How to win Monopoly in the shortest possible time
bbc.com
bbc.com
Free parking doesn't give you a bonus.
Every property must be sold when it is landed on, either to the player who landed on it or in auction.
The supply of houses and hotels is limited.
If you have a situation where no one has a monopoly and all the properties are owned, you have to make trades. If everyone refuses to trade, then you might as well stop because the game will never end, but you should still reach this point within 45 minutes.
The entire game was designed to be bad -- it's trying to show that owning land is evil and that who is rich in life is mostly based on luck.
The winner is supposed to be the person who rolls the luckiest.
I would like to point out that in real life, that is also the case. The ones who roll the luckiest also win. Think of your birth situation. You didn’t chose it.
Now, is Monopoly teaching anything remarkably useful about real life that could put you ahead? I don’t think so.
It’s a game! Since the strategy is limited, takes a long time, I don’t think it’s a great one.
“Most” and “upper middle class” tells me you’re probably making this up whole cloth. “Most” Americans don’t make it to the upper middle class.
I do not know if many American families can get access to the same resources for early education if they are not already from families that are economically affluent.
Most of the immigrants I know spent a lot of time or money or both either personally or by their parents to get here. At least recebtly even the ones who left everything behind to start here with nothing at least had some talent at getting things done in beuracracy which is pretty useful.
The people that are born in first world countries and become radicalised over the internet to the point where they join a foreign fighting force in a third world country are squandering their ‘luckiest’ move of being born. That’s a win??
Talent is built, educated, trained; genes are partially luck.
I think you are conflating talent with skill. You can develop your skill, but generally, your talent is viewed as innate or biological.
Most people can train to be good at basketball, chess, etc. But most people don't have the talent to be michael jordan, magnus carlsen, etc.
> genes are partially luck.
Partially? I don't think it is possible since you inherit all your genes. Genes are entirely luck as you had no say in which genes you inherited.
From an individual person, looking at what they had agency over, it’s 100% luck. From a multi-generational family or societal view, it’s not 100% luck.
(I also hold the view that some of what is often described as innate talent is also malleable depending on early childhood nurturing, nutrition, and education. That’s luck from the child point of view but not purely so from the family/society.)
Human decision exists and luck is a cop out. Burying meaning and choice in statistics and randomness is giving up at life.
A woman I knew... her son got a full scholarship to university because he played baseball. He never got to finish school - because he wound up having a genetic condition that didn't allow him to play. Your friend didn't have these sorts of health concerns.
It isn't that it is all luck, sure. Yes, she had to work hard. But lots of her luck was already there. She probably wasn't Amish, for example, otherwise she wouldn't have school after 8th grade or something. She wasn't sick. She didn't have cancer. She probably wasn't starving. And so on. Even if she had some of these, you've witnessed an exception, not a rule.
Gimme some talents too!
Most people regardless of their background are not billionaires. Background certainly increases the chances, though.
> Strange idea. Elon musk started in SA.
Strange idea. There are people born into privilege all over the world. '"We were very wealthy," says Errol [Elon's father]. "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe."' 'Errol returned to South Africa with a half-share in a Zambian emerald mine, which would help to fund his family's lavish lifestyle of yachts, skiing holidays, and expensive computers. ... It was that lifestyle, Errol says, that turned Elon into the kind of merchant adventurer who would later break the rules of the motoring business with Tesla, then go on to change spaceflight with SpaceX.'
I'm a little bit disheartened that no one in this thread has linked to actual data... There's a LOT of study on this topic: Social mobility in the US is measurably atrocious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...
1) Success is determined by luck. People will complain that one person being more successful than another is grossly unfair.
2) Success is determined by extrinsic deterministic factors or uncontrolled intrinsic factors. People will complain that people aren't doing anything to 'earn' their success - it was in some sense inevitable.
3) Success is determined entirely by intrinsic deterministic factors that are in the control of the individual. More morally palatable, but suggestive that any gradient of accomplishments is actually reflective of a sort of selfish 'technique hoarding' (I'm not quite sure what to call it) by successful people. They should really be forced to share their techniques until everyone is equal.
