normal. Humans are prone to think coincidence is much less likely than it actually is. This is where most religious belief and conspiracy theory come from.
Or, often, what seems like a coincidence is actually a predictable systematic phenomenon that we cannot yet explain. E.g. The regularity of comets was once thought merely a coincidence. Edmund Halley was the first to posit a system behind their regularity.
People don't like to tell of the coincidences that led them to their jobs because other people are liable to over-estimate the effect those coincidences had to said person's career.
- jerf 11y agoThe probability of any given event happening is negligible. However, something is going to happen. When that something happens, its probability will have been negligible too, yet, here we are. You can consider this concretely a bit by imagining a lottery in which every human being in the world is given one ticket. The probability of any given winner is negligible, but somebody is going to win, in what for them is an against-all-odds outcome. The a priori probability of this particular string of words ever being combined together into a post on Hacker News was negligible. Yet, here we are.
- hdctambien 11y ago"You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!" - Richard Feynman
- hodwik 11y agoOr, when two people meet, and find that incredibly they have multiple characteristics in common -- name, age, hometown, favorite book, childhood dog name, etc. I like to imagine the two people are sitting, and rolling dice over and over again, squealing with wide eyes every time their dice rolls match.
- scrupulusalbion 11y agoIf I met someone with whom I shared numerous characteristics, I wouldn't find the coincidences interesting nearly as much as the engaging conversation with someone who was effectively a stranger a few moments ago.
- NumberCruncher 11y agoFor the one it is luck, coincidence or divine intervention. For the other an opportunity disguised as hard work and taking risks.