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Yeah, like fall back into poverty. People that are wildly successful often hit some very narrow window. You can be persistent and try and try again which incre

Yeah, like fall back into poverty. People that are wildly successful often hit some very narrow window. You can be persistent and try and try again which increases your odds, but it's still a crap-shoot.

weberc2 8y ago
You have to be lucky perhaps to be wildly successful, but you'd have to be quite unlucky to work hard and take smart risks and fail to be successful at all. Similarly, you have to be very, very lucky to rise from poverty to wealth without working hard or taking smart risks. In particular, seeing and executing on a narrow-window opportunity that others miss is itself an accomplishment. The idea that self-made success is purely a matter of luck is either a myth or true only by some meaningless definition of what constitutes "luck" (i.e., you're lucky that you have the ability and personality to reliably execute well and achieve success).
- astrodust 8y ago
  You can do everything right, work very hard, and still fail. You can do everything wrong, be a complete idiot, and still succeed. There's ways you can increase your luck, or be more observant as to opportunities, but it's self-deluding if you don't think luck plays a huge factor in success.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    It plays a huge factor in the specific degree of success, but a much smaller factor in whether or not you are successful at all. If you do everything right and fail, you are an anomaly pretty much by definition.
    - astrodust 8y ago
      You do realize there's arguably at least two billion people who through no fault of their own will never, ever succeed, no matter how hard they try? You're born in the middle of Tibet as a persecuted ethnic minority. You're on a tiny island nation with no economic future. You're from a part of Africa that's seen nothing but civil war interspersed with famine. You can do everything right but the deck is so stacked against you there's no winning move.
      - weberc2 8y ago
        I don't care to generalize the principle outside of the western world. A valid generalization probably exists, but the terms are already so abstract that I doubt it's possible to have a meaningful conversation. Yes, there are a vanishingly tiny fraction of people in the western world who will do everything right and still fail, and a similar fraction who will do everything wrong and still succeed; however, they're the exceptions that prove the rule.

weberc2 8y ago

You have to be lucky perhaps to be wildly successful, but you'd have to be quite unlucky to work hard and take smart risks and fail to be successful at all. Similarly, you have to be very, very lucky to rise from poverty to wealth without working hard or taking smart risks. In particular, seeing and executing on a narrow-window opportunity that others miss is itself an accomplishment. The idea that self-made success is purely a matter of luck is either a myth or true only by some meaningless definition of what constitutes "luck" (i.e., you're lucky that you have the ability and personality to reliably execute well and achieve success).

astrodust 8y ago
You can do everything right, work very hard, and still fail. You can do everything wrong, be a complete idiot, and still succeed. There's ways you can increase your luck, or be more observant as to opportunities, but it's self-deluding if you don't think luck plays a huge factor in success.
- weberc2 8y ago
  It plays a huge factor in the specific degree of success, but a much smaller factor in whether or not you are successful at all. If you do everything right and fail, you are an anomaly pretty much by definition.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    You do realize there's arguably at least two billion people who through no fault of their own will never, ever succeed, no matter how hard they try? You're born in the middle of Tibet as a persecuted ethnic minority. You're on a tiny island nation with no economic future. You're from a part of Africa that's seen nothing but civil war interspersed with famine. You can do everything right but the deck is so stacked against you there's no winning move.
    - weberc2 8y ago
      I don't care to generalize the principle outside of the western world. A valid generalization probably exists, but the terms are already so abstract that I doubt it's possible to have a meaningful conversation. Yes, there are a vanishingly tiny fraction of people in the western world who will do everything right and still fail, and a similar fraction who will do everything wrong and still succeed; however, they're the exceptions that prove the rule.