The underlying issue here in this thread isn't how success is achieved; it is the concept of different outcomes for people. Which is a good philosophical point but not practically useful - nobody can point to a system where equal outcomes have led to anything like the material comforts of a world where a gradient of different outcomes is encouraged. The world simply isn't very fair and we've all got to roll with that.
Why would that be the luckiest? I would think being born as the child of a billionaire vastly increases your chances of billionairedom than being born the child of Harvard professors. The same goes for being born in South Africa or most any country that is not totally wartorn or sanctioned atm. The son of an African dictator will probably have many more chances at significant wealth than someone born to abusive parents in opioid-ravaged 'flyover country', regardless of the relative economic positions of their home countries.
We like to live under the illusion that we are in control of our lives. We are not. We can set a general course, control this or that small, immediate thing - but so much of what we ascribe to our own success or failure is just sheer dumb luck.
I’ve had some ridiculous, absolutely undeserved successes over the years, I’ve been struck with serious illness out of the blue, I’ve seen friends with so many plans for their lives ahead snuffed out by illness and accident. I’ve seen the class clown rise to high office, and the prodigy work in a chip shop. We make choices, but against a sea of endless variables and influences, they make little difference.
People used to cite the fates, or their god or gods of choice - because they couldn’t explain the absolute randomness of the path of a life. I think you’ll find precious few people who, in their dotage, will say their life went to plan - and that doesn’t mean everyone’s a sad failure, rather that you end up places you never even dreamt of - because we really aren’t in control.
Read this: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-...
Monopoly is about the ideas of Henry George for one set of rules, versus our land enclosed rentier reality.
1. Geography (which country you're born in)
2. Parents' finances
3. Your gender
These 3 explain the vast majority of the variance in income between people. Knowing these 3 facts about a person allows you to predict their income with high accuracy (small 90% confidence interval).
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Haves-Have-Nots-Idiosyncratic-History...
First, the current rules aren't how the game was designed.
Second, the game was designed to show that private capitalist rent-seeking was a bad way to live because someone one and everyone else lost. It was half of a two-part game, where the other part was a socialist version where rents were paid to everyone to share, and everybody won when the poorest player doubled their money. If Monopoly was designed to be bad, then every competitive game is designed to be bad.
> The winner is supposed to be the person who rolls the luckiest.
Not true. The person who makes the most deals probably wins. This is simple to see mathematically, as each deal is a win-win that benefits the dealmaker more than the other players.
Anyway, most popular kids games are wholly or mostly luck (Candyland, Parcheesi, Trouble, LIFE), and kids enjoy them.
Is it the case that Monopoly is a kids game? I don’t know a single kid that wants to play Monopoly.
Candyland isn’t even luck based. It is 100% predetermined by the shuffling of the cards.
> It is 100% predetermined by the shuffling of the cards
I feel like there has to be a typo somewhere in here. A game being predetermined by the shuffle is what makes it luck based, no?
Georgism is NOT socialism.
Or different. What takes time to infinity (and is key part to us) are the trades and auction parts. Because everyone, also the ones not directly involved, tries to influence other members decision in their favors. Then you have temporary joint ventures and loans with interest, etc. etc.
Well, quite often the game ends dramatically with aborting, because some felt cheated and others could not take the pressure ...
Acquire is a game about acquiring a real estate empire. It has more strategic depth than Monopoly, and arguably captures the spatial aspects better (or at all). And, most importantly, doesn't drag on as long.
As for being bad, perhaps a reference to "The site boardgamegeek.com, a database which aggregates reviews from players, lists Monopoly at 18,583 out of 18,591 rated games. The game has an average rating of 4.36 out of 10 from over 25,000 reviews. The lowest ranked game, if you are curious, is Tic-Tac-Toe."
Along with the game rule that the bank can not run out of money.
Though I'm not sure that rule is bad, and if they could run out of money, they would have to add a rule that if it does, all players must give the bank money. Which would make it a bit too real in many ways for it to be fun.
