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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 wink

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.)
  - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    No, not really. Being able to build and train a talent or skill is all luck. You need time and access and, in general, money to be able to train these things. I'm not sure that a kid that has spotty access to school is lucky enough to build their talent if it doesn't match up with society. Women (and young girls) aren't always even given the opportunity - unless their talents are homemaking and raising children.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      An ex I knew got into the 5th highest university in the country starting from a completely average high school, with a broken family after five years out side the schooling system. Was that luck? No, it was a descision made and adhered to over a decade. Other people in her class got teen pregnancies. Human decision exists and luck is a cop out. Burying meaning and choice in statistics and randomness is giving up at life.
      - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
        So, she was lucky enough to be able to work, perhaps? Was she able to participate in extracurricular activities (not everyone can). "Broken Family" is used for simple divorce cases or death in the family: These are not death sentences. She was lucky enough not to get pregnant too young, which can basically mean that she could get birth control and didn't have mishaps, which might include rape or incest related pregnancies. A woman I knew... her son got a full scholarship to university because he played baseball. He never got to finish school - because he wound up having a genetic condition that didn't allow him to play. Your friend didn't have these sorts of health concerns. It isn't that it is all luck, sure. Yes, she had to work hard. But lots of her luck was already there. She probably wasn't Amish, for example, otherwise she wouldn't have school after 8th grade or something. She wasn't sick. She didn't have cancer. She probably wasn't starving. And so on. Even if she had some of these, you've witnessed an exception, not a rule.
- agustif 7y ago
  It was funny for me to read on the bible that talents of gold/silver where just a measure of economic unit. Gimme some talents too!
  - eitland 7y ago
    I've thought about that a bit and I personally think the story implies that he who gave them already had a fair idea of who would be most productive.
    - agustif 7y ago
      Sorry, can you extend this thought. I didn't quite get it as english is not my first language. But seems an interesting idea.
smadge 7y ago
> Surely being born to Harvard professors in America is the ‘luckiest’ play but most of them are not billionaires. Most people regardless of their background are not billionaires. Background certainly increases the chances, though. > Strange idea. Elon musk started in SA. Strange idea. There are people born into privilege all over the world. '"We were very wealthy," says Errol [Elon's father]. "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe."' 'Errol returned to South Africa with a half-share in a Zambian emerald mine, which would help to fund his family's lavish lifestyle of yachts, skiing holidays, and expensive computers. ... It was that lifestyle, Errol says, that turned Elon into the kind of merchant adventurer who would later break the rules of the motoring business with Tesla, then go on to change spaceflight with SpaceX.'
- sdenton4 7y ago
  Correct. I'm a little bit disheartened that no one in this thread has linked to actual data... There's a LOT of study on this topic: Social mobility in the US is measurably atrocious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...
- roenxi 7y ago
  Lets just enumerate the options: 1) Success is determined by luck. People will complain that one person being more successful than another is grossly unfair. 2) Success is determined by extrinsic deterministic factors or uncontrolled intrinsic factors. People will complain that people aren't doing anything to 'earn' their success - it was in some sense inevitable. 3) Success is determined entirely by intrinsic deterministic factors that are in the control of the individual. More morally palatable, but suggestive that any gradient of accomplishments is actually reflective of a sort of selfish 'technique hoarding' (I'm not quite sure what to call it) by successful people. They should really be forced to share their techniques until everyone is equal. The underlying issue here in this thread isn't how success is achieved; it is the concept of different outcomes for people. Which is a good philosophical point but not practically useful - nobody can point to a system where equal outcomes have led to anything like the material comforts of a world where a gradient of different outcomes is encouraged. The world simply isn't very fair and we've all got to roll with that.
WJW 7y ago
> being born to Harvard professors in America is the ‘luckiest’ play Why would that be the luckiest? I would think being born as the child of a billionaire vastly increases your chances of billionairedom than being born the child of Harvard professors. The same goes for being born in South Africa or most any country that is not totally wartorn or sanctioned atm. The son of an African dictator will probably have many more chances at significant wealth than someone born to abusive parents in opioid-ravaged 'flyover country', regardless of the relative economic positions of their home countries.

