Success and Luck

[Ego]

Hum. We've been able to puzzle out really obscure things like the evolutionary purpose for emotions, tickling, oral sex and goosebumps. Are there any human traits that exist for no reason other than because they can?

[7Wannabe5]

Ego said: Yeah, but what if you figured out a trick to enjoy kale for breakfast in a way that makes it even more pleasurable than a pastry? In bed? At the (nice) Marriott?

That might be a really lucky convergence of self-control and cleverness.

I like kale. I have dinosaur kale and curly kale planted in my garden. However, kale is not pastry and attempting to force kale to take the place of pastry would be like attempting to make Wendell Berry take the place of Anthony Trollope. Kale is not more or less pleasurable than pastry. It is differently pleasurable than pastry. OTOH, I would agree that one might eventually tire of pastry every day for breakfast, and kale, garlic, onion, olive oil, sourdough cubes, rice, cheddar, tomato and pepitos might then be preferred. It is even within the realm of possibility that one may choose one morning to allow the-man-with-the-Marriott-points to prepare one a breakfast concoction involving the juicing of raw asparagus (which he claims to enjoy), but the-man-with-the-Marriott-points and you, my dear forum friend, are not among those of us born, oh so very luckily blessed, with the syndrome associated with extremely short ring finger, so habitual morning pastry consumption would soon be revealed as unattractive and unhealthy deposits of fat upon your bellies, causing crowding, inflammation and stress upon your internal organs, rather than attractively and inertly deposited in a region more posterior. Please, do not curse my luck as you chew once, twice, thrice upon your breakfast of stiff and bitter kale, but rather thank the Goddess for providing us with such diverse offerings to share in our human communities.

jacob said: Do babies have a self?

No, they do not. It develops over time. An infant will not recognize his own hand, or be able to control it, as it moves into his field of vision, but he will recognize his mother's face. I have read that an adult human reaches for a cookie or a glass of water that appears in his field of vision before his brain registers the message "Mmmm, cookie." or "I am thirsty." So, if you wish to keep yourself from eating cookies and make yourself drink more water, you remove the first from both your vision and your range of motion, and you place the other close at hand. An infant can't bring his own thumb to his mouth, but he will suck on it if you move it there for him. Adult humans who are put into solitary confinement, especially in the dark, often start to lose their sense of self. Therefore, I would posit that the sense of self has something to do with the complex interactions of the core of the nervous system, the periphery of the nervous system and sensory input.

[brianagainn]

I appreciate all of the salient points brought up here. Yet... I think of luck in a different way. I agree with most here: that accepting luck before all else is a damaging program. I think we're encountering the debate between nature and nurture. I am placing luck in the camp of nurture, here.

I think most of us agree here that one's lot in life is the result of the mixture of the two aforementioned factors. None of us disagree that luck forces itself on every ones' life.

What I think of luck is what everyone thinks of luck (reaching, obviously). Defining luck: your nurture starting out, is better, relatively, than the general population. Can we deny that this exists? Clearly not.

I would hope that none of us argue that luck, as I've described it, exists. The question is, in my opinion, whether or not luck is significant enough to merit mitigating factors. I think so.

For some background... I won the uterus lottery and happened to be born in the US. I lost the US lottery with a mentally ill mother. I won the lottery because she happened to serve in the Air Force (reasons why described later). I won the lottery in that she happened to be deemed 100% permanently disabled. That happened to lead to my education to be 100% subsidized. Also consider that I live in a country where education is prohibitively expensive. Therefore, that education is prohibitively expensive and therefore well compensated (in case of curiosity, I chose the soul-satisfying field of accounting (sarcasm)).

I guess my ultimate point is that, as a society, we need to compensate for luck. That was my circumstance, that my poor luck was made right by tax payers. That good luck that I mentioned earlier would have been wholly bad if policies were otherwise.

