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No one ever talks about the opportunity cost of building up a "luck surface". What is the expected value of doing so? What do you have to sacrifice to do so? Is

No one ever talks about the opportunity cost of building up a "luck surface". What is the expected value of doing so? What do you have to sacrifice to do so? Is there any evidence the EV is positive, or is this just another selection bias?

nickff 4y ago
Well, one extreme example is buying lottery tickets; it's the best way to expose yourself to the potential upside of winning the lottery, yet the expected value is quite negative. That example is quite bracing, but I think it points out that there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational. I agree. Something as straightforward as being known as someone who does good work, putting yourself out there somewhat (writing, speaking, etc.), basically developing a network of people who you know at least professionally is certainly a way a lot of people develop at least something of a "luck surface." It may well not produce the big win but it can certainly lead to "lucky" opportunities. Of course, there are other options that are more like gambles that may have negative EV but if you don't play big you probably won't win big.
- scarmig 4y ago
  All the talk about building a great "luck surface" is just an attempt to deny luck: something might seem like luck, but it's really part of an intentional strategy to maximize potential value! For any given "luck surface" strategy, you can find far more people who haven't achieved massive success using it than those who have. Some strategies are probably better than others, but those are not foreseeable in advance.
  - tomnipotent 4y ago
    It's luck because you have no direct control over it - it happens by unpredictable circumstances. Think of networking, and imagine every person you meet and build a rapport with as non-parametric distribution that you're randomly sampling from over time (future interactions). You have no clue if each sample is going to yield positive results, but you can increase your chance of a positive outcome overall by increasing the number of distributions (people) you're sampling from (maintaining relationships). So much of it ends up by random chance, what else could it be but luck?
- deltree7 4y ago
  Expected value is really a dumb way to evaluate lottery tickets. I can't believe even supposedly good mathematicians use it. The next dumb way to evaluate lottery tickets is to compare it with other long odds (lightning strikes, marrying your favorite actor). If you want to play along, the probability of you winning the lottery is 10000000000000x more favorable than the probability of you existing in this universe. Buying lottery tickets is a simple framework. The upside of winning a lottery is significantly higher than the downside of losing one (per week or per month). So do it. The opposite is driving recklessly to save a minute of your commute. It has significantly higher downside risks than the upside of time savings. So don't do it. A lot of lottery-bashing people make 10000x worse sub-optimal decisions in their life and yet pick trashing a lottery ticket to feel superior about their decision making ability.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    There's basically nothing I'm totally sure of, but I do know the probability of my existing in this universe is 1.
    - cwp 4y ago
      No. That's like flipping a coin and then saying the probability of getting heads is 1. The fact that something happened is not proof that it was guaranteed to happen.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        Re-read what the GP claimed. Given the initial conditions of the universe, the probability it might eventually lead to my own existence may well be infinitessimal, but in the context of the probability of me winning the lottery (for example), my existence is already a given.
        cwp 4y ago
        No, what he was saying was that the probability of you winning the lottery is quite high compared to the probability of you existing in the first place. His point was that mathematicians sometimes try to contextualize these very low probability scenarios so that lay-people don't collapse them all into a single "basically impossible" bucket. They're not wrong, but it's not a useful way to think about whether buying a lottery ticket is a good idea.
Uehreka 4y ago
Any time you spend trying and failing to quantify the EV of luck surface area is time you could be spending building your luck surface area.
aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
You just might cost yourself an unfulfilling life you live out of duty.

nickff 4y ago

Well, one extreme example is buying lottery tickets; it's the best way to expose yourself to the potential upside of winning the lottery, yet the expected value is quite negative. That example is quite bracing, but I think it points out that there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational.

ghaff 4y ago
>there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational. I agree. Something as straightforward as being known as someone who does good work, putting yourself out there somewhat (writing, speaking, etc.), basically developing a network of people who you know at least professionally is certainly a way a lot of people develop at least something of a "luck surface." It may well not produce the big win but it can certainly lead to "lucky" opportunities. Of course, there are other options that are more like gambles that may have negative EV but if you don't play big you probably won't win big.
scarmig 4y ago
All the talk about building a great "luck surface" is just an attempt to deny luck: something might seem like luck, but it's really part of an intentional strategy to maximize potential value! For any given "luck surface" strategy, you can find far more people who haven't achieved massive success using it than those who have. Some strategies are probably better than others, but those are not foreseeable in advance.
- tomnipotent 4y ago
  It's luck because you have no direct control over it - it happens by unpredictable circumstances. Think of networking, and imagine every person you meet and build a rapport with as non-parametric distribution that you're randomly sampling from over time (future interactions). You have no clue if each sample is going to yield positive results, but you can increase your chance of a positive outcome overall by increasing the number of distributions (people) you're sampling from (maintaining relationships). So much of it ends up by random chance, what else could it be but luck?
deltree7 4y ago
Expected value is really a dumb way to evaluate lottery tickets. I can't believe even supposedly good mathematicians use it. The next dumb way to evaluate lottery tickets is to compare it with other long odds (lightning strikes, marrying your favorite actor). If you want to play along, the probability of you winning the lottery is 10000000000000x more favorable than the probability of you existing in this universe. Buying lottery tickets is a simple framework. The upside of winning a lottery is significantly higher than the downside of losing one (per week or per month). So do it. The opposite is driving recklessly to save a minute of your commute. It has significantly higher downside risks than the upside of time savings. So don't do it. A lot of lottery-bashing people make 10000x worse sub-optimal decisions in their life and yet pick trashing a lottery ticket to feel superior about their decision making ability.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  There's basically nothing I'm totally sure of, but I do know the probability of my existing in this universe is 1.
  - cwp 4y ago
    No. That's like flipping a coin and then saying the probability of getting heads is 1. The fact that something happened is not proof that it was guaranteed to happen.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Re-read what the GP claimed. Given the initial conditions of the universe, the probability it might eventually lead to my own existence may well be infinitessimal, but in the context of the probability of me winning the lottery (for example), my existence is already a given.
      - cwp 4y ago
        No, what he was saying was that the probability of you winning the lottery is quite high compared to the probability of you existing in the first place. His point was that mathematicians sometimes try to contextualize these very low probability scenarios so that lay-people don't collapse them all into a single "basically impossible" bucket. They're not wrong, but it's not a useful way to think about whether buying a lottery ticket is a good idea.

Uehreka 4y ago

Any time you spend trying and failing to quantify the EV of luck surface area is time you could be spending building your luck surface area.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago

You just might cost yourself an unfulfilling life you live out of duty.