Counterpoint: Luck (broadly seen, including your genetic disposition and where you’ve been born - you might not call it luck, but it’s certainly not something you’ve chosen or earned) plays a much bigger role than most people think it does.

Source and book recommendation:

Robert H. Frank: Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691167404/su...

> In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine. In Success and Luck, bestselling author and New York Times economics columnist Robert Frank explores the surprising implications of those findings to show why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in success—and why that hurts everyone, even the wealthy.

Good summary in his article in The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/why-luc...

I totally agree with your sentiment, but I wouldn't consider it a counter point.

I said luck isn't as _random_ as some people think it is. You're saying it plays a much bigger role than most people think it does.

These are not mutually exclusive.

It might even emphasize the point -- because it plays a bigger role than most suppose, it is important to understand how to best take advantage of poor (or superior) circumstances.

I doubt the person you’re replying to made a counter point and what’s being written about is really just semantics (when someone references luck instead of just acknowledging determinism).

The knowledge that’s statistically likely to benefit someone that’s poor, may not work from unfortunate circumstances and that happen precisely when it will hurt the situation. That happens as everyone has a fairly unique life.

We also have to rely on if someone misfortune at birth (in some way), happens to be “lucky enough” to encounter the knowledge to hopefully benefit them or as I should say fate decided to allow it.

Some people do everything right contrary to a person doing the opposite and life can reward whoever the unique conditions happened to favor for each person.

Everything is decided at birth if we were to break everything down into cause & effect.

I agree with your points but they don't really support "luck isn't random". I would say the argument is more "if you increase luck surface area the expected outcome will be higher". Not as catchy.

> - Learn about probability (Fooled by Randomness is a good start). If you constantly expose yourself to more chances of success, _odds are_, you'll start to find more of it.

A) You really want to identify gambles with positive expectation. If you constantly expose yourself to “more chances of success” with negative expectation (such as going to the casino for the chance of winning big), you’ll end up ruined.

B) Even if you can identify gambles with positive expectation, the more resources you have initially, the more you can afford to gamble. Thus, people initially deprived of luck might have less chance of catching up, let alone making it big.

Very much agreed on both points -- which is why I think studying that is important. The tide is definitely against you, but you have a greater chance of fighting it if you know how it works.

Speaking from experience, and also having known a lot of people with a deep understanding of probability, the kind of unluckiness described by OP isn't immediately resolved by a familiarity with probability. For example, it can work against a person where becoming aware of the number of small chance events, that you come to believe you're just wasting your time. But I do think understanding probability is useful in life and underrated.

So that is where good advice would step in to offer some guidance about how to actually apply this knowledge.

IMHO we are not only discussing luck but also our imperfect and fallible nature as people. All you say is excellent advice, but -- sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

I've said this before, so apologies for repeating myself:

Luck is making the better decision in a timely manner based on incomplete knowledge where each option appears equally valid. However, people generally are poor at calculating probability combined with risk/reward and simply make bad decisions. And sometimes, all choices lead to bad outcomes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19308323

To expand on this; if you are a healthy, intelligent adult I don't accept the idea that sometimes you don't have a choice, that somehow it is all out of your hands. That thinking leads to victimhood which is really an avoidance of taking responsibility for your decisions.

Yes, sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you - but you chose to take on the bear, whether directly or due to some previous decision (that didn't involve a bear at all).

Enjoyed watching "The Gentleman" the other night and a fan of films like Lock Stock, Two Smoking Barrels and the idea of events snowballing from the choices people make (and then the interaction of each individual's ongoing choices). But the situations that they find themselves in were a result of something they did.

Thank you fellow Taleb reader.

Also: Scott Adams, in his book "How to fail..." has a chapter on increasing one's luck. Worth a skim if you haven't checked it out before.