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Because winners of purely stochastic games believe they deserve the win does not imply that our real game of life is purely stochastic. It has stochastic elements, for sure, but the player himself has an enormous amount of possible moves that you could label "free will".

Success in life is an incredibly complex game, maybe the most complex game. There are strategies one can follow and build upon to up their chances of success in life, and hypothetically if one were omniscient so that they could understand all of the random variables then they could judge whether somebody else "deserved their lot in life". If the player made all the best strategic moves given his input, and he also reaped those rewards, then he truly deserved his lot in life. If he didn't reap the rewards, then it's obvious he didn't deserve his lot. This is apposed to a purely stochastic game in which the omniscient individual would only be able to determine that the game's outcome had nothing at all to do with the player's moves.

In a hostile game in which other players are neck to neck with you(like the government and the capitalist elite in our corrupt game), you still have free will, it's just that exercising it in the most precisely strategic ways has become very, very valuable.

This reminds of the game Kudos http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos/

It's a game where each game day you get to make 4-6 choices what to do with your time. Like relax and watch TV from 7 to 10pm or take a class. Based on your choices new opportunities open up or don't. It was so in my face to see my life presented like that. Sure it's obvious but more though provking in a compressed time span.

That is not in anyway to imply that everyone has the same opportunities or that people born into poverty don't have serious hurdles that the rich don't. But, there's also a huge middle ground of people in the middle class who choose not to take advantage of the choices they have. I've done the same. I've wasted years playing games or watching TV or reading HN. I'm not judging that to be a bad choice of my life and certainly there's a balance of entertainment, relaxation and other. At the same time, at least for me, someone that grew up middle class, I can clearly look back and see all that time I could have done something that would have made me rich or at least far better off by now that I didn't do.

I bought this game because of your reply and spent all of my Saturday on it.

Totally worth it.

>"Because winners of purely stochastic games believe they deserve the win does not imply that our real game of life is purely stochastic."

This is true, but misses the point. The point is that people believe they "deserve" things they've obtained through pure luck- that they've earned it- which has implications regardless of how much of the "game of life" is stochastic or random.

I'm pretty sure the largest predictor of your wealth during your life is whether you were born wealthy, regardless of how strategic you are.

That's a tautology, like saying the largest predictor of how many languages you will speak is if you are born into a multilingual home regardless of how well your language centers develop.

The better metric would be correlating someone's socio-economic class at birth with deltas in wealth later in life. I'd be very surprised to find a radically different conclusion, but at the least it'll give us more actionable data. After all, trying to eradicate advantages-by-birth might be the most futile exercise in human history but maybe we can adjust for them as we grow to learn more about the statistical relationship.

> After all, trying to eradicate advantages-by-birth might be the most futile exercise in human history

A 100% inheritance tax would be nigh-impossible in practical terms but in abstract it would go a long way to further the end of creating a society more closely based on merit.

It might be predictive, but given that inherited traits exist and that there are selection effects that favor the stronger traits, that may not tell the whole story.

The thing about wealth transfer is it doesn't depend on genes at all.

I'm sure there are literal lapdogs endowed with more net worth and power than I have by their owners.

edit: I should clarify that wealth is not correlated with gene quality or fitness, but it may follow familial/social/emotional connections of the wealthy that seem to point to a "good lineage". Case in point: royal families

You misunderstand, I'm saying the traits that allow one to succeed (e.g. intelligence) can be inherited and correlate with the accrual of wealth. Though you are absolutely correct that social connections to other wealthy people create new opportunities as well.

Inheritance, assuming the families have on average more than one child in each generation and the split is even, dilutes a family's fortunes over time. It would be correct to point out that the rules of some dynasties take this into account (head vs. branch families) and prevent this.

Um, it almost tells the whole story. Other traits are hardly interesting compared with how much wealth you are born with.

I'm not disputing that one's starting position is important, I'm just saying it's not an unchangeable fact of life. One of the reasons YC exists is to help people find the opportunity to become wildly successful by making some of the necessary conditions (money, connections) more accessible to those with talent. And that's a wonderful thing.

Even for myself, I used to do grunt work in a factory. Now I work from home at a cushy software job thanks to things I obtained here. Maybe I won't ever make billions, or become the next Elon Musk, but I'm happy enough just to celebrate my own successes and work to improve my own lot in life.

Agree. I think we should change how we talk about this. Instead of talking about “the successful people” or “the rich” we should say “when we are successful we believe we deserve to be successful, when we are poor [..]”. In psychological terms, there are not difference between we and them, and that should show in the way we speak.

There are bias that we all suffer when we are poor and when we are rich: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865583328/Does-money-corr...

This is not a moral fault of the rich in the same way that it's not a moral fault of the poor. Only if we go beyond this confrontational mindset we can learn something.

As Ortega y Gasset put it: I am I and my circumstance

Yet it's pretty incredible that he not only came around to accept the idea, but even admitted to having said things like what you quoted.

