A business opportunity is not gonna magically appear if you are not constantly looking for one and you won’t be able to exploit it if you haven’t learned relevant skills and built a network.
Eventually, it all goes back to who you were born as and who you were born to. Your odds of "success" are much higher if you're born as a white male in the US than if you're born as an female in rural India. No amount of effort can change those odds.
That's not to say that effort doesn't play a part, it absolutely does. But a significant amount of success is supported by good fortune layered on more good fortune.
And a better personal ability would be to have supermodel genes :>
What wealth 'class' you are born into has by far the biggest effect on your chance of success.
Attaining wealth is much easier if you're born into a specific race, thus your chances of being born wealthy are directly correlated with your chances of being white.
Attaining wealth is much easier if you're male. Among the many reasons are increased career opportunities in general, less chance of a stalled career because of child rearing, greater status in negotiations, etc.
All I'm saying is it is incredibly lucky to be born a white male in a society which so highly values them, and try as hard you might, you can't position yourself to get that advantage if you weren't born with it.
You're trying to elevate one factor above others and derailing the higher conversation people are trying to have here. It's just not productive.
People tend to think luck is heavily about positioning yourself to succeed.
I think that's true, but I also believe that the most important factors to putting you in those lucky positions are not in your control.
Someone who is not already born into a lucky position has to get even more lucky to succeed.
You telling me to simply stop talking about something that I believe is an important point to make is very strange.
>People tend to think luck is heavily about positioning >yourself to succeed.
>I think that's true, but I also believe that the most >important factors to putting you in those lucky positions >are not in your control.
>Someone who is not already born into a lucky position has >to get even more lucky to succeed.
That we all agree on, what we disagree on is you trying to elevate race above all other uncontrollable factors in ones life. I don't know if it's true or not, but you probably don't have the data to back that assertion up.
> You telling me to simply stop talking about something that I believe is an important point to make is very strange.
Because we are trying to have a civil and deep discourse about an important subject . Any social issue under the sun can be related to racial issue, from violence to education level to health; It's doesn't mean that adopting a racial frame is the best way of discussing,reflecting and solving those issues. We aren't even sure to which part race is a causing vs a correlating factor. What we do know however is that race is such a polarizing subject (in the US at least) that trying to shoehorn race into a debate is a sure way to derail it. Not to mentioned the blatant disrespect to all the other type of human experience that somehow you think are worst than being black in america (mental health and devellopmentale issue for example, and yes see we can all play the game of who as it worst...)...
So ultimately it's not that race is not important, it's that it's not a useful frame for every subject.
And yes i am black, and on my wish list of stuff i want to change about myself higher social status, more money, higher overall sexual attractiveness come way before race...
You cannot discuss luck and success in life without discussing race.
In no way did I suggest that people should want to change their race.
Sure, but having a white doctor for a parent is very likely more beneficial than both of those examples. This should not be a very controversial point.
The comment said it is not a race or gender issue, which I disagree with.
What part of your carpe diem attitude helped your mom not do drugs and destroy your gestating brain before you were born?
How did you bootstrap your country so that you weren't a victim of war or starvation at a young age?
What part of your attitude ensured you were born into a modern society at the right time to be educated, instead of being a pre-agrarian human ancestor?
What part of your free will in life ensured you'd be the sort of tech person who'd post on HN rather than perhaps an ascetic who'd be living a life of poverty on the streets of Bangladesh to combat consumerist attitudes? Would that be a wrong choice to make?
That said, correlation and causation. The movers and shakers of society are likely to believe they had more control in their life. Not necessarily the other way around. But it can be helpful to envision yourself as being in control of more of your life than you really are.
I never implied that anyone could do those things.
The point was that you’re not automatically participating in the “get lucky to become successful” lottery.