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This happens whenever something bad happens to someone else, be it a car accident or a major illness or being the victim of a crime. People want to think it wo

This happens whenever something bad happens to someone else, be it a car accident or a major illness or being the victim of a crime. People want to think it wouldn’t happen to them, so they go through all the reasons they would have been able to avoid the situation so that they don’t have to fear it happening to them. People really don’t want to admit to themselves that there are a lot of things outside our control that can happen to us.

tectonic 5y ago
I think this is exactly right.
enumjorge 5y ago
> People want to think it wouldn’t happen to them I’ve often wondered why some people can be so harsh towards those who’ve had something unfortunate happen to them. This makes a lot of sense.
- MikeDelta 5y ago
  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
That's mostly because people in good circumstances are usually reluctant to attribute much of it to luck. It's so much more fun to pretend that everything good that's happened to you, you earned and deserved, rather than a lot of it just being random noise that compounded in the fortunate direction.
- bckr 5y ago
  When taken together, your observation and GP's form a phenomenon called the "fundamental attribution error": https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/the-fundamental-attribution-error https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/the-fundamental-attribution...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- emteycz 5y ago
  That's mostly because luck is only one very small component. The years and years of hard work are much more important. Yeah you need to be "lucky" to find a good opportunity - but everyone is lucky in that way, but most people do nothing about their opportunities.
  - mitchdoogle 5y ago
    I saw a video explaining where if you attribute just 5% of outcomes to luck, then the people who have the best outcomes are among the luckiest people. It's hard to define just how much luck would matter in any given situation, but if you consider every aspect of our lives as part of luck, which I think is what people mean when they debate luck vs hard work, then I think it's a lot higher than 5% actually. That is, things like place/time of birth, parents, family, socioeconomic status at birth, schools, friends, teachers, health, timing of things, chance encounters - these things are all mostly outside of your control. Someone on hacker news might be thinking how they worked hard for years to learn software engineering, spent time networking, practiced interview questions, applied to several places, performed well in the interviews, and landed a lucrative job. And that's all part of hard work and it's often a necessary part of success. It doesn't feel like you lucked into anything. But the lucky part was mostly all the stuff I mentioned before - things that happened at birth, or things that happened because of others' actions. If you're born an affluent white American, for example, your luck meter is highly filled from the start. Then maybe at some point you had a teacher that helped you in a meaningful way, or you met a friend that influenced your decision making. And let's not forget there are people who are just as qualified, who study hard, practice, do all the same things, and they don't get the job. Maybe because the interviewer had a hangover, or maybe it was just someone else got in before them and wowed the interview team and made up their mind before seeing them. That's luck. I believe this is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&vl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&vl=en
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    So it's not luck being born in the US instead of North Korea? It's not luck being born without birth defects, being healthy, and still being alive to this day?
Brian_K_White 5y ago
People don't want to have to care about anyone else. They are so burdened with looking out for themselves they only see caring about anyone else as just another burden that they shouldn't have to bear, instead of seeing it as an avenue of shared and thus relieved burden. So, any excuse to make it so they don't have to care about any other misfortune than their own.
- adolph 5y ago
  Hmm, not certain if I agree with that. It may boil down to defining “care.” If people did not care, they wouldn’t read and comment, would they? We can observe there is enough attention and salience for this other person’s situation to achieve some level of “care” in other people’s minds. Maybe the caring involved is a more distant and superficial sort? Maybe it is the kind of caring that comes out of avoiding one’s own cares. I use this thought personally to observe when I care enough to type in a comment, and which of my own cares I am avoiding when I do so.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    It is an ambiguous term on it's own. I didn't provide enough context to illustrate that my point was about selfishness and avoiding feelings of obligation or guilt? I am not immune myself even though I levelled the charge. I only get through the day by generous application of denial. If I can't avoid seeing someone hungry, then plan B is figure out a way to conclude that it is within their own power to feed themselves, and so not my problem. Failing both of those, then I have to deal with it. I either have to share my food with them or I have to consciously decide I'm ok with keeping mine and ignore their misfortune. Obviously, intellectually, academically, I know that the world is one big continuous stream of unbelievable tragedy, and I can't actually live even one second for myself if I were to try to treat all of that the same way I do when my own partner suffers so much as a headache. So I don't. I pretend everything is fine by arranging things so that mostly everything I see is fine, and when I see something else I mostly rationalize some sway to ignore it. I drive right by that guy standing at the intersection with the sign, etc. I just at least try to be self aware that I'm doing that and not confuse a sanity/survival strategy, however justified and necessary, for reality. I'm saying that a lot of people don't seem to do even that last little part.

tectonic 5y ago

I think this is exactly right.

enumjorge 5y ago

> People want to think it wouldn’t happen to them I’ve often wondered why some people can be so harsh towards those who’ve had something unfortunate happen to them. This makes a lot of sense.

