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Why does it always have to be this binary choice (Hence the "everything" qualifier I guess)? You can certainly work hard to succeed and also realize that a lot

Why does it always have to be this binary choice (Hence the "everything" qualifier I guess)? You can certainly work hard to succeed and also realize that a lot of your successes are just that, attributed to "luck" or things out of your control. This isn't to take anything anyway from hard work. I've always attributed hard work to basically buying more chances to play. Hard workers tend to succeed because they get more pulls at the slot machine. Just because you "win" doesn't change the fact that you're still playing the percentages. I think the type of person who is probably more likely to succeed is one that doesn't believe in luck (i.e. not willing to just accept the lot that was given to them).

AmericanChopper 4y ago
Because luck has almost nothing to do with success. Luck might play a role in any particular event, but over time if you do the things that are conducive to success (including, but not limited to, hard work), and avoid the thing that are conducive to failure, then you will become successful. The comment I initially replied to attributed success to the luck having a good childhood, and several people have chimed in saying I was also lucky and should attribute my own success to having a miserable one. All of this is clearly just unfalsifiable, post-facto rationalization to support the insane luck hypothesis. Your life is far too long to be governed by luck. If you have goals, then simply being dedicated to them over a period of time essentially eliminates the influence of luck (unless your goals are specifically highly luck dependant).
- ookblah 4y ago
  I, too, hate the hand-waving away of any success as being based entirely on "luck". I often find those who make that argument are just as you say, using it as a rationalization to not even try. I would still disagree with your point, though. There are swathes of people who worked their ass off and got nowhere. My own successes in life (if I'm to be honest) have had their roots in an off-chance break or what not. I suppose you could attribute that to hard work and being set up for success, but nothing in life guarantees that if you try 100 times you are owed success. I think in the nitty gritty of life, it doesn't make a difference what your philosophy is. Just work hard and count your blessings. Those that subscribe to no luck will work hard and if they fail, would probably never blame it on bad "luck" anyway. Those that blame luck as a reason to not try would probably would not have done anything even if luck wasn't a factor.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  > If you have goals, then simply being dedicated to them over a period of time essentially eliminates the influence of luck This is the just world fallacy in a nutshell. Are you consciously saying that every parent in history who watched their children starve to death was just not dedicated and hard working enough? Perhaps didn't have 'feed my children' as a clear enough goal?
mistermann 4y ago
> Why does it always have to be this binary choice (Hence the "everything" qualifier I guess)? My theory: the mind works in binary by default - it is a quick and dirty (and low energy) heuristic to make predictions, and reality/causality/etc from the perspective of an observer is fundamentally prediction based. If you think that's weird, you should see all the other sub-perceptual weirdness going on in this thread. > You can certainly work hard to succeed and also realize that a lot of your successes are just that, attributed to "luck" or things out of your control. This isn't to take anything anyway from hard work. Technically, it does kinda/plausibly take something away from hard work in that you are attributing the causality of outcomes to luck vs hard work, based on unacknowledged speculation. > Hard workers tend to succeed because they get more pulls at the slot machine. Just because you "win" doesn't change the fact that you're still playing the percentages. Technically, you are necessarily speculating here, perhaps while criticizing the speculations of others for being speculative? > I think the type of person who is probably more likely to succeed is one that doesn't believe in luck (i.e. not willing to just accept the lot that was given to them). And not only that, there are other approaches available to humans, like cooperation, which has a dependency on communication and other things. Unfortunately, there seems to be more than a few unrealized bugs in the stack so outcomes are (presumably) less optimal than is possible. My hope is that we try to change this some day, but I do not anticipate this happening.

AmericanChopper 4y ago

Because luck has almost nothing to do with success. Luck might play a role in any particular event, but over time if you do the things that are conducive to success (including, but not limited to, hard work), and avoid the thing that are conducive to failure, then you will become successful. The comment I initially replied to attributed success to the luck having a good childhood, and several people have chimed in saying I was also lucky and should attribute my own success to having a miserable one. All of this is clearly just unfalsifiable, post-facto rationalization to support the insane luck hypothesis. Your life is far too long to be governed by luck. If you have goals, then simply being dedicated to them over a period of time essentially eliminates the influence of luck (unless your goals are specifically highly luck dependant).

ookblah 4y ago
I, too, hate the hand-waving away of any success as being based entirely on "luck". I often find those who make that argument are just as you say, using it as a rationalization to not even try. I would still disagree with your point, though. There are swathes of people who worked their ass off and got nowhere. My own successes in life (if I'm to be honest) have had their roots in an off-chance break or what not. I suppose you could attribute that to hard work and being set up for success, but nothing in life guarantees that if you try 100 times you are owed success. I think in the nitty gritty of life, it doesn't make a difference what your philosophy is. Just work hard and count your blessings. Those that subscribe to no luck will work hard and if they fail, would probably never blame it on bad "luck" anyway. Those that blame luck as a reason to not try would probably would not have done anything even if luck wasn't a factor.
lazyasciiart 4y ago
> If you have goals, then simply being dedicated to them over a period of time essentially eliminates the influence of luck This is the just world fallacy in a nutshell. Are you consciously saying that every parent in history who watched their children starve to death was just not dedicated and hard working enough? Perhaps didn't have 'feed my children' as a clear enough goal?

mistermann 4y ago

> Why does it always have to be this binary choice (Hence the "everything" qualifier I guess)? My theory: the mind works in binary by default - it is a quick and dirty (and low energy) heuristic to make predictions, and reality/causality/etc from the perspective of an observer is fundamentally prediction based. If you think that's weird, you should see all the other sub-perceptual weirdness going on in this thread. > You can certainly work hard to succeed and also realize that a lot of your successes are just that, attributed to "luck" or things out of your control. This isn't to take anything anyway from hard work. Technically, it does kinda/plausibly take something away from hard work in that you are attributing the causality of outcomes to luck vs hard work, based on unacknowledged speculation. > Hard workers tend to succeed because they get more pulls at the slot machine. Just because you "win" doesn't change the fact that you're still playing the percentages. Technically, you are necessarily speculating here, perhaps while criticizing the speculations of others for being speculative? > I think the type of person who is probably more likely to succeed is one that doesn't believe in luck (i.e. not willing to just accept the lot that was given to them). And not only that, there are other approaches available to humans, like cooperation, which has a dependency on communication and other things. Unfortunately, there seems to be more than a few unrealized bugs in the stack so outcomes are (presumably) less optimal than is possible. My hope is that we try to change this some day, but I do not anticipate this happening.