Luck is real, but it isn't everything. My bad luck, our bad luck really, doesn't even compare to third world countries (not to mention those born 1000 years ago). We should negate luck as much as is feasibly possibly, IMO. That idea allows the most brilliant minds rise to the top. Imagine a world where Einstein, Newton or Tesla were born in desolate poverty. Those ideas would have taken longer to rise to the surface of humanity. My position is that we need as many brilliant minds as we can get. We can't afford to waste them.

[fiby41]

@jacob @7w5:

"Do babies have sense of self (ego)?"

"It further posits that individuals at birth have buddhi (intelligence, sattvic). As life progresses and churns this buddhi , it creates ahamkara (ego, rajasic). When ego in turn is churned by life,
manas (temper, mood, tamasic) is produced. Together, buddhi , ahamkara and manas interact and constitute citta (mind) in Yoga school of Hinduism. [6] Unrestrained modification of citta causes suffering. A way of life that empowers one to become ever more aware of one's consciousness and spirituality innate in buddhi , is the path to one's highest potential and a more serene, content, liberated life. Patanjali's Yoga sutra begins, in verse 2 of Book 1, by defining Yoga as "restraining the Citta from
Vrittis ." [53]"


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_(philosophy)

[JamesR]

http://paulgraham.com/determination.html

[Sclass]

I forgot how much I love Paul Graham.

Willpower is good. But I think this is like the nurture nature argument. I know a lot of people who work hard. I went to school with them. They continue to work hard in their tech professions but achieve average success. Job, 401k, spouse who treats them like an ATM without considering what the person had to go through monthly to fill up the machine.


Luck counts. Taleb's books talk about tourists and soccer moms not opening things up to randomness. I think a lot of people (my friends IRL) make the same mistake. That is, they dream of hitting the lottery of sorts but don't buy a ticket or tickets.

It's really hard to win when you don't bet.

Some of my hardest working friends do so because they like a sure thing. An A on the final. A Bay Area home. Some bond income. That same kind of "ambition" as graham calls it is their downfall. They come out average in a world (my world was Silicon Valley) of worker bees who are intelligent and hardworking. Contrary to the media image, the majority of people in middle class SV are pretty risk averse. They want good compensation, steady compensation, good schools for the kids etc. And these are smart hardworking people. I guess I just said that.

I say open yourself up to a little randomness. Don't take on a risk that will be a game ender but try something...with vision and ambition. Good stuff happens.

[Forskaren]

I think luck plays a role all the time, but that you can make choices with free will.

If you gamble at a casino, the odds are against you. Still, you can be saved by luck. If you invest in the stock market in a reasonable way, the odds are probably in your favor. Still, bad luck may give you losses. I think that you can chose with free will to take risks when the odds are in your favor and to not take risks if the odds are against you. Getting an education, starting a company, investing etc. can be situations where you expose yourself for getting lucky. Taking care of your health, avoiding drugs, avoiding gambling are choices that decrease the risk of getting unlucky.

[The Old Man]

I'm on record here as being a bit prickly about the tendency in certain circles to dismiss individual accomplishment with a hand-wave and an appeal to luck. I guess a guy gets tired of every small success, especially the financial ones, he ekes out of life being accompanied by an accusation of white privilege, male privilege, middle class privilege, and educational privilege.

The Privilege Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOMpxsiUg2Q

[7Wannabe5]

+1@SClass

I almost laughed out loud at one juncture reading the Graham link, because I am wilful as they come, but sorely lacking in discipline. Therefore, the processes by which I usually eventually get what I want seem more random. I am fairly certain that my perma-culture project will be at the "popping" level of completion within 6 years, and I will also be financially independent, but it is now becoming ever more apparent to me that this will not happen for me in worker bee filling up the honeycombs or steady brick-laying fashion. I am mainly a visionary, so in order to reach my goals, I have to "hire" a manager and some technicians. My "friend" who is an expert on perma-culture has now completely taken over management of my project because he wants to get in some practice for the much bigger project he has planned for himself in the future. So, I am temporarily primarily in the role of technician on my own project. I wish I could say that I lured him on to the task with my feminine appeal, but it's much more like a serious car guy wanting to play with my up-on-the-blocks Corvette (sigh.) Anyways, it seems to me that sometimes if you just wander about talking about your projects, eventually you can gather up all the pieces that you need in the social matrix, but it's a more complex process than just working steadily on something by your ownsome.

spouse who treats them like an ATM without considering what the person had to go through monthly to fill up the machine.