If the bank goes broke, all players switch to the Risk board, and fight each other until the winner becomes the new banker and forcibly takes money from the losers. Kind of like real life.
Edit: photo of board here http://unixorn.azurewebsites.net/img/catane_krieg.jpg
Essentially, everybody has a role in a banana republic government. President hands out money which everyone tries to get into their swiss bank account. If the players are not pleased they can start a revolution and it turns into a Risk game. After a revolution the roles can be switched.
Great fun with the right people.
I want to design a hippie anarchist postcapitalism gift economy game to transition into from choosing to stop playing Monopoly. Set the whole game up as usual, but add Jubilee (holiday of forgiving all debt and redistributing wealth) to top of community chest & General Strike (everyone stops working and paying bills) to chance below the top card (to give Monopoly a second chance to redeem itself? :P ), and then start playing the gift economy game.
So can modify existing games by changing the rules and adding a few homemade cards of your own making.
Not sure what the market for mod kits for existing board games is like or even if one exists, but if you come up with something that your friends enjoy, maybe a kickstart opportunity and worst case, you will have some fun.
You should really try some good board games though. Carcassonne, Catan and Ticket to Ride are the classic good modern board games. I'd also suggest Love Letter (great short card game for 3/4 players), Colt Express, Camel Up (light fun for 4-6 players), Cash 'n Guns (good for parties), or if you want to get a bit more cerebral, Azul and Sagrada are great.
For two players the best ones IMO are 7 Wonders Duel, Patchwork (this is the lightest one), and Battle Line (a traditional card game but you can't play with a 52 card deck, and way better than any other 2 player card game I've tried).
All of those are 10x better than Monopoly Deal, and about 1000x better than Monopoly.
Agree with Carcassonne, Catan, Ticket to Ride and Patchwork. I will look at Love Letter.
"You want the third property for a monopoly, yeah I'll give it to you for 50% of its rent, and 20% of the other two's rent."
"You don't have the $500 without selling houses and mortgaging? Pay me over time. Let's say $1000 within your next 8 turns."
Admittedly, when I try things like that half the time I get bitten because I've poorly estimated values -- but it is more fun.
What you’re describing is just boring old debt.
The flip side of this, of course, is that there's nothing stopping you from welching on the deal later, aside from the normal game-theoretic reasons you may not want to screw someone over. So I'm incurring significant risk this way.
Also, through trading, it's difficult to get all the utilities/stations without giving up something even more valuable.
It's foolish to accept a utility company or station in exchange for one of your regular properties because it will allow someone else to get a complete set and they can start building houses - Once they do that it's game over for you and every other player.
The ability to influence the result with strategy is about nil.
Much the same applies to Hollywood movies that dabble in politics and economics. When you're the script writer, it's too easy to get the "correct" result.
Did you know that the overwhelming majority of immigrants came to America with nothing but a suitcase? I know a modern immigrant who came with a suitcase and recently retired with his fu money.
It's never been easier for someone to get a free college-level education, start an internet business, reach a global network of suppliers, and a global marketplace, for FREE.
Blaming your parents might be fun, but is totally unproductive.
Literally all the data agrees with me here. Don’t know what you’re arguing for exactly. That some people get lucky and some of those lucky people worked hard?
A wrong, convenient excuse is slightly less useful but is much more satiating than a correct excuse.
I just quoted several data points that did not agree with "all the data".
If they can succeed, why can't you?
I also know a Microsoft executive who didn't attend college, and I'm not sure even graduated from high school. His father owned a hole-in-the-wall store. Fortunately for him, he didn't listen to "it's all luck".
Most of the people I know don't fit into your "it's all luck" data.
For all the people who think it's all luck being a CEO, how many have even read a book on how to run a business?
Imagine 4 integers
(MeritWeight * Merit) * (CircumstancesWeight Circumstances)
We can disagree what respective weights ought to be assigned but its pretty clear that it circumstances favor you sufficiently your trajectory is high regardless of merit. If your Merit is high enough your trajectory may be high regardless of merit.
