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The problem I see with this line of thought is it tends to minimize personnel responsibility and overlooks the fact that everyone has _bad_ luck as well as good

The problem I see with this line of thought is it tends to minimize personnel responsibility and overlooks the fact that everyone has _bad_ luck as well as good.. I had the 'bad luck' not to be born rich, should I let that define my life? or should I wait around for some 'good luck' to change that ? The argument reminds me of the old religious debates about 'free will' vs 'destiny'...if some god already knows every decision we will make, and we make 'evil' decisions, were we destined to be 'evil' ? If a 'god' with perfect knowledge already knows we will make these 'evil' decisions, did we really have a choice (eg if we choose to be good, the 'gods' knowledge is no longer perfect..) Just seems like a great way to remove personal responsibility from the conversation. Yes, we all have been lucky (and have all had bad luck..) but yes, you have to make the most of it as well. Having the awesome luck to win the lotto doesn't really matter, if you never take the personal responsibility to cash in the ticket.

bsder 6y ago
> I had the 'bad luck' not to be born rich, should I let that define my life? No, but what we, as a society, need to do is cut down on how much luck you need in order to move up. There was a very nice article at one point that showed that the absolute best students who come from the lowest 20% of the socioeconomic strata barely do as well as the absolute worst students of the highest 20% of the socioeconomic strata. It's basically a proof of "Einstein may exist in <insert poor country>, but we will never know." That is a hideous loss of human potential. We, as a society, need brilliant people to achieve their maximum potential without luck. And we need people less than absolutely brilliant to not have to fight so stupidly hard to move up. We had an article (I believe in the LA Times) talking about the problems of the disincentives of being a student from an underprivileged background. The biggest thing that struck me was that STEM fields were simply not in scope--the students coming from these backgrounds simply were blocked. Social worker, lawyer, nurse, etc. were achievable but engineer, scientist, or doctor were absolutely not--through no fault of their own other than the area in which they were born. You can only fix this by putting a very significant amount of more resource into your education system.
- mech422 6y ago
  >No, but what we, as a society, need to do is cut down on how much luck you need in order to move up. Perhaps a good place to start would be by talking about 'opportunities' and not 'luck'. Luck is a passive thing that happens to you (for better or worse) whereas opportunities require effort (aka personal responsibility) to make the most of. for instance, I would agree wholeheartedly that a society should try to maximize the opportunities available to all its citizens. >You can only fix this by putting a very significant amount of more resource into your education system. I would disagree here. Education is not the only opportunity available to people. More access to small business loans, for instance, would be desirable IMHO. And of course, access to medical care is on everyone's mind atm...Although, I do think we need better education across the board. >we need people less than absolutely brilliant to not have to fight so stupidly hard to move up. Thinking about this a lil more - I'm not really sure 'moving up' should be the end goal? Perhaps, "not have to fight so stupidly hard to have a fulfilling life"? As people keep telling me, there is more to life then work. Perhaps our fixation with 'moving up' is half the problem? It seems to be a fairly American concept - other cultures don't seem to share our fixation/fascination with the 'almighty dollar'. Eh...time for coffee...

bsder 6y ago

> I had the 'bad luck' not to be born rich, should I let that define my life? No, but what we, as a society, need to do is cut down on how much luck you need in order to move up. There was a very nice article at one point that showed that the absolute best students who come from the lowest 20% of the socioeconomic strata barely do as well as the absolute worst students of the highest 20% of the socioeconomic strata. It's basically a proof of "Einstein may exist in <insert poor country>, but we will never know." That is a hideous loss of human potential. We, as a society, need brilliant people to achieve their maximum potential without luck. And we need people less than absolutely brilliant to not have to fight so stupidly hard to move up. We had an article (I believe in the LA Times) talking about the problems of the disincentives of being a student from an underprivileged background. The biggest thing that struck me was that STEM fields were simply not in scope--the students coming from these backgrounds simply were blocked. Social worker, lawyer, nurse, etc. were achievable but engineer, scientist, or doctor were absolutely not--through no fault of their own other than the area in which they were born. You can only fix this by putting a very significant amount of more resource into your education system.

mech422 6y ago
>No, but what we, as a society, need to do is cut down on how much luck you need in order to move up. Perhaps a good place to start would be by talking about 'opportunities' and not 'luck'. Luck is a passive thing that happens to you (for better or worse) whereas opportunities require effort (aka personal responsibility) to make the most of. for instance, I would agree wholeheartedly that a society should try to maximize the opportunities available to all its citizens. >You can only fix this by putting a very significant amount of more resource into your education system. I would disagree here. Education is not the only opportunity available to people. More access to small business loans, for instance, would be desirable IMHO. And of course, access to medical care is on everyone's mind atm...Although, I do think we need better education across the board. >we need people less than absolutely brilliant to not have to fight so stupidly hard to move up. Thinking about this a lil more - I'm not really sure 'moving up' should be the end goal? Perhaps, "not have to fight so stupidly hard to have a fulfilling life"? As people keep telling me, there is more to life then work. Perhaps our fixation with 'moving up' is half the problem? It seems to be a fairly American concept - other cultures don't seem to share our fixation/fascination with the 'almighty dollar'. Eh...time for coffee...