> Deciding that one's life is all about luck is a miserable way to live. It means one has no agency, no choice, no way to make one's life better. Because it's a

> Deciding that one's life is all about luck is a miserable way to live. It means one has no agency, no choice, no way to make one's life better. Because it's all luck, that means there is no point in trying. The outcome of this is self-fulfilling - misery. Regardless of the effects of luck, I should point out how far from scientific observation this is. One can examine the evidence of, as this article says, luck, in society. Or, one can talk about magical thinking, and if one doesn't believe some received hegemony it will lead to misery. It sounds close to Christian fundamentalism - believe in the received divine word of the Bible or suffer eternally. The evidence based scientific method has less value in observing human society than in observing the orbit of planets and such, for a variety of reasons. The picture gotten from social science is less clear than from natural science. It is better than the alternative though. If one observed society, and the class structure of society, and the forces of production and relations of production - and the changes to the forces of production and resulting changes to relations of production - one would have an evidence based observation of society. Including the luck of being born into one class or the other. We can look at Mark Zuckerberg, who went to the Phillips Exeter high school (current yearly tuition - $47000 a year and up). His company bought Instagram for $1 billion, founded by Kevin Systrom who went to Middlesex high school (current yearly tuition - $55000 a year and up). We can then look at people who did not pay $47000 for their freshman year in high school (or its mid 1990s equivalent). > None of my friends believes their lives are all about luck. They all believe they have agency, and are constantly taking responsibility for their lives and acting accordingly. I'm sure Zuckerberg and Systrom believe they have agency - I believe they have agency. I'm sure when Bill Gates and Paul Allen left the Lakeside prep school they had agency. These are in fact people who were upper middle class and actually went out and worked. Plenty of heirs inherit their billions, live as "rich kids of Instagram" as shall their kids. Or you can take the advice if this poster - forget evidence in the world and engage in magical thinking or face misery. In fact my experience is the opposite in my cohort. We see luck of birth and class structure as bearing on relations if production. My friends are fun to be around in a manner smarmy, entitled trust fund kids are not fun to be around.