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As to luck there's an old saying that I really like: the harder I work the luckier I get.

How I interpret this it that working hard increases your skills. If you are more skillful you are more able to take advantage of lucky situations you have. We all have lucky situations, some more than others (we can even say privilege plays a large role here). But here's the thing, if you don't have the skills to take advantage of these situations then they are useless.

Let's make up an egregious example. Let's say you are working on battery powered rockets that use AI. If you one day meet Elon Musk at your local grocery store and somehow strike up a conversation then he's probably going to be very interested in you and your background. He'll probably try to keep in contact with you and maybe offer you a job. Now let's consider without the skill. Well you met Elon Musk which is pretty cool, but you're probably not going to get a job.

It isn't so much luck vs skill, but the combination of the two. I would be willing to bet that there is not a single millionaire (yes, that low) that can't chalk up a significant portion of their wealth to something that others would consider luck. Such as family/friend's connections, stumbling into a situation, taking jobs that lead to other jobs in the right way, etc (this is why the specific wording of the previous sentence. Because most don't notice these kinds of things and when looking from the inside we notice the skill part and not the luck. Because we did in fact work hard, and you know... Human psychology)

Though I agree with the overall thrust of your comment, I'd imagine there are thousands of everyday millionaires in their 60s and 70s who have nothing I would look at as particularly great luck [other than to be healthy and employed for 40 years while saving diligently].

Also being born in America (or the developed world, generally) at the right point in history.

Someone born in China in 1860 who saved diligently, best case, would've lost it all in the Xinhai Revolution, Chinese Civil War, Sino-Japanese War, or Communist takeover. Worst case, they and their whole family is dead. Ditto Russia over the same time period, Vietnam in 1900, a plantation owner born in South Carolina in 1800, a Jew in Austria in 1870, etc.

For that matter, that 70-year-old American isn't out of the woods yet: there's a looming demographic time bomb that's going to hit America in the early 2020s, and it's by no guarantee that they'll remain millionaires.

And this is part of what I think people don't contribute to luck. There's many forms of luck. But I wouldn't say everything is attributed to it. But at the same time it would be naive to ignore it.

I think it's a myth that a person can choose whether or not they're a hard worker. It's most likely a matter of neurochemistry far beyond conscious control.

Or maybe, outside some share of pathologic cases, they can. But we pacify ourselves with thought that we are victims of circumstances out of our control.

This is entirely a defeatist mentality. I don't think there is any evidence to show that neurochemistry causes determinism, which is essentially what you are suggesting.

But let's assume it is true (which I don't think it is). Is it mentally healthy to go around saying "well fuck it, I'm just this way because I was born this way".

I do believe you can change yourself. Neurochemistry definitely plays a role in your ability to (luck). But having this defeatist mentality means you'll never attempt it. I would even argue that this comment should hint at some evolutionary benefit of getting down trodden.

Exactly. I choose to believe I can control my own behavior, and that belief undeniably affects my actual behavior. Now some Determinist comes along and says I didn't really make that choice, it was destiny. Well, okay, whatever you say dude; but the fact that I believe it is still in play.

I don't see what the value in denying free will is. Fascinating sophomore debate? Yes. Gonna help you survive and thrive on this planet? No.

I want to know if I was always destined to find the idea of creatures in a supposedly deterministic universe worrying about whether free will exists to be hilariously funny?

So is the paradoxical idea of a person deciding that free will doesn't exist

There's also this Bertrand Russell quote:

"As against solipsism it is to be said, in the first place, that it is psychologically impossible to believe, and is rejected in fact even by those who mean to accept it. I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me."

I feel like this is saying you're a Christian because religion is useful regardless of whether it's true. That's cool man, I'm not here to yuck your yum.

If we're not equipped to handle and the truth and knowing it could actually destroy us, it's better to live in a lie.

Sure, but all analogies are flawed. Yours is not as offensive to me as you might have hoped because I’m agnostic. But I can also flip it on its head:

The problem with religion comes when it’s used as a justification for horrible acts—just like one might use the lack of free will to justify horrible acts.

It seems to me that the idea of free will is used to justify horrible acts as well - the entire concept of retributive justice for instance.

Sorry, I genuinely wasn't trying to offend you, though I can see why it came off that way. I just meant to convey I'm not on some mission to convince people of anything. If it's helpful or makes people feel good to believe in free will, that's good enough for me. Even if I were 100% sure of there was no robust free will, I wouldn't be interested in changing people's minds.