Quite a flip in mentality!

He's a flip-flopper! We can't have those!

I'm all for basic income and minimum wage, but I think the luck mindset is quite detrimental. It strips men of their own agency and fosters cynicism.

> I even said some dumb things like, 'Why should they have granite countertops when I don't.' However, I've come around.

Unfortunately, he ends with However, I've come around to realize that this makes financial sense. Silly me, I thought the change of mind was about empathy.

> Silly me, I thought the change of mind was about empathy.

It's important that it's economic.

If I work my median job, and live my median lifestyle, and I observe that people who don't work are getting more than I am, that's very challenging. I immediately feel resentful about the fact that I had to work for this when others didn't.

It makes it seem like the economic system is broken and unfair. As soon as that happens, there's no chance you will feel empathy to those people who are benefiting more.

Recognising that the economics is OK is therefore very important - it allows you to start to have empathy.

> I immediately feel resentful about the fact that I had to work for this when others didn't.

I already feel this to a shameful degree in regard to wealthy scions like the Walton kids, or children of mega hollywood stars. The economic system is broken and unfair.

Ah, yes, I agree the economic system is broken and unfair.

Unfortunately the way to fix this is not by giving you the wealth of the Waltons.

It's by bringing everyone else up to the level of personal security that you already have.

> Unfortunately, he ends with However, I've come around to realize that this makes financial sense. Silly me, I thought the change of mind was about empathy.

Enlightened self-interest that results in action is worth any amount of empathy that doesn't.

Empathy does not result in social change. Economy does.

Yes - I'm sure that's how slavery came to be abolished for example.

It was a significant contributing factor. Consider, for example, the American Civil War - the outcome would have been very different if not for the fact that the North's non-slave industrial economy worked.

This is in fact a highly interesting debate. Other than economic circumstances, I would argue that we have little reason to believe that human empathy changes substantially.

Slavery went away for farming and balancing reasons, child labour for productivity reasons and working women came for demand reasons (e.g. war).

Luck is applied probability. Good and bad happen randomly.

It's up to us to use the events around us as tools to shape reality and the future into patterns of events that we want. While we cannot influence all cosmic events related to ourselves and others, we can still influence some.

> Unfortunately, he ends with However, I've come around to realize that this makes financial sense. Silly me, I thought the change of mind was about empathy

My guess would be that the "formerly homeless" of Medicine Hat, appreciate the "roof over their head", much more than any amount of "empathy"

>It strips men of their own agency and fosters cynicism.

Does it do the same to women?

The flip side is that many proposals such as Basic Income proposals unconditionally rewarding people with above world-average wages simply for being Swiss citizens, or offers of free, permanent and decent housing for people who find themselves homeless in the right municipality, seem to increase the likelihood of position in life being a consequence of fortune rather than effort to take advantage of it...

There might be a lot of luck in being born rich, and usually a lot of misfortune in being homeless, but there's also a lot of work and effort that goes into being just about solvent but not able to afford granite worktops, and its actually often people in those positions that are most inclined to gripe at perceived profligacy. Whilst few of them would be keen to have to deal with the difficulties of the average [ex]homeless person, particularly for something as trivial as granite worktops, it's also a little hard to blithely dismiss them as overly privileged.

Not sure what's attracting the drive-by downvotes here? I know BI is popular here, but is there anything actually wrong about my observation that it targets people lucky enough to be born in a particular country rather than unlucky enough to have fallen upon financial hardship? Or that people who think granite worktops are a luxury probably aren't emblematic of the selfish rich?

You committed badthink, so you get downvoted. Try not to take in personally. It's just what happens here these days.

As for what you said, I don't think it's useful it put everything in camps of "lucky" and "unlucky." It assumes that there's nothing an individual can do himself to improve or worsen his station. In the USA and Canada, of all places, that's manifestly untrue. While rags to riches stories are rare, poor to upper middle class stories are extremely common, especially in tech.

I experience these same feelings occasionally in respect to housing in my city. A number of the new housing developments are only for the low income earners in my town. As a single software developer I make well above my cities average family income, which invalidates me from moving into these new low income units, but the extra money didn't make me any happier that I rented a garage-turned-house for two years.

> I even said some dumb things like, 'Why should they have granite countertops when I don't.' However, I've come around.

Why do they get granite countertops (assuming they do)? Is it impossible to build a house with linoleum countertops?

Solid surface countertops (I'm guessing they're not actual granite) wear a lot better and are cheaper, long-term, to maintain. I'd put them in a place if only to reduce later maintenance spending.

That makes sense.

Additionally, I realized after posting my comment that not all of these houses are newly-built; so it could be an issue of what's available on the market.

> 'Why should they have granite countertops when I don't.'

Can you explain what's dumb about a statement like this?

