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So you want to teach your children that success is purely based on luck and not hard work? This is a surefire way to raise nihilistic underachievers.

derbOac 4y ago
There surely must be something between nhilistic underachievers and narcissistic psychopaths. Especially if you ever want to see change in the system.
- friedman23 4y ago
  Only in the minds of the mal-educated would teaching children that hard work pays off equate with teaching them to be a narcissistic psycopath.
bluefirebrand 4y ago
"Success" is not based on luck. "Wild, runaway, moonshot style success that turns you into a billionaire" is based on luck. No matter how hard you work, that kind of success will always always always require a lot of right time, right place, right audience style luck. So yes. I would teach my children that. I would also teach them the old Captain Picard lesson: It is possible to do everything right and still not succeed. That is life.
- friedman23 4y ago
  > "Wild, runaway, moonshot style success that turns you into a billionaire" is based on luck. No matter how hard you work, that kind of success will always always always require a lot of right time, right place, right audience style luck. And what would be the purpose of this lesson? > I would also teach them the old Captain Picard lesson: It is possible to do everything right and still not succeed. That is life. This is a dumb lesson. There are many things in life where if you make all the right decisions you will succeed. In chess if you make every perfect move you will succeed at winning. Let's take poker as an example, a game with an extreme amount of variance (or what the average person would call luck), if you make every right decision you will succeed over the long term, your profit will be a line with ups and downs that points up and to the right. Don't set dumb goals and success is easy.
  - toast0 4y ago
    > if you make every right decision you will succeed over the long term You don't always get to make the right decisions for long enough to get to the long term though. The point of teaching the lessom that doing everything right does not guarantee success is to help people move on from failure. You don't need to dwell on what you did wrong forever if you know that doing everything right isn't sufficient for success. That doesn't mean you shouldn't look back and examine if there was more you could have done, but it's ok to say I there was nothing more I could have (or should have) done, so whatevs, I'm moving on.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    Poker players illustrate the value of the lesson perfectly. Poker players fully understand that they can make the exact right play and still lose the hand. They expect it, and they plan for it. It's funny that you called the lesson dumb, then proceeded to give me an example of people who absolutely live by it.
    - friedman23 4y ago
      Poker players play poker and expect to win over the long run. If they didn't expect to succeed at poker they wouldn't play. A good poker player would not consider losing a single hand or even tournament a failure. They would consider making a mistake a failure. Because they know if they do everything correctly they will win over the long run. Really good players will even consider hands they win but made mistakes in failures.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

derbOac 4y ago

There surely must be something between nhilistic underachievers and narcissistic psychopaths. Especially if you ever want to see change in the system.

friedman23 4y ago
Only in the minds of the mal-educated would teaching children that hard work pays off equate with teaching them to be a narcissistic psycopath.

bluefirebrand 4y ago

"Success" is not based on luck. "Wild, runaway, moonshot style success that turns you into a billionaire" is based on luck. No matter how hard you work, that kind of success will always always always require a lot of right time, right place, right audience style luck. So yes. I would teach my children that. I would also teach them the old Captain Picard lesson: It is possible to do everything right and still not succeed. That is life.

friedman23 4y ago
> "Wild, runaway, moonshot style success that turns you into a billionaire" is based on luck. No matter how hard you work, that kind of success will always always always require a lot of right time, right place, right audience style luck. And what would be the purpose of this lesson? > I would also teach them the old Captain Picard lesson: It is possible to do everything right and still not succeed. That is life. This is a dumb lesson. There are many things in life where if you make all the right decisions you will succeed. In chess if you make every perfect move you will succeed at winning. Let's take poker as an example, a game with an extreme amount of variance (or what the average person would call luck), if you make every right decision you will succeed over the long term, your profit will be a line with ups and downs that points up and to the right. Don't set dumb goals and success is easy.
- toast0 4y ago
  > if you make every right decision you will succeed over the long term You don't always get to make the right decisions for long enough to get to the long term though. The point of teaching the lessom that doing everything right does not guarantee success is to help people move on from failure. You don't need to dwell on what you did wrong forever if you know that doing everything right isn't sufficient for success. That doesn't mean you shouldn't look back and examine if there was more you could have done, but it's ok to say I there was nothing more I could have (or should have) done, so whatevs, I'm moving on.
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  Poker players illustrate the value of the lesson perfectly. Poker players fully understand that they can make the exact right play and still lose the hand. They expect it, and they plan for it. It's funny that you called the lesson dumb, then proceeded to give me an example of people who absolutely live by it.
  - friedman23 4y ago
    Poker players play poker and expect to win over the long run. If they didn't expect to succeed at poker they wouldn't play. A good poker player would not consider losing a single hand or even tournament a failure. They would consider making a mistake a failure. Because they know if they do everything correctly they will win over the long run. Really good players will even consider hands they win but made mistakes in failures.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]