4 ms·

Wait, are you saying that in monopoly, the one who rolls the luckiest wins? I think that’s true. I would like to point out that in real life, that is also the

by kovek 7y ago

Wait, are you saying that in monopoly, the one who rolls the luckiest wins? I think that’s true. I would like to point out that in real life, that is also the case. The ones who roll the luckiest also win. Think of your birth situation. You didn’t chose it. Now, is Monopoly teaching anything remarkably useful about real life that could put you ahead? I don’t think so. It’s a game! Since the strategy is limited, takes a long time, I don’t think it’s a great one.

tines 7y ago
I think it's teaching you something about how society should or shouldn't be designed. Whether this could be said to "put you ahead" might be the wrong way to think about it.
kyuudou 7y ago
Why do so many, like many immigrants, start from nothing and end up very successful if it was just a dice roll? I mean, there's always that factor but it's certainly not everything.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  This seems like selection bias. I would bet that far more people end up successful because they started out successful.
  - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    This. There are a lot of immigrants: So many simply aren't rich and never will be, really. I mean, how many migrant farm workers are there in the world? How many work in the fishing industry? How many in restaurant kitchens? Am I supposed to believe they will all be successful? Probably not. I'm guessing that the immigrants started off better than others.
  - enaaem 7y ago
    We have to define what success is. Not all become millionaires, but most have build a good life for themselves in the upper middle class.
    - stouset 7y ago
      Data or it didn’t happen. “Most” and “upper middle class” tells me you’re probably making this up whole cloth. “Most” Americans don’t make it to the upper middle class.
- puzzledobserver 7y ago
  You are right that most immigrant rags-to-riches stories that immediately come to mind involve them getting off the boat with a handful of dollars to their name. But they seem to forget the value of the college degree that they carry and the lifetime of high-quality education that preceded their arrival in the US. The immigrants you speak of might not be as poor as you make them out to be. I do not know if many American families can get access to the same resources for early education if they are not already from families that are economically affluent.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  They don't. Very few people start from nothing and end up "very successful" (by which I take it you mean being rich and influential). You're just forgetting to divide their number by the number of people who start from nothing overall, which is Billions.
- toast0 7y ago
  Was able to emigrate is a pretty strong filter in a lot of cases. Was able to immigrate is an even stronger filter. Just gathering the resources to leave is one thing, gathering the resources to be allowed in at the destination can be even harder. Most of the immigrants I know spent a lot of time or money or both either personally or by their parents to get here. At least recebtly even the ones who left everything behind to start here with nothing at least had some talent at getting things done in beuracracy which is pretty useful.
friendlybus 7y ago
Strange idea. Elon musk started in SA. Surely being born to Harvard professors in America is the ‘luckiest’ play but most of them are not billionaires. The winklevoss twins mismanaging their Facebook idea had a massive impact on their long term success. The people that are born in first world countries and become radicalised over the internet to the point where they join a foreign fighting force in a third world country are squandering their ‘luckiest’ move of being born. That’s a win??
- hyko 7y ago
  Talent is also luck. Everything is luck.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    Whatever you describe as ‘everything’ can be dismissed easily with everything else. Talent is built, educated, trained; genes are partially luck.
    - dntbnmpls 7y ago
      > Talent is built, educated, trained; I think you are conflating talent with skill. You can develop your skill, but generally, your talent is viewed as innate or biological. Most people can train to be good at basketball, chess, etc. But most people don't have the talent to be michael jordan, magnus carlsen, etc. > genes are partially luck. Partially? I don't think it is possible since you inherit all your genes. Genes are entirely luck as you had no say in which genes you inherited.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        Your parents had some say in the matter, both in whether to have children at all, with whom, how many, when (IOW, under what financial circumstances), and what level of pre-birth testing for catastrophic birth defects they were comfortable with. From an individual person, looking at what they had agency over, it’s 100% luck. From a multi-generational family or societal view, it’s not 100% luck. (I also hold the view that some of what is often described as innate talent is also malleable depending on early childhood nurturing, nutrition, and education. That’s luck from the child point of view but not purely so from the family/society.)
madaxe_again 7y ago
There absolutely is a takeaway - and it isn’t just that luck is important in winning - it’s that luck is everything. We like to live under the illusion that we are in control of our lives. We are not. We can set a general course, control this or that small, immediate thing - but so much of what we ascribe to our own success or failure is just sheer dumb luck. I’ve had some ridiculous, absolutely undeserved successes over the years, I’ve been struck with serious illness out of the blue, I’ve seen friends with so many plans for their lives ahead snuffed out by illness and accident. I’ve seen the class clown rise to high office, and the prodigy work in a chip shop. We make choices, but against a sea of endless variables and influences, they make little difference. People used to cite the fates, or their god or gods of choice - because they couldn’t explain the absolute randomness of the path of a life. I think you’ll find precious few people who, in their dotage, will say their life went to plan - and that doesn’t mean everyone’s a sad failure, rather that you end up places you never even dreamt of - because we really aren’t in control.
- amiga_500 7y ago
  All these comments about the reasoning behind the game are wrong. Hackers new econ is as narrow as possible. Read this: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-... Monopoly is about the ideas of Henry George for one set of rules, versus our land enclosed rentier reality.
jvm___ 7y ago
"The most important choice in life is who your parents are."
- yboris 7y ago
  The fantastic book[1] The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality by Branko Milanovic points out that the 3 most-important correlated determinants of financial success in life are, in order: 1. Geography (which country you're born in) 2. Parents' finances 3. Your gender These 3 explain the vast majority of the variance in income between people. Knowing these 3 facts about a person allows you to predict their income with high accuracy (small 90% confidence interval). [1] https://www.amazon.com/Haves-Have-Nots-Idiosyncratic-History-Inequality/dp/0465031412 https://www.amazon.com/Haves-Have-Nots-Idiosyncratic-History...
- dchyrdvh 7y ago
  And given that there's a limited number of good parents, there's a competition for those spots. The most skillful win.
philwelch 7y ago
It's more complicated than that. In Monopoly, it's a combination of luck and not being an idiot. Similarly with life.

