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“ I intuit that if you are insanely dedicated enough the universe has a weird appreciation for that kind of thing, and eventually throws you a bone. I know it's

“ I intuit that if you are insanely dedicated enough the universe has a weird appreciation for that kind of thing, and eventually throws you a bone. I know it's wrong and irrational but everytime I've tried that it's worked” Also known as survivorship bias.

scottLobster 7y ago
Not necessarily. A prerequisite for winning any game is showing up. Those who show up most often are therefore more likely to win. Someone who practices a skill for 20 hours a week for a year will have had 1040 hours of practice vs 258 hours of practice for someone who practices 5 hours a week, and that linear increase in time will likely produce an exponential increase in skill as knowledge builds on itself. Assuming there's a market for the skill, the odds of success in that market will also go up exponentially. And if demand shrinks (ie economic recession) that filters out the 5-hours-a-week people.
- jrimbault 7y ago
  Assuming we have defined "success" and the person A will multiply their chance of success by 2 after each try. That leaves almost zero chances of success. Success, however we choose to define it, is in large part a result of luck. Skill, to a much lesser degree.
  - sosborn 7y ago
    Luck and skill aren't mutually exclusive. They work together.
  - scottLobster 7y ago
    Maybe with a uselessly broad definition of "luck", as in "lucky to be born at the right time for software to be a viable career" or "lucky to be alive, the dead can't earn any money at all". But if you think that successful engineers are only successful because they just magically got hired one day, and if they never learned any science, math, or got an engineering degree and put in zero or near-zero effort they would have had the same odds of been hired, that's just not a logical argument. Same goes for other professions. We all start with the hand we're dealt by the universe, but it is possible to improve one's odds quite substantially given time and good decisions (that's arguably the definition of a "good decision").
  - jjice 7y ago
    I think of it like `success = (luck * skill)`. Meaning that if you have all the skill in the world, but the absolute worst luck, you can still fail, and vice versa, but with that said, the majority of possibilities for luck can be countered by higher skill. Is Ken Thompson lucky? Probably was very lucky to have influences to point him towards electrical engineering and computer science, but with his level of skill, it's hard to imagine him not having a huge impact somewhere. Ending up at Bell Labs (let's say that's luck since he could've worked in a variety of environments) is definitely lucky, but he wouldn't have created UNIX if he didn't also have the skill. I think this goes for the majority of figures in computer science (I don't know enough about other fields to say that about them).
  - imgabe 7y ago
    I honestly don't know how people who attribute everything to luck even manage to exist in the world. Do you just sit at home staring at the wall waiting for luck to happen to you? What is the point of doing anything if all results only come from blind luck?
    - jrimbault 7y ago
      You engage with luck. Improve your skills and cultivate luck. Anecdotal : every job I've had came from relations, 1st to 3rd degree.
techopoly 7y ago
Just because there's possibly some survivorship bias in their viewpoint doesn't mean their statement is automatically false.
- ksm1717 7y ago
  I like to call that the survivorship bias bias. Similar to the sunk cost fallacy fallacy
  - techopoly 6y ago
    Ha, that's a good name for it. We can go so far in trying to compensate for biases and fallacies that we introduce whole new ones!
DmitryOlshansky 7y ago
Or rather the old adege of: “The luck favors the prepared”
- mcamaj 7y ago
  or the ones that never give up
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  People just remember that there are no guarantees. Dedication and hard work help a lot but you may still fail.
  - thatcat 7y ago
    It's so hard to know when to give up on something you're dedicated to when it has high pay off but a moderately low chance of success.
Clubber 7y ago
"The harder you work, the luckier you get."
grandridge 7y ago
Also knows as being valuable
novok 7y ago
Survivorship bias is a valid thing to bring up when the odds are low. When the odds are fairly high, it isn't very useful. "A tech job, somewhere" is not a high bar.

scottLobster 7y ago

Not necessarily. A prerequisite for winning any game is showing up. Those who show up most often are therefore more likely to win. Someone who practices a skill for 20 hours a week for a year will have had 1040 hours of practice vs 258 hours of practice for someone who practices 5 hours a week, and that linear increase in time will likely produce an exponential increase in skill as knowledge builds on itself. Assuming there's a market for the skill, the odds of success in that market will also go up exponentially. And if demand shrinks (ie economic recession) that filters out the 5-hours-a-week people.

jrimbault 7y ago
Assuming we have defined "success" and the person A will multiply their chance of success by 2 after each try. That leaves almost zero chances of success. Success, however we choose to define it, is in large part a result of luck. Skill, to a much lesser degree.
- sosborn 7y ago
  Luck and skill aren't mutually exclusive. They work together.
- scottLobster 7y ago
  Maybe with a uselessly broad definition of "luck", as in "lucky to be born at the right time for software to be a viable career" or "lucky to be alive, the dead can't earn any money at all". But if you think that successful engineers are only successful because they just magically got hired one day, and if they never learned any science, math, or got an engineering degree and put in zero or near-zero effort they would have had the same odds of been hired, that's just not a logical argument. Same goes for other professions. We all start with the hand we're dealt by the universe, but it is possible to improve one's odds quite substantially given time and good decisions (that's arguably the definition of a "good decision").
- jjice 7y ago
  I think of it like `success = (luck * skill)`. Meaning that if you have all the skill in the world, but the absolute worst luck, you can still fail, and vice versa, but with that said, the majority of possibilities for luck can be countered by higher skill. Is Ken Thompson lucky? Probably was very lucky to have influences to point him towards electrical engineering and computer science, but with his level of skill, it's hard to imagine him not having a huge impact somewhere. Ending up at Bell Labs (let's say that's luck since he could've worked in a variety of environments) is definitely lucky, but he wouldn't have created UNIX if he didn't also have the skill. I think this goes for the majority of figures in computer science (I don't know enough about other fields to say that about them).
- imgabe 7y ago
  I honestly don't know how people who attribute everything to luck even manage to exist in the world. Do you just sit at home staring at the wall waiting for luck to happen to you? What is the point of doing anything if all results only come from blind luck?
  - jrimbault 7y ago
    You engage with luck. Improve your skills and cultivate luck. Anecdotal : every job I've had came from relations, 1st to 3rd degree.

techopoly 7y ago

Just because there's possibly some survivorship bias in their viewpoint doesn't mean their statement is automatically false.

ksm1717 7y ago
I like to call that the survivorship bias bias. Similar to the sunk cost fallacy fallacy
- techopoly 6y ago
  Ha, that's a good name for it. We can go so far in trying to compensate for biases and fallacies that we introduce whole new ones!

DmitryOlshansky 7y ago

Or rather the old adege of: “The luck favors the prepared”

mcamaj 7y ago
or the ones that never give up
Ididntdothis 7y ago
People just remember that there are no guarantees. Dedication and hard work help a lot but you may still fail.
- thatcat 7y ago
  It's so hard to know when to give up on something you're dedicated to when it has high pay off but a moderately low chance of success.

Clubber 7y ago

"The harder you work, the luckier you get."

grandridge 7y ago

Also knows as being valuable

novok 7y ago

Survivorship bias is a valid thing to bring up when the odds are low. When the odds are fairly high, it isn't very useful. "A tech job, somewhere" is not a high bar.