I so, so very frequently meet this guy post-divorce for coffee. It's easy to pin it on the wife, but this guy ended up with that wife because the ATM card is primarily what he was offering up on the market. If somebody like me asks him "So, why don't you just quit your job if it sucks so hard?" that just confuses. When somebody like the-man-with-the-Marriot-points, who is more than halfway to being clear of this lock-in by his own volition (one way you can tell is if he initiated the divorce, second way is if he actually likes his job) comments on my lack of materialism relative to ATM-wife, I don't let it slide. I tell him "Nope. I am 90% inclined to shop at the thrift store, but 10% inclined to let you take me out to that very good Thai place you mentioned, but the reason why you might get lucky later is I am amused by your dead-pan neurotic humor, and you got that kind of lanky cowboy build, and you opened the car door for me, etc. etc. Of course, if you had attempted to feed me cheeze-whiz on kale for dinner then....?"

[BRUTE]

I think luck plays a role all the time, but that you can make choices with free will.

how does one do this? brute is pretty convinced that all "decisions" are either deterministic or random, neither of which have much to do with "free will".

[7Wannabe5]

@BRUTE: Free will doesn't exist in the moment, but something approximating or resembling free will exists in some prior moment. When you are standing at the counter of the doughnut shoppe at 7 AM on Tuesday morning, it is too late for free will, but if you start trekking out into the desert on Sunday evening, you greatly reduce the probability that you will occur at the doughnut shoppe on Tuesday morning.

Another example would be how from my perspective, all the more disciplined types on this forum working and saving until they reach highly conservative SWR is super-duper over-determination of fate. There is no future world in which Jacob is broke and Ego has fallen victim to the obesity epidemic. There is a future world in which I am broke and obese (sigh)*, but I hope to avoid it with some artful dodging.

*It might look something like this.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbRyCsZhQeQ

[Sclass]

+1@SClass

I almost laughed out loud at one juncture reading the Graham link, because I am wilful as they come, but sorely lacking in discipline. Therefore, the processes by which I usually eventually get what I want seem more random. I am fairly certain that my perma-culture project will be at the "popping" level of completion within 6 years, and I will also be financially independent, but it is now becoming ever more apparent to me that this will not happen for me in worker bee filling up the honeycombs or steady brick-laying fashion. I am mainly a visionary, so in order to reach my goals, I have to "hire" a manager and some technicians. My "friend" who is an expert on perma-culture has now completely taken over management of my project because he wants to get in some practice for the much bigger project he has planned for himself in the future. So, I am temporarily primarily in the role of technician on my own project. I wish I could say that I lured him on to the task with my feminine appeal, but it's much more like a serious car guy wanting to play with my up-on-the-blocks Corvette (sigh.) Anyways, it seems to me that sometimes if you just wander about talking about your projects, eventually you can gather up all the pieces that you need in the social matrix, but it's a more complex process than just working steadily on something by your ownsome.

spouse who treats them like an ATM without considering what the person had to go through monthly to fill up the machine.