I agree with this. The question of free will existing or not is not an important question. An interesting one, but at the same time the answer isn't really meaningful.

If we find free will exists, well we continue with the way we have been going. If we find that it doesn't, well we don't change anything because we don't have free will. (Honestly I believe there is middle ground to this question. That some people can exert more free will than others but that you can also train this behavior. But that's another discussion. If this is true, I do find this a meaningful answer though)

I'm guessing a proof that a free will does not exist could lead to a collapse of civilization, as many people would just not feel accountable and responsible for their lives any more.

Would it? They don't have free will anyway. So is that a cheatcode for death? I doubt it, because that means we'd be programed for survival.

Individuals would survive, but everyone could excuse their own bad behaviour with "I'm not in charge of myself, it's not me who's making this decision to rob/rape/kill etc.", which would lead to decline of society and, eventually, civilization.

> Is it mentally healthy to go around saying "well fuck it, I'm just this way because I was born this way".

If the alternative is to commit suicide since you feel like such a loser and the help people give you is the advice "stop being so lazy!", then yes.

Or when dealing with heinous criminals. Imagining that if I were unlucky enough to be born with that DNA into that family in that location and lived those experiences I most likely would have committed the same terrible acts. So while I see value in perhaps protecting broader society from them by doing things like imprisoning them, I am less likely to dehumanize them. By random luck it was them and not me.

But if someone is just a monster who makes evil decisions, then they can simply be disposed of like trash. They aren't like me, I make good decisions.

Maybe you have abusive parents. If you can imagine that if you'd had exactly their DNA and life experiences, you too would be abusive. This is helpful in forgiving them, which is an important part of recovery. Protect yourself from future damage, but allow yourself to move on.

Of course in practical terms this means I find it useful to pretend as if I have free will but others do not.

> I do believe you can change yourself.

I don't believe you can change much. You can force yourself to behave differently, but at a cost of extra effort and suffering.

Instead of personality change, I think the environment changes, and we express different psychological features depending on the situation. There are people/situations that bring out the best in us, and the opposite. Who we are depends on where we are, and with who we are interacting.

And of course with more experience comes less over-confidence. We change our values in light of our past experience.

Another thing is risk. The more you have to lose the less you want to risk it. When you have invested a lot in a family or career, you change your values in order to minimise risk.

So I think we are not changing our personality but it reflects differently because our situation has changed.

This realisation helped me forgive myself of the torture of changing my personality, instead I seek a situation where the better characteristics of my personality shine. I have always been myself even though externally I changed.

I believe very much so the opposite.

The human mind is very, very malleable. Growth and change are not just possible but inevitable.

If it's inevitable, then it's not a choice. It's just a state machine's response to input.

If you take one abstraction back from any decision, it's easy to see that you have no choice whatsoever. Let's imagine I ask you to think of a random person at your school. If you're like most people, several options will come into your conscious mind. Then you will sort of settle on one of those that came into your conscious mind. But the ones who entered your conscious mind are not all of the people you knew at school. At what point did you choose which ones would enter your mind and which ones would not? Obviously, you did not consciously control this. And we know from studies that you almost certainly don't know the real reason why you chose the one person you ultimately selected. The mind comes up with a justification post-hoc. So in this way, you can't even control the most trivial decisions in your life, because you can't control which options even enter your conscious mind.

> I think it's a myth that a person can choose whether or not they're a hard worker. It's most likely a matter of neurochemistry far beyond conscious control.

There's debate as to if free will exists at all. If the future is exactly determined (at the beginning of the universe), then nothing we do is a choice, and no one is to blame, really.

It's just a decision. Perhaps you have to be special to make decisions.

I pretty much agree with this. From different hobbies, skill seems to determine two things: How much advantage or luck you need to utilize your skill, and the multiplier you get from your initial edge.

This can be scary at a small scale like a foosball table. Some of the league players I play with have an amazing ability to catch and control the ball on their 3 or 5. If the ball moves somewhere into the area of their 3, they'll have it - and this enables them to utilize their shooting technique. And if they miss a shot, they'll usually be able to re-catch the ball if the keeper can't keep it, so they get more chances to score. A less skilled player either doesn't catch the ball in the first place, or loses it after the first shot.