MikeDelta 5y ago
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

That's mostly because people in good circumstances are usually reluctant to attribute much of it to luck. It's so much more fun to pretend that everything good that's happened to you, you earned and deserved, rather than a lot of it just being random noise that compounded in the fortunate direction.

bckr 5y ago
When taken together, your observation and GP's form a phenomenon called the "fundamental attribution error": https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/the-fundamental-attribution-error https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/the-fundamental-attribution...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
emteycz 5y ago
That's mostly because luck is only one very small component. The years and years of hard work are much more important. Yeah you need to be "lucky" to find a good opportunity - but everyone is lucky in that way, but most people do nothing about their opportunities.
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  I saw a video explaining where if you attribute just 5% of outcomes to luck, then the people who have the best outcomes are among the luckiest people. It's hard to define just how much luck would matter in any given situation, but if you consider every aspect of our lives as part of luck, which I think is what people mean when they debate luck vs hard work, then I think it's a lot higher than 5% actually. That is, things like place/time of birth, parents, family, socioeconomic status at birth, schools, friends, teachers, health, timing of things, chance encounters - these things are all mostly outside of your control. Someone on hacker news might be thinking how they worked hard for years to learn software engineering, spent time networking, practiced interview questions, applied to several places, performed well in the interviews, and landed a lucrative job. And that's all part of hard work and it's often a necessary part of success. It doesn't feel like you lucked into anything. But the lucky part was mostly all the stuff I mentioned before - things that happened at birth, or things that happened because of others' actions. If you're born an affluent white American, for example, your luck meter is highly filled from the start. Then maybe at some point you had a teacher that helped you in a meaningful way, or you met a friend that influenced your decision making. And let's not forget there are people who are just as qualified, who study hard, practice, do all the same things, and they don't get the job. Maybe because the interviewer had a hangover, or maybe it was just someone else got in before them and wowed the interview team and made up their mind before seeing them. That's luck. I believe this is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&vl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&vl=en
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  So it's not luck being born in the US instead of North Korea? It's not luck being born without birth defects, being healthy, and still being alive to this day?

Brian_K_White 5y ago

People don't want to have to care about anyone else. They are so burdened with looking out for themselves they only see caring about anyone else as just another burden that they shouldn't have to bear, instead of seeing it as an avenue of shared and thus relieved burden. So, any excuse to make it so they don't have to care about any other misfortune than their own.

adolph 5y ago
Hmm, not certain if I agree with that. It may boil down to defining “care.” If people did not care, they wouldn’t read and comment, would they? We can observe there is enough attention and salience for this other person’s situation to achieve some level of “care” in other people’s minds. Maybe the caring involved is a more distant and superficial sort? Maybe it is the kind of caring that comes out of avoiding one’s own cares. I use this thought personally to observe when I care enough to type in a comment, and which of my own cares I am avoiding when I do so.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  It is an ambiguous term on it's own. I didn't provide enough context to illustrate that my point was about selfishness and avoiding feelings of obligation or guilt? I am not immune myself even though I levelled the charge. I only get through the day by generous application of denial. If I can't avoid seeing someone hungry, then plan B is figure out a way to conclude that it is within their own power to feed themselves, and so not my problem. Failing both of those, then I have to deal with it. I either have to share my food with them or I have to consciously decide I'm ok with keeping mine and ignore their misfortune. Obviously, intellectually, academically, I know that the world is one big continuous stream of unbelievable tragedy, and I can't actually live even one second for myself if I were to try to treat all of that the same way I do when my own partner suffers so much as a headache. So I don't. I pretend everything is fine by arranging things so that mostly everything I see is fine, and when I see something else I mostly rationalize some sway to ignore it. I drive right by that guy standing at the intersection with the sign, etc. I just at least try to be self aware that I'm doing that and not confuse a sanity/survival strategy, however justified and necessary, for reality. I'm saying that a lot of people don't seem to do even that last little part.