I so, so very frequently meet this guy post-divorce for coffee. It's easy to pin it on the wife, but this guy ended up with that wife because the ATM card is primarily what he was offering up on the market. If somebody like me asks him "So, why don't you just quit your job if it sucks so hard?" that just confuses. When somebody like the-man-with-the-Marriot-points, who is more than halfway to being clear of this lock-in by his own volition (one way you can tell is if he initiated the divorce, second way is if he actually likes his job) comments on my lack of materialism relative to ATM-wife, I don't let it slide. I tell him "Nope. I am 90% inclined to shop at the thrift store, but 10% inclined to let you take me out to that very good Thai place you mentioned, but the reason why you might get lucky later is I am amused by your dead-pan neurotic humor, and you got that kind of lanky cowboy build, and you opened the car door for me, etc. etc. Of course, if you had attempted to feed me cheeze-whiz on kale for dinner then....?"

Wasn't trying to pin it on the wife. I said "spouse". I know two professional women who are getting drained one paycheck at a time by some thoughtless husbands. On the whole, I see this happening to more guys, but that's because I mostly hang around guys and listen to them complain. If I listened to more women complaining about their callous husbands that may expose me to a little too much randomness.

I guess I was trying to say I know a bunch of men (because San Jose is Man Jose) in the tech biz that are kind of timid when it comes to opening themselves up to luck. The same kind of guys don't seem to get laid much. When I take a hard look at them, they have thinly disguised mail order brides because they couldn't find a mate in the wild. Because they never venture into the wild.

This whole topic made me wonder "what would 7wannabe5 say about this?"

Good luck with the permaculture manager. Anything can happen. Interaction favors the probability of interaction.

[BRUTE]

@BRUTE: Free will doesn't exist in the moment, but something approximating or resembling free will exists in some prior moment. When you are standing at the counter of the doughnut shoppe at 7 AM on Tuesday morning, it is too late for free will, but if you start trekking out into the desert on Sunday evening, you greatly reduce the probability that you will occur at the doughnut shoppe on Tuesday morning.

so if in each moment, free will doesn't exist, in which moment did free will exist? the first moment of the universe? in that case, brute would call that determinism. but then it's hardly the free will of any human.

[George the original one]

Luck is the probability envelope of available choices. Success is repeatedly making the correct choice out of each envelope.

What guides your choice are education, experience, and ability to think through the consequences.

[7Wannabe5]

SClass said: I guess I was trying to say I know a bunch of men (because San Jose is Man Jose) in the tech biz that are kind of timid when it comes to opening themselves up to luck. The same kind of guys don't seem to get laid much. When I take a hard look at them, they have thinly disguised mail order brides because they couldn't find a mate in the wild. Because they never venture into the wild.

Right. In my age-group, neck-of-the-woods, those guys are mostly engineers.

Good luck with the permaculture manager. Anything can happen. Interaction favors the probability of interaction.

Eh, I don't even know what would constitute good luck with the permaculture manager. It piques my vanity/ego a bit when a man is obviously "not that into me" and struts about like there is some critical shortage of attractive dominants on the planet, but that is not good enough reason to attempt to effect change, as in "Be careful what you wish for little girl, or you will surely get it.", but not to be confused with “Whatever you do,” cried Brer Rabbit, “Don’t throw me into the briar patch!”

BRUTE said: so if in each moment, free will doesn't exist, in which moment did free will exist? the first moment of the universe? in that case, brute would call that determinism. but then it's hardly the free will of any human.

I know what I said is true, but I don't know if my brain works well enough to explain it, but I will try.

In accordance with the laws of physics, even if BRUTE was a rock, BRUTE would have influence on "that which is not BRUTE." Although it is more difficult to draw a boundary around a concept than a rock, we might agree that even a concept has influence. When BRUTE has a thought concerning BRUTE's influence on FUTURE BRUTE, the same part of the brain lights up as when BRUTE has a thought concerning BRUTE's influence on another person, or a gopher or a tree and vice-versa. The better BRUTE literally comprehends this web of influence the more BRUTE will think like he possesses strong will and vice-versa. The better BRUTE intuits this web of influence, the more BRUTE will feel optimistic about his future and vice-versa. When BRUTE is well able to both literally comprehend and intuit this web of influence, then BRUTE will be said to possess free will in relationship to FUTURE BRUTE.