And edges like that are even worse in games with a snowballing effect, like dominion. Getting the right 4/3 or 5/2 split on your first 2 hands is hard luck. However, choosing the right 2 cards to initially get with that is skill and will massively impact the course of the game.

You do need opportunities, and you can't always make your own opportunities. However, you can work on your ability to utilize opportunities.

> As to luck there's an old saying that I really like: the harder I work the luckier I get.

Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.

the common phrase is: luck is where/when opportunity meets preparation

> But as a society our measures are mostly external. If someone succeeds, that's all we see.

The notion of external measures or what is readily apparent, is also why 'luck' feels like a simplistic and incorrect explanation for success, in my experience. A lot of people who are successful create their own luck (or rather, increase the probability for their personal successes). They set themselves up to be successful despite variability and randomness, and despite differences in natural talent relative to competition. They focus on the right things, they push themselves harder than others think possible, etc.

Put another way, they make trade-offs in life that result in success. As to what they give up...it depends on the person and their circumstances, but very often they are giving up peace of mind, free time (leisure), relationships, happiness, and sometimes even their health. But delayed gratification and long-term focus (long-term trading-off) seem like key elements to success. I don't view that as just luck.

The anecdote of the fund manager who was less successful in China from the article stood out to me as logically flawed. This later failure in a different time, a different market, does not mean the person's prior success was due to mere luck. The world has changed a lot (for example advent of the Internet and digital trading) and China is also a very different place. It could be simply that this person was no longer in a position where they've made the right trade-offs to be relatively competitive in the new set of circumstances years after their "prime". And it might even be a conscious choice - it is easier to make some trade-offs when you are younger (better health, more energy, lack of familial obligations, etc.) and as we get older and our priorities change, we're less likely to make some of those trade-offs (not always, but typically). But I don't think it makes logical sense to cast prior success as luck due to later failure - the causality there is spurious, at best.

The problem with examining from the 'create your own luck' angle is that it's prone to survivorship bias. There are incredibly brilliant people out there working hard in order to succeed, but end up having little success despite positioning themselves in all the right places.

This notion also tends to ignore the people that can fail upwards: They reach positions or become managers that they're not at all qualified at, but end up doing well through a few lucky rolls of the dice. I'm sure we'd all like to say that eventually this comes back around to bite them in the rear, but unfortunately that would imply a just world fallacy.

It seems to me that hard work is a necessary (in most cases) but not sufficient condition for success.

Anecdotally, my least successful friends and acquaintances are those who do not work hard and blame their lack of success on bad luck.

I cannot agree more. I know quite a few hard working but unlucky folks - and the hard work is generally necessary to capitalize on the luck.

hard work = buying the lottery ticket

luck = winning the Lotto

Need the ticket though.

Ah yes, you mean the luck of being born in the right time, in the right country, to parents in the right socioeconomic class, and with the right genetics? That to me seems like the biggest predictor of success above anything else.

My theory: the tighter the causal feedback loop, the more agency you have (or perceive to have). For example if you want to knock over a cup, you can do that.

But if you want to knock over a cup across the world, or become rich overnight, this is a very complex feedback loop, so you exercise less agency (therefore more luck).

"Perceive to have" is exactly correct. Even though it seems easier to knock over a cup if you want to, there was a complex set of processes occurring both inside and outside your body over a long period of time (forever!) which resulted in you acquiring the desire to knock over the cup in the first place. This process is outside your control.

    There once was a man that said, though
    It seems like I know that I know,
    What I'd like to see
    Is the 'I' that sees me
    When I know that I know that I know

First thought that entered my mind: is it survivorship bias?

Given enough time, even the survivors die... I worked at a hedge fund in 2008 that was leveraged like 40 to 1 when the market tanked. Nearly blew up, but managed to stay afloat. 3 years earlier we had cannibalized another fund that couldn't make their margin call. Bought about 9 Billion in assets for pennies on the dollar.

For stock pickers it’s absolutely reversion to the mean.

If a millions monkeys flip a coin hundreds of times, you’ll inevitably have a few who have gotten all heads for all their flips

You'd need far more than a million monkeys to reasonably expect that result.

To give some context, two to the 100th power is 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376.

Interesting description here! http://www.freemars.org/jeff/2exp100/answer.htm