I don't think anyone disagrees much even though passionate arguments are passed by all.
The thing is that only a minority are gifted by circumstances and most people are neither worthless nor extremely worthy. The merely average are bound for average lives at best in most cases and often for lesser lives depending on how other circumstances of their lives play out.
When people say that life is unfair, which it is, and you say but look here is a list of a minority of worthy who made good despite middling or worse circumstances as if this itself were a refutation you are aren't even addressing the same argument, let alone refuting it.
For the record. The average small business owners salary is 66-73k in the US. By contrast the median individual income is 40k. A middle class individual whose father owned a "hole in the wall" had a family that probably had more to start with than 70% of their fellows. This example is itself a demonstration of your lack of perspective.
You literally think someone who started off better than average started out with substantial disadvantages.
I knew him, and you didn't. The idea he was in the top 30% would certainly make him laugh. Lots of store owners barely scrape by.
The issue is that using averages, making blanket statements, and dismissing exceptions to the averages as pure luck and statistical happenstance is a pretty common form of frequentist bias and leads to even worse policy, if used as justification for a remedy.
Exceptions are routinely waved away as statistical noise or survivorship bias, rather than taking a more nuanced and Bayesian look at the exceptions.
For all the libertarian bias Hacker News is accused of, this particular issue is exceptionally neoliberal/socialist in nature and persists on the site for some odd reason.
Life is not fair, and you can't fix it. Play the cards you're dealt. The good news is every hand can be a winner in life (as in poker), it's all how you play. You get to choose.
Me, I will never be tall or handsome or muscular or have depth perception or have hand-eye coordination. I'm only good at one thing, and I take advantage.
No, I don't expect to change your mind. But I'm happy to try.
I don't think the fatalistic attitude towards changing the system is any more (or, as much as I hate to admit it, less) reasonable than the "you could be Steve jobs too." Odds for both are pretty bleak, albeit non zero.
As advice to an individual in a rotten system, "make the most of what you've got" is fair enough. But when folks talk about politics they're not usually fishing for personal career advice. So when you bring this up in that context, either you've missed the point, or you're trying to distract folks from the issue at hand.
You don't have to build a trillion dollar company to be nicely successful, but using a nicely successful person as an anecdote is impractical because they are not public figures. But they are still all over the place, in plain sight. It's well within an ordinary person's ability to become one.
Beyond that, I might add, he was in 'audience-testing distance' of Hewlett-Packard back when the namesakes weren't only living, but active, and their company was on top of the world. And he managed to get free parts from one of them, a job, and a pretty important deal of networking, solely by sending Bill Hewlitt a personal phone call as a twelve-year-old. Show me a child in that situation who could get personal audience with, say, Zuckerberg, today. Or Gates. Or any of the Netflix guys. Or anyone running Apple. Or, let's lower the bar, any C-level executive at Microsoft.
[Correction without changing the original text, as it's relevant downthread: The first sentence of this was later shown to be false. The rest, to the best of my knowledge, is entirely correct, though.] Edison grew up in walking distance of a college and was able to take classes there. Patents were also significantly cheaper to acquire in his time. Further, the job that effectively launched his career he got via nothing but luck (someone almost died by chance, he played a role in them not dying by chance, that someone's father gave him a job).
Bruno Mars's success was pretty much entirely because of his family (not to mention, if you don't see how 'growing up in the safest and richest part of a state known for being safe and rich' might play a big role in things, you've got a very contrarian worldview):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Mars#1985%E2%80%932003:_...
Barack Obama's mother was highly-educated and relatively influential (his father as well to both of those, along with his stepfather as to the former), and he went to private schooling as a child.
The Beatles are the only ones on your list who don't have something heavily-significant going for them prior to success.
I respect you a massive amount, but it's really disappointing to see this line of thought coming from someone as intelligent as you. I'm doing really well, myself, but it's not in line with reality to act like reality's meritocratic. There are significant barriers to success for more people than there aren't, and "blaming your parents" is a particularly strange way of phrasing 'structural barriers to opportunity'.
