Being born into circumstances that even enable you to accomplish all of the above definitely falls into the category of luck, in my opinion.

Eg if you're born to wealthier parents, you likely have more time in the evenings/weekends to study, which makes all of the above easier than say, if you were born to a poorer family and had to work 20-40 hours / week to contribute to your family's income.

Next, being born with the right genetics that enable a natural talent/ability to understand a particular area well enough to get through all of that education and into a good job, is also a form of luck.

Sure there's a level of discipline and effort required to get there even when you've got all of the "luck" - but part of the article's point is that there are certain people that are born into certain situations which they can literally never raise themselves out of (without some kind of very very good luck).

> Being born into circumstances that even enable you to accomplish all of the above definitely falls into the category of luck, in my opinion.

Bingo, you get it.

"My first big lucky break happened in 2009 when Georgetown University hired me as a philosophy professor on their campus in Qatar

'Apparently going to high school, studying and passing the SAT, applying and being accepted into university, studying, passing, and graduating university is just luck.'"

let's finish the paragraph, shall we:

"My first big lucky break happened in 2009 when Georgetown University hired me as a philosophy professor on their campus in Qatar. Georgetown-Qatar, which is funded entirely by the Qatar government, has to pay an enormous premium to get faculty to agree to live and work in Qatar. I get paid three times as much as my wife. I teach half as many classes. She’s a full professor. I’m only an associate."

hey, quite a lot of people go to high school, pass their sats, get into a university and earn a degree, but almost none of them are offered a professorship in qatar, where they earn three times as much for half the work. quite a fortuitous circumstance, and one which wasn't in control of the author. so, luck.

> applying and being accepted into university, studying, passing, and graduating university

Perhaps he is lucky enough to have parents that could afford college for him so he could invest in property rather than "invest" at getting to a $0 debt level.

It's also luck that the university exists in the first place. The system we exist in has build infrastructure for people to better themselves, and to turn around after earning millions of dollars and say "I did this all by myself" is disingenuous (or at the very least, incredibly ignorant).

I'd attribute most people's position in life to 5-10% "bootstraps" and 90-95% circumstances.

> Apparently going to high school, studying and passing the SAT, applying and being accepted into university, studying, passing, and graduating university is just luck.

some of that is the luck of being born in the right place.

also, many people did all that and still did not get hired at that place

> Apparently going to high school, studying and passing the SAT, applying and being accepted into university, studying, passing, and graduating university is just luck.

I genuinely thought you were sarcastic. Being born in circumstances that allow you to do that is luck, even in the developed world.

Its only luck if you consider every person independent of their ancestors, rather than a product of their ancestors.

Well yes, I consider who your ancestors are as part of being lucky, as you don't do anything to deserve who your ancestors are. What would you call it?

Context and motivation. Being able to provide an experience for your descendents motivates you to act. Without that ability, there is no reason to do anything.

It's interesting to trace the evolution of Calvinism in the United States. There's an argument to be made that Calvinism minus the divinity of Christ equals modern liberalism and the liberal market economy. A lot of the same attitudes and practical programs carry over without the spiritual context [0].

On the subject of the article, I thought this was going to be someone with a large capital surplus providing a basic income to someone "unluckier" than them to argue the benefits of basic income, rather than advocating to increase taxes (but probably still not on them since he made a point of saying how he hardly pays any).

0 - http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801396,...

> Apparently going to high school, studying and passing the SAT, applying and being accepted into university, studying, passing, and graduating university is just luck.

Well all of those things do have a lot to do with what kind of opportunities in life you started out with. Look at the SAT [1] or college graduation rates [2].

> Is there nothing ever we can do to improve our circumstances and our lives?

I think this is a hyperbolic reading of of this article. Obviously the author knows they worked hard. They just know that they had opportunities which other hard working people didn't have. What's wrong with that?

[1]: https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/10/07/sat-scores-and-in... [2]: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/poor-students-drop-even-finan...

The academic job market is so thin that the divide between people with good jobs and bad is often just that: luck.