by kovek 7y ago

tines 7y ago

I think it's teaching you something about how society should or shouldn't be designed. Whether this could be said to "put you ahead" might be the wrong way to think about it.

kyuudou 7y ago

Why do so many, like many immigrants, start from nothing and end up very successful if it was just a dice roll? I mean, there's always that factor but it's certainly not everything.

jakelazaroff 7y ago
This seems like selection bias. I would bet that far more people end up successful because they started out successful.
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  This. There are a lot of immigrants: So many simply aren't rich and never will be, really. I mean, how many migrant farm workers are there in the world? How many work in the fishing industry? How many in restaurant kitchens? Am I supposed to believe they will all be successful? Probably not. I'm guessing that the immigrants started off better than others.
- enaaem 7y ago
  We have to define what success is. Not all become millionaires, but most have build a good life for themselves in the upper middle class.
  - stouset 7y ago
    Data or it didn’t happen. “Most” and “upper middle class” tells me you’re probably making this up whole cloth. “Most” Americans don’t make it to the upper middle class.
puzzledobserver 7y ago
You are right that most immigrant rags-to-riches stories that immediately come to mind involve them getting off the boat with a handful of dollars to their name. But they seem to forget the value of the college degree that they carry and the lifetime of high-quality education that preceded their arrival in the US. The immigrants you speak of might not be as poor as you make them out to be. I do not know if many American families can get access to the same resources for early education if they are not already from families that are economically affluent.
einpoklum 7y ago
They don't. Very few people start from nothing and end up "very successful" (by which I take it you mean being rich and influential). You're just forgetting to divide their number by the number of people who start from nothing overall, which is Billions.
toast0 7y ago
Was able to emigrate is a pretty strong filter in a lot of cases. Was able to immigrate is an even stronger filter. Just gathering the resources to leave is one thing, gathering the resources to be allowed in at the destination can be even harder. Most of the immigrants I know spent a lot of time or money or both either personally or by their parents to get here. At least recebtly even the ones who left everything behind to start here with nothing at least had some talent at getting things done in beuracracy which is pretty useful.