For instance, my intuition of the web of influence causes me to feel optimistic about the power of my will to withstand the influence of raw asparagus juice and one of SClass's tech guy friends from San Jose, but sad pessimism about the power of my will to withstand salted cardamon cookies or permaculture managers. This is because one silently whispers "Yummy. Yummy. Yummy. You know that you want me." and the other forcefully says "Put your arms down. I said, PUT YOUR ARMS DOWN...Yeah, now, that's a good baby." So, that's why the box of cookies is in the freezer sealed with a strap of duct tape, and we are not ever, ever allowed to text the permaculture manager unless he texts us first.

[theanimal]

Self serving bias is key. It's just as important to look at failures and how luck/skill play a role in those as well. As noted previously, most people will attribute good outcomes to skill, downplaying luck and with bad outcomes they're more likely to blame it on bad luck rather than poor execution or decision making.

This is why I think it's essential to always evaluate your decision process and your ensuing actions rather than just your outcomes. Making your decisions based solely on outcomes can be extremely dangerous. Note that this thinking is very difficult for most people to carry out.

There's four types of possible results when we are looking at this.

Great Skill + Good Luck= Good outcome
Great Skill + Bad Luck= Bad outcome but good process
Poor Skill + Good Luck= Dumb luck
Poor Skill + Bad Luck= Likely catastrophe

As mentioned above, you see this concept and actions based off dumb luck often in the investing world. A good example is the guy who wrote the book What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars. In his early life, he made great advances based on luck, with a bit of skill along the way. His fault was that he attributed his luck to skill rather than luck. By the time he was on Wall Street, his luck eventually ran out and due to a number of cognitive biases and heuristics (social proof, confirmation bias, commitment and consistency, self serving bias etc.) The combination of these resulted in a lollapalooza effect and, as the title suggests, the author lost over a million dollars.

A fitting quote from Warren Buffet:

"In a bull market, one must avoid the error of the preening duck that quacks boastfully after a torrential rainstorm, thinking that its paddling skills have caused it to rise in the world. A right-thinking duck would instead compare its position after the downpour to that of the other ducks on the pond."

I always want to be in the top two of the four listed. The way to do this is upping my skill or knowledge. I also evaluate, throughout my decision process and action, to see what cognitive biases and heuristics I am succumbing to. This is very hard to do. But do it enough, and you'll find yourself faced with great success.

[BRUTE]

@7wannabe5: maybe brute did not entirely understand the point(s). is 7wannabe5 implying that (t)brute has free will because he can influence the whereabouts and thoughts of (t+1)brute?

if so, brute would argue that while this is clearly an influence, it is not necessarily "free will". free will implies (t)brute had a choice to somehow create a different (t+1)brute, in a way that is neither deterministic nor random.

the crux is basically that brute does not know of, and can't intuitively believe in, anything that is neither deterministic nor random. what would this be?

the only good arguments pro free will brute has seen so far somehow construct the "free will" element on top of a base of random/deterministic atomic layer. similar to how one can make a boat float even though the materials themselves would sink, or how TCP implements error control on top of a non-error-controlled physical layer.

@theanimal:

brute thinks he'd rather have dumb luck than bad outcome and good process. unless of course this happens a lot and there is a below-average chance to have dumb luck.

in fact, brute considers himself to be in the "dumb luck" category. he grew up loving and being good at a skill that would be completely useless in any other time period ever. this skill is also somewhat hard to learn, boring for most humans, and very in demand. brute isn't under the illusion that "skill" or "process" had anything to do with it. he had dumb luck. the same can be said for most decisions brute has ever made, and those around him. although, of course, most of the humans around brute do not consider themselves simply lucky, but "hard workers" or "smart", whatever those words mean.

[jennypenny]

The person who sent me the ARC doesn't want it back, so I have a hardcover of the book up for grabs. PM if you want it.