> People come to believe they deserve their position in life when so much of it is due to advantages/disadvantages outside their control

I read through that entire article. I don't think it's as a cut & dried as they make it out to be. For example, they do not define 'deserved' - do people say they feel they "deserved to win" because they committed to playing well even though they didn't need to, given their advantages? Is it fair to dismiss somebody's high self-esteem just because luck was a necessary component of it - thereby discounting the fact that hard work was also a necessary component? This is no different, to me, from a team winning a sports game and teasing the losers. Maybe the researchers thought of that, maybe they didn't, but the author didn't address it and it's crucial.

It also implies a false dichotomy. It seems to imply people become assholes as they become richer. Perhaps we're all naturally assholes and being poor makes us more aware of our dependence on others because the costs of being an asshole and isolating oneself is too high for poor people. It assumes that being "way more generous, way more charitable, way more likely to offer help to another person" to always be a good idea but neglects to ask why, when our brains are given the option to be less generous, less charitable, less helpful, our brains take it?

> attributing your success and their destitution to factors outside anyone's control is scary and difficult.

I don't understand this. I don't deny being fortunate. It's precisely because I'm aware of that, and the role of chance in life, that I don't follow this argument. I live in one of the most unequal societies in the world. Roughly 25-40% unemployment, depending who you ask. The number of 0-4 year olds currently is twice that of the active tax payer base. I already pay ~35% tax, aside from 14% value added tax on products and services. Am I bad because I don't want to share more of my good fortune? I couldn't be where I am without ridiculous amounts of luck - but I also do work hard. Don't I "deserve" a happy and safe life, if I have the opportunity? Why do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

The economics of my society simply don't forecast very well compared to other societies. Am I a bad person because I save money and find ways to escape to countries with greater equality? I think I'm being quite rational, but it feels like the articles I'm reading here are saying I should feel bad for not wanting to help others more. Sometimes I think things are beyond help, and you need to put yourself first.

It's "dumb" not in the sense that it's a stupid point. I would say that the quoted person merely feels "dumb," as in "small-minded," after the fact. They were first opposed to it on economic grounds, but as the economic realities became apparent (i.e., it's cheaper to "permanently" fix the issue than to "band-aid" it), I would say that they came around to the moral implications of what it means to help people find some comfort in their lives. Granite countertops and the money that they cost can't change the fact that people live with mental illness or have lived on the streets for years. The metaphoric "granite countertops" are a small price to pay to make the town a better place for all to live, homeless and taxpayer alike.

I don't think that anyone said that you shouldn't put yourself first. I think the bigger point, and the success story from the article, is that sometimes it's actually economically beneficial (to those who pay taxes) for the government to take the apparently more expensive step of giving homeless more permanent housing solutions. If the tax rate stays the same and the ways that the money can be spent can be improved , e.g. $20k on permanent housing per homeless person rather than $100k per person on the street, why not do it?

Where I live, my taxes go to building people free houses. I have no problem with that and I support the economic argument. Is that really a point of contention for anybody?

Perhaps I'm too far removed from the target audience of the article because I still don't understand the granite countertops comment. Where I live there are people waiting for houses for more than 20 years after being promised. I went to help dig trenches once as part of a corporate donation. The stories you hear are heartbreaking. Granite countertops vs normal countertops, in countries with serious inequality is actually a real thing and can mean the difference between somebody waiting another year for a house, and getting one today.

The guy's comment was a perfectly valid criticism - shaving 0.1% on a budget may sound like nothing to privileged people, but in a country where 10 million people don't have homes it actually does mean something to 10 thousand people.

I see your argument more clearly now... I guess it's an unfortunate result of disparities in the poorest living conditions between countries. The poorest x% of people in Canada probably live better than the poorest x% of people in South Africa (the only country I can imagine that fits your stats above). If government officials were putting in granite countertops in housing developments in South Africa, I'd be up in arms too. In Canada, and on a scale as small as Medicine Hat, they can probably afford, both literally and figuratively, to put nice finishes in public/subsidized housing developments. (Especially if that money is earmarked for local purposes and can't be sent elsewhere. I guess "Collect local (taxes), spend local" isn't too bad of a motto.)

Same reason Mother Theresa build modest homes for the lepers. If you do more others resent it, make noise and the donation chain dries up.

More likely that they built modest homes because they needed less resources, meaning they could build more of them.

You're building yourself a false dichotomy. You can put yourself first. 99.99% of healthy people do. Having such social programs in place doesn't preclude that nor does it impede on your lifestyle.

I would say that with the acknowledgment and understanding of how your circumstances brought you to where you are in life comes another component: how you react to that awareness.

If you can see how you benefit from the disparity and injustice, and that something can be done about it, yet you willingly choose comfort and the possibility of lower taxes, the judgment is cast on you.

Your happiness, safety, enjoyment and advancement in life is not mutually exclusive with ensuring society provides a sufficient safety net.