9 ms·

What is the difference between luck and privilege?

• bitcharmer 5y ago
  I'm hoping your question isn't serious but just in case you don't know the difference between the two: Luck - success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions. Privilege - a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. Hope this is helpful
  • tomp 5y ago
    Well, “interest in programming” sounds to be like a special advantage in the current world; why do you think it’s not a privilege? It might even be genetic! (Not to mention that you also need the privilege of being born relatively smart.)
    • bitcharmer 5y ago
      Well if you frame it like that everything and anything can be called privilege. Doesn't make much sense to me.
      • tomp 5y ago
        I think of “privilege” as something that persists (e.g. IQ) vs “luck” as something that happens once (e.g. winning the lottery).
  • schwartzworld 5y ago
    Privilege: being lucky enough to be born/raised in the right circumstances
    • bitcharmer 5y ago
      Still two different things. I come from a poor family. Nothing was handed to me on a silver platter. My career is a function of passion, hard work and luck. Not privilege. It makes my blod boil whenever I hear this privilege nonsense.
      • schwartzworld 5y ago
        The problem with this conversation is that people feel attacked by the term, like it undermines the hard work they've done or their intelligence. It doesn't necessarily mean everything was handed to you on a silver platter. It's ok to acknowledge the ways in which you were dealt a good hand (if, in fact, you were).
        • bitcharmer 5y ago
          Yes, saying that people like me achieved success due to privilege is misleading and hateful because it dismisses our hard work and tons of sacrifice to get where we are now. But sure, call it a privilege. Thanks to discourse like this the word already lost its meaning. The only thing that I got dealt a good hand is that by accident my passion and hobby can bring me a tonne of money. Where is my privilege here? Sadly as many people here you're confusing luck and privilege. No point in carrying on with the exchange if you're insisting on calling everything privilege. Thanks for the discussion.
          • schwartzworld 5y ago
            I'm a self-taught programmer and I can think of several ways that my hard work was enabled by my privilege. And that's the key for me, is that you're focusing on the "here's what you were given" aspect of privilege and not the "here's what you were denied" aspect. Cheap computers abound now, but it wasn't long ago that having a personal computer at all implied a minimum income level. I can't speak for you, but I went to a school with a computer lab and had a computer at home from a young age. Learning programming was hard, but it would have been a lot harder without those things. That's privilege. I was an advanced reader because my parents had time to teach me and filled our house with books. That's privilege. I had hobbies in my teen years instead of having to work to help support my family (privilege). There are lots of people who could be brilliant programmers or engineers had they had the same opportunities as me. Instead of resenting the term, I acknowledge and am grateful for whatever advantages I was provided, because without them getting to the same place would have required exponentially more work, or maybe even been impossible.
          • 5y ago
    • xenocratus 5y ago
      Utter nonsense. If you put enough mental grease into that sort of interpretation everything can be classed as a privilege, in which case the concept is irrelevant.
      • cortesoft 5y ago
        Yes, any bit of luck you have that makes your life better is a privilege, because it is something that makes your life better than someone who didn't have that luck. They didn't do anything wrong to deserve not having the luck, it was just chance. This doesn't make the concept irrelevant. It is important to accept and understand that a lot of your success in life is due to things outside of your control. You don't have to apologize for it, but you also shouldn't think you are better than people who weren't lucky. Understanding this is important, because if you think that your success is entirely based on choices you made, you might feel like people who aren't successful are that way entirely based on their choices, too. Realizing that luck plays a big role is the first step towards understanding that those of us who have been lucky should help those of us who haven't been as lucky, because they don't deserve to be miserable just because they had bad luck.
        • Papirola 5y ago
          > It is important to accept and understand that a lot of your success in life is due to things outside of your control. That's a generalization and takes away from people's agency. for luck to play a part in your life, you need to show up and work.
          • cortesoft 5y ago
            Sure, but lots of people show up and work hard but only make minimum wage. The privilege is that your hard work earns a lot more money than someone else's hard work.
            • bitcharmer 5y ago
              I love this twisted thinking. When my peers were partying and having a great time I was spending nights at the computer learning stuff. I made this sacrifice willingly. Years later I'm reaping the benefits of that sacrifice which I think I earned and is fair but still some people who don't like others to be successfull will call me privileged like it was all magically bestowed upon me. We all had the same start. I choose a different path that cost me a lot. And you have the nerve to call me privileged. Wow.