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I think you miss the point. I believe the point is if you don't try then luck won't help you. Or in other words you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.

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I think you missed my point. All of the trying in the world isn't going to replace the luck that's required for most people to succeed-- be it being born white and in a middle-class or better household in a middle-class-or-better town, not being sidled with familial or health obligations, or even being born with a cognitive profile that has workplace utility. Being comfortable enough to live with a parent and be lazy is already a privilege that a giant chunk of the US population doesn't have. Nobody is arguing that people born into opportune circumstances can succeed without doing anything. They just have the opportunity to make that effort turn into significant results when many others don't.

Tickets are expensive, most people cannot afford more than one. Many are born into debt they have little hope of escaping, much less buying tickets.

Those born wealthy can often buy so many tickets it's virtually guaranteed they'll stumble into something that works, at least once.

No one is saying people don't have to at least lift a finger to try. Just that birth luck affords so many other opportunities that the advice of outliers and the born comfortable isn't transferable.

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