EDIT: added a paragraph
You've made my point beautifully.
> made cash off of it
Yeah, a few bucks. So much money that he started Apple by selling his Beetle. A sorry state that probably 95% of Americans are above.
> Edison grew up in walking distance of a college and was able to take classes there.
And you can take MIT classes FOR FREE on youtube!
The word "college" does not appear in Edison's biography by Josephson until after he invented the light bulb. From page 42:
"The path of self-instruction and self-improvement was, for him, prolonged by many detours; even after years had passed, without money, without friends, it was not easy to enter upon the true vocation he already dreamed of for himself. His "university" was the rough, workaday world; it was nightwork in shabby telegraph or railroad offices during a turbulent era of war and reconstruction; it was made up also of solitude and study in squalid rooming houses. He might have lost his way or gone downhill, like so many others, in that long-drawn-out, often unhappy interlude of his youth. Yet when these "arduous years" (as he called them) were gone and he had come to manhood, something of iron had entered into him. What he had seen and learned, how he had learned it all, at so much effort, marked him with sharply individual traits of character and mind, setting him apart from those whose youth had been passed in sheltered ease, under wise and solicitous mentors."
I'm going to need to see a cite for your Edison claim that he was a privileged youth.
> it's really disappointing to see this line of thought coming from someone as intelligent as you
You'd have never heard of me if I'd believed that getting somewhere was not under my control, and if I'd believed the endless stream of people telling me I had zero chance.
Middle class is different from someone in the actual lower-class, which more Americans are than in the middle.
Yeah, a few bucks. So much money that he started Apple by selling his Beetle. A sorry state that probably 95% of Americans are above.
You're ignoring the 'punishment' aspect of that sentence. The 'cash' comment was meant to highlight that people (brighter people than Jobs, at that) have been driven to suicide for non-commercial unauthorized access to systems, let alone selling ways of exploiting them.
You're also entirely ignoring that access to the brightest, richest, and most-influential people in an industry isn't something your average youth can get in the modern age. Along with the location aspect.
The word "college" does not appear in Edison's biography by Josephson until after he invented the light bulb. [...] I'm going to need to see a cite for your Edison claim that he was a privileged youth.
I double-checked the last biography I've read of him (Conot's, which is exceptional, although you might dislike it), and I misremembered on the count of it being in his childhood that he attended college. However, it was before he invented the lightbulb (citations [1] [2]), and you didn't try to contest that his career's beginning was based on a single lucky event.
And you can take MIT classes FOR FREE on youtube!
You went to Caltech, and talk about it frequently. Surely you realize the value of being able to have a conversation with professors, peers & (especially) the libraries, resources and networking available in universities? Do you see it as just a strange coincidence that a significant amount of people you shared dorms and classes with went on to be incredibly influential?
Surely your view isn't biased in that Caltech was heading a revolution in computing during your years of attendence (mainly at the end of them, where it saw perhaps the single most revolutionary change in how computing was done since it happened), with some of the absolute brightest people in the field? That you and your peers were in spitting-distance of Carver Mead couldn't have played a role in your view (and your/your peers' successes)?
You'd have never heard of me if I'd believed that getting somewhere was not under my control, and if I'd believed the endless stream of people telling me I had zero chance.
I've heard of a lot of people who've achieved little commercial success, and I've heard of a lot of people who achieved little commercial success while also having some of the most impressive technical achievements across the board. I've also seen the reverse; people who've achieved significant amounts of commercial success while having relatively few people knowing of them.
As a counterexample on the extreme edge of things, similar to your examples, what about Terry Davis? He had more determination than just about anyone could claim. He had technical chops as well. He died impoverished and mentally insane. Kildall died rich yet virtually-unknown and heavily-ridiculed.
Oh, here's a good one! Iverson died with incredible technical achievements yet little wealth and little influence. Despite what are arguably more impressive achievements than your own, Iverson is probably known by less people than you are, and his goals were never accomplished, despite a lifelong-dedication to them. I'm not sure how you started out, but Iverson started out poor enough to where he never finished high school.