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.)
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  No, not really. Being able to build and train a talent or skill is all luck. You need time and access and, in general, money to be able to train these things. I'm not sure that a kid that has spotty access to school is lucky enough to build their talent if it doesn't match up with society. Women (and young girls) aren't always even given the opportunity - unless their talents are homemaking and raising children.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    An ex I knew got into the 5th highest university in the country starting from a completely average high school, with a broken family after five years out side the schooling system. Was that luck? No, it was a descision made and adhered to over a decade. Other people in her class got teen pregnancies. Human decision exists and luck is a cop out. Burying meaning and choice in statistics and randomness is giving up at life.
    - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
      So, she was lucky enough to be able to work, perhaps? Was she able to participate in extracurricular activities (not everyone can). "Broken Family" is used for simple divorce cases or death in the family: These are not death sentences. She was lucky enough not to get pregnant too young, which can basically mean that she could get birth control and didn't have mishaps, which might include rape or incest related pregnancies. A woman I knew... her son got a full scholarship to university because he played baseball. He never got to finish school - because he wound up having a genetic condition that didn't allow him to play. Your friend didn't have these sorts of health concerns. It isn't that it is all luck, sure. Yes, she had to work hard. But lots of her luck was already there. She probably wasn't Amish, for example, otherwise she wouldn't have school after 8th grade or something. She wasn't sick. She didn't have cancer. She probably wasn't starving. And so on. Even if she had some of these, you've witnessed an exception, not a rule.
agustif 7y ago
It was funny for me to read on the bible that talents of gold/silver where just a measure of economic unit. Gimme some talents too!
- eitland 7y ago
  I've thought about that a bit and I personally think the story implies that he who gave them already had a fair idea of who would be most productive.
  - agustif 7y ago
    Sorry, can you extend this thought. I didn't quite get it as english is not my first language. But seems an interesting idea.

smadge 7y ago

> Surely being born to Harvard professors in America is the ‘luckiest’ play but most of them are not billionaires. Most people regardless of their background are not billionaires. Background certainly increases the chances, though. > Strange idea. Elon musk started in SA. Strange idea. There are people born into privilege all over the world. '"We were very wealthy," says Errol [Elon's father]. "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe."' 'Errol returned to South Africa with a half-share in a Zambian emerald mine, which would help to fund his family's lavish lifestyle of yachts, skiing holidays, and expensive computers. ... It was that lifestyle, Errol says, that turned Elon into the kind of merchant adventurer who would later break the rules of the motoring business with Tesla, then go on to change spaceflight with SpaceX.'

sdenton4 7y ago
Correct. I'm a little bit disheartened that no one in this thread has linked to actual data... There's a LOT of study on this topic: Social mobility in the US is measurably atrocious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...
roenxi 7y ago
Lets just enumerate the options: 1) Success is determined by luck. People will complain that one person being more successful than another is grossly unfair. 2) Success is determined by extrinsic deterministic factors or uncontrolled intrinsic factors. People will complain that people aren't doing anything to 'earn' their success - it was in some sense inevitable. 3) Success is determined entirely by intrinsic deterministic factors that are in the control of the individual. More morally palatable, but suggestive that any gradient of accomplishments is actually reflective of a sort of selfish 'technique hoarding' (I'm not quite sure what to call it) by successful people. They should really be forced to share their techniques until everyone is equal. The underlying issue here in this thread isn't how success is achieved; it is the concept of different outcomes for people. Which is a good philosophical point but not practically useful - nobody can point to a system where equal outcomes have led to anything like the material comforts of a world where a gradient of different outcomes is encouraged. The world simply isn't very fair and we've all got to roll with that.

WJW 7y ago

> being born to Harvard professors in America is the ‘luckiest’ play Why would that be the luckiest? I would think being born as the child of a billionaire vastly increases your chances of billionairedom than being born the child of Harvard professors. The same goes for being born in South Africa or most any country that is not totally wartorn or sanctioned atm. The son of an African dictator will probably have many more chances at significant wealth than someone born to abusive parents in opioid-ravaged 'flyover country', regardless of the relative economic positions of their home countries.