friendlybus 7y ago

Strange idea. Elon musk started in SA. Surely being born to Harvard professors in America is the ‘luckiest’ play but most of them are not billionaires. The winklevoss twins mismanaging their Facebook idea had a massive impact on their long term success. The people that are born in first world countries and become radicalised over the internet to the point where they join a foreign fighting force in a third world country are squandering their ‘luckiest’ move of being born. That’s a win??

hyko 7y ago
Talent is also luck. Everything is luck.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  Whatever you describe as ‘everything’ can be dismissed easily with everything else. Talent is built, educated, trained; genes are partially luck.
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > Talent is built, educated, trained; I think you are conflating talent with skill. You can develop your skill, but generally, your talent is viewed as innate or biological. Most people can train to be good at basketball, chess, etc. But most people don't have the talent to be michael jordan, magnus carlsen, etc. > genes are partially luck. Partially? I don't think it is possible since you inherit all your genes. Genes are entirely luck as you had no say in which genes you inherited.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      Your parents had some say in the matter, both in whether to have children at all, with whom, how many, when (IOW, under what financial circumstances), and what level of pre-birth testing for catastrophic birth defects they were comfortable with. From an individual person, looking at what they had agency over, it’s 100% luck. From a multi-generational family or societal view, it’s not 100% luck. (I also hold the view that some of what is often described as innate talent is also malleable depending on early childhood nurturing, nutrition, and education. That’s luck from the child point of view but not purely so from the family/society.)

madaxe_again 7y ago

There absolutely is a takeaway - and it isn’t just that luck is important in winning - it’s that luck is everything. We like to live under the illusion that we are in control of our lives. We are not. We can set a general course, control this or that small, immediate thing - but so much of what we ascribe to our own success or failure is just sheer dumb luck. I’ve had some ridiculous, absolutely undeserved successes over the years, I’ve been struck with serious illness out of the blue, I’ve seen friends with so many plans for their lives ahead snuffed out by illness and accident. I’ve seen the class clown rise to high office, and the prodigy work in a chip shop. We make choices, but against a sea of endless variables and influences, they make little difference. People used to cite the fates, or their god or gods of choice - because they couldn’t explain the absolute randomness of the path of a life. I think you’ll find precious few people who, in their dotage, will say their life went to plan - and that doesn’t mean everyone’s a sad failure, rather that you end up places you never even dreamt of - because we really aren’t in control.

amiga_500 7y ago
All these comments about the reasoning behind the game are wrong. Hackers new econ is as narrow as possible. Read this: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-... Monopoly is about the ideas of Henry George for one set of rules, versus our land enclosed rentier reality.

jvm___ 7y ago

"The most important choice in life is who your parents are."

yboris 7y ago
The fantastic book[1] The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality by Branko Milanovic points out that the 3 most-important correlated determinants of financial success in life are, in order: 1. Geography (which country you're born in) 2. Parents' finances 3. Your gender These 3 explain the vast majority of the variance in income between people. Knowing these 3 facts about a person allows you to predict their income with high accuracy (small 90% confidence interval). [1] https://www.amazon.com/Haves-Have-Nots-Idiosyncratic-History-Inequality/dp/0465031412 https://www.amazon.com/Haves-Have-Nots-Idiosyncratic-History...
dchyrdvh 7y ago
And given that there's a limited number of good parents, there's a competition for those spots. The most skillful win.

philwelch 7y ago

It's more complicated than that. In Monopoly, it's a combination of luck and not being an idiot. Similarly with life.