All things considered, if you're right, then why isn't free software running the world? Stallman's probably more determined than anyone else in the industry, was arguably incredibly-competent at his peak, and...lost, failing at most of his goals.
Chuck Moore tried over and over and over again. Came up with things that could undeniably be called best-in-class, both in the hardware realm and in the software one. Normal guy with no strange habits, intense personality-quirks, or foot-gunning idealism. Born poor in Flint, Michigan. Failed every single time due to little more than luck.
I'm not (nor is anyone in this thread, to my knowledge) trying to claim your success was all luck. Surely it's not. However, I do think there's a significant amount of luck involved for all commercial success, and that individual effort isn't the largest factor in whether or not a person finds it.
I think you're drawing the wrong conclusions. I imagine I can't change your mind, but I'm confounded as to why that's the case. Thanks for humoring me with a conversation, though; I do appreciate it!
[1] http://faculty.cooper.edu/topper/general/edison.html
[2] https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/for-sesquicent...
Isn't it?
As for luck, the details of one's life is luck. But success comes from those who develop a plan, learn what they need to, and execute that plan. Nothing good is going to happen to you if you spend your spare time drinking, if you fritter away your money, etc. Luck finds people who are out there ready to recognize it and take advantage.
> Carver Meade
I've never met him, nor took a class from him. In fact, my degree is in Mechanical Engineering, not CS. I did know Dan O'Dowd, but he didn't think much of me, with good reason. I am not in business nor partnered with anyone from Caltech.
Edison enrolling in a class at Cooper was after he was well established. As for his luck, he put himself in a position where luck could find him.
I know nothing about many of your examples. But I do know a bit about Kildall. Luck came looking for him, and he spurned it or simply did not recognize it. That's on him - the stars aligned for him and he blew it. Gates nearly made the same mistake.
Myself, I could have been a billionaire multiple times. The opportunities were there. I missed them. It's 100% my fault - it's not bad luck.
As for Caltech, many very successful people have come from there. A number of sad failures, too. Caltech provides opportunities, not guarantees. It's up to the students to choose what to do about those opportunities.
I've been around a long time, long enough to see patterns in successful people. 100% of the ones I know do not share your opinion that it's luck. 100% believe they are in charge of their future. They make it happen. They have their sail up when the wind blows their way. I know one fellow who made and lost two seven figure fortunes. This doesn't dismay him in the slightest, he's cheerfully working on his third.
I can guarantee you that these people are a lot of fun to be around. They're always off doing something exciting. Sometimes it blows up in their face. Sometimes it's wildly successful. It's always fun, though. They're always on their grind. None of them watch TV.
Ya know what's cool? Taking responsibility for your fate is empowering. It means you can do something about it. A piece of advice - the next time something bad happens to you, instead of blaming fate, take a good hard look at what decisions you made that got you into that pickle. Learn from it, and don't do that again.
For example, I have poor genes for teeth. It's a constant struggle for me, and unfair that other people do nothing and have great teeth. But by the time most people are my age, they've lost a bunch of teeth. I've lost one. It's because I constantly pester my dentist for how I can take better care of my teeth. If I didn't I'd be wearing dentures. It's a choice I make.
Isn't it?
I don't think so. Windows and Mac rule the desktop, proprietary Android and iOS rule the mobile space. Your average person's computer is running more proprietary software than not, and Stallman's goal was always to get the average user's computer free of proprietary software. Even Web browsers are proprietary for your average user, and it's impossible to have a spec-compliant one with only free software.
As for luck, the details of one's life is luck. But success comes from those who develop a plan, learn what they need to, and execute that plan. Nothing good is going to happen to you if you spend your spare time drinking, if you fritter away your money, etc. Luck finds people who are out there ready to recognize it and take advantage.
Plenty of people don't drink, waste currency, (to cite a later example of yours:) watch television, etc. I don't think this is as common as it used to be, though I'm not sure what modern equivalents are.
Would you find it fair to say that 'success comes from those who develop a plan, learn what they need to, execute that plan, and have luck on their side'?
Caltech provides opportunities, not guarantees.
Certainly. Would you agree that most people do not get the substantial volume of opportunities the average person at Caltech during the late 1970s received?
Ya know what's cool? Taking responsibility for your fate is empowering. It means you can do something about it. A piece of advice - the next time something bad happens to you, instead of blaming fate, take a good hard look at what decisions you made that got you into that pickle. Learn from it, and don't do that again.
I'm doing more than fine myself. I just don't agree that 'none of it's luck' is an accurate way to look on this.
I've been around a long time, long enough to see patterns in successful people. 100% of the ones I know do not share your opinion that it's luck. 100% believe they are in charge of their future. They make it happen. They have their sail up when the wind blows their way. I know one fellow who made and lost two seven figure fortunes. This doesn't dismay him in the slightest, he's cheerfully working on his third.
I've seen my share of unsuccessful people. On average, they don't seem substantially different from the examples you cite as successful in terms of mindset or determination.
Technical achievement by itself is not good enough. One must also be good at business and marketing. I know nothing about Iverson, but I know many people who are technical geniuses but refuse to deal with the necessary business and marketing aspects. They often wind up angry and bitter. Is that bad luck? No. It's refusal to deal with how things work. It's a choice. Nobody gets lucky in business without learning how to do business and marketing.
There's a reason that people like Ken Thompson or John Tukey worked for companies.
> There's a reason that people like Ken Thompson or John Tukey worked for companies.
Then they chose their fate.
Anyway,
1. What do you want?
2. Do you have a plan to get it?
3. Are you working regularly and consistently on that plan?
If the answer is not "yes" to all three of those, luck is not going to find you.
Surely you've known people who are/were technical geniuses, dealt with both of those, and still failed? It seems to be a common pattern.
> Did you know that the overwhelming majority of immigrants came to America with nothing but a suitcase?
I'm pretty sure they also had genetics.
For example, just by dice rolling, you could get a lot of properties in the Red, Yellow, Green, or Dark Blue zones. But those properties are very overrated compared to Light Blue and Orange, which offer much higher revenue/investment and much higher landing frequency due to the adjacency of Jail and GO. A game with active trading where one player knows this and others don't is almost completely unrelated to dice rolling.
This is why playing against 3 AI opponents is often more fun than playing against humans.
> A game with active trading where one player knows this and others don't
Playing against rubes isn't fun, like being an adult playing soccer to win against kids.
Mega Monopoly has other fun changes, including one more property on each colour group, an extra level of building above hotels (skyscrapers), "depots" on railroads that double the rent, and "bus tickets" that permit you to move forward to any space on your side of the board instead of rolling the dice.
Please tell me who are these people who believe there is a good chance of buying Park and Boardwalk on the first loop?
...Most Americans who play Monopoly think it was invented by an unemployed Pennsylvania man who sold his game to Parker Brothers in 1935 and lived happily ever after on royalties. That story, however, is not exactly true. Ralph Anspach, an economist and refugee of Hitler’s Danzig, unearthed the real story and it traces back to Abraham Lincoln, the Quakers, and to a forgotten feminist named Lizzie Magie. The Monopolists is in part Anspach’s David-versus-Goliath tale of his 1970s battle against Parker Brothers, one of the most beloved companies of all time. Anspach was a professor fighting to sell his Anti-Monopoly board game, which hailed those who busted up trusts and monopolies instead of those who took control of all the properties. While he and his lawyers researched previous Parker Brothers lawsuits, he accidentally discovered the true history of the game, which began with Magie’s Landlord’s Game. That game was invented more than thirty years before Parker Brothers sold their version of Monopoly and she waged her own war with Parker Brothers to be credited as the real originator of the game. Ironically, the Landlord’s Game, like Anti-Monopoly, was underpinned by morals that were the exact opposite of what Monopoly represents today. It isn't surprising that Magie's game was embraced by a constellation of left-wingers from the Progressive Era through the Great Depression, including members of Franklin Roosevelt’s famed Brain Trust....