"I’ve had it so good in this world, you know. The odds were fifty-to-one against me being born in the United States in 1930. I won the lottery the day I emerged from the womb by being in the United States instead of in some other country where my chances would have been way different.

Imagine there are two identical twins in the womb, both equally bright and energetic. And the genie says to them, “One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh. And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will pay no taxes. What percentage of your income would you bid to be the one that is born in the United States?” It says something about the fact that society has something to do with your fate and not just your innate qualities. The people who say, “I did it all myself,” and think of themselves as Horatio Alger – believe me, they’d bid more to be in the United States than in Bangladesh. That’s the Ovarian Lottery." ― Warren Buffett

This point is moot. Saying that people randomly emerge in all countries implies the stage of pre-birth during which a person hasn't been born yet, but a roulette is about to decide its destination, gender and other traits. This is basically the soul theory and if it's true, the new "assignment" for that soul would be decided based on its earned qualities. Buddhism, in other words. If we reject this idea and state that each person gets created at the point of delivery, then that new person never had "odds of being born rich or poor" for there was no person whose fate would be decided.

> This is basically the soul theory

No, it's really not. It's a thought experiment using a clearly fictitious mechanism to get the reader to consider what their experience might be like in completely different circumstances.

For the same reason It's A Wonderful Life and scifi about alternate universes don't have moot points.

This implies that the thing that gets the experience can be separated from one body and attached to another body. It's ridiculous to speculate what this Ford's experience would be if it was a Ferrari.

Is this a moral or a factual statement?

I guess I'd reject the whole victim/perpetrator dichotomy and say that people's conditions are contingent on forces largely out of their control. That's a factual statement. Lots of people and societies find this very uncomfortable - we generally like the cosmos to be largely about us, down to our decisions, both for the better and for the worse.

> people's conditions are contingent on forces largely out of their control. That's a factual statement.

It is a factual statement, I agree, but in the US it is not true. Peoples' lives are the sum of their choices, large and small. One can choose to learn how to make better choices.

I spent a significant portion of every day learning to make better choices and doing things that will improve my life. Such as exercising. Improving my diet. Trying to eliminate unproductive behaviors. Etc.

It’s a sum of their choices and their parents’ choices*, heavily weighted toward theirs, but I think my success is at least 20% the consequences of my parents’ hard work and good choices.

* - and a sliver of teachers and other influential adults, but the overwhelmingly majority are from people who could say good night and good morning to each other.

The single biggest and most accurate predictor of financial success, or lack thereof, is which zip code people are born in. Libertarian sentiments like yours refuse to acknowledge in any meaningful sense environmental effects upon a population’s well-being, instead almost exclusively focusing on individual choice.

Which is absurd, and why it is not respected despite decades of evangelical proselytizing.

Do you have any cites for that data? What is success defined as? I've heard that causation thrown around lately but have never seen the actual study.

I can see it at the extremes, meaning Martha's Vineyard and Compton perhaps as examples of positive and negative predictors. I haven't visited either, so I wouldn't know first hand. The vast, vast majority of zip codes aren't the extreme by definition. In my zip code, there are both wealthy people in million dollar properties as well as HUD housing and the majority somewhere in between.

What about people who suffer trauma, childhood or otherwise, due to the decisions of others? Saying people's lives are strictly in their control is just not true.

Help is available for mental issues from psychological trauma. Even self-help, there is endless material freely available.

For mental issues from physical trauma, like a brain injury, I qualified my statement with being of "sound mind". I feel immense empathy for such people.

I'm bringing this up because you said people's lives are the sum of their actions.

I think we both agree psychological trauma can affect people immensely. However, your statement saying they can just go get help is really hand-wavy and oversimplifies the situation.

People who suffer trauma during childhood can have impaired brain development, stunted emotional development, poor executive decision making, and are way more likely to enter situations that retraumatize them -- causing more damage.

Simply saying "I will not be a victim" isn't really a thing. You adapt to the trauma by learning coping skills that are not healthy. When this happens in childhood, it is baked into your personality and then later in life you are left wondering which parts of you are really "you" and which are just maladaptive coping. Thus, the sum of you isn't due to just your decisions.

I speak from personal experience on this. I've never had a victim mentality. But now, at 35, going to therapy for cPTSD, I look at the young child I was and can truly see I was a victim. Does this mean I go around now saying I am a victim? No. But, realizing that I was in the past allows me to show more understanding and sympathy for myself.

I'm glad you could overcome these problems.

Okay, but you have to acknowledge that your experience was with a version of the United States that no longer exists.

Things have changed a lot for people on the bottom rungs since the '90s, Walter. Some sympathy for the fact that bootstrapping is vastly more difficult for young people today might be a better look.

Disagree, it's never been easier. The country is awash in vast amounts of money, trying to find ways to be invested, to be spent. Access to information and resources is higher than it has ever been.

Sure, it's hard to just get by if you aren't out there hustling. The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over. The world is your oyster if you are willing to put in the time and have any ability to plan, organize, and work.

>The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over.

Covid craziness aside, that's still true. You can't do it in California, or Seattle or NYC but outside of those areas it's easily obtainable.

Most of these "homes were so cheap" anecdotes neglect to mention that you might be paying 18% interest on your cheap houses. Or they are talking about a place like NYC in the 70s. Yeah you could have gotten a house for a song in a bankrupt city suffering through the crack epidemic.

Most businesses fail. Why do you think that is?

80% of businesses fail in 5 years. There are many reasons, but the usual ones revolve around things like not understanding accounting, not putting in the effort, etc.

It's also true that many very successful people failed at business time after time before figuring it out. Fortunately, American culture doesn't look askance at people that fail at business and try again.

What percent of businesses fail because the owners don't understand accounting? What percent fail because they don't put in the effort? Where did you find this data?

Google "why businesses fail" and there's a lot of information.

It's never been easier and cheaper to get an education in the US, start a business, reach a global marketplace, learn how to do anything you want to do, etc.

When I was young it was pretty much unheard of for people to get wealthy before 25. Now it's commonplace and unremarkable.

> It's never been easier and cheaper to get an education in the US

Source? even the most conservative people I know who went to school in the 80s/90s say they could never afford it now. I myself am trying to figure out how to pay for it without $40k grand in debt if I choose to go back.

MIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQxyVuLeCs&list=PL9F74AFA03...

K-12: https://www.khanacademy.org/

All free, available on the supercomputer in your pocket.

You could have made the same argument in 1908, telling people to self educate at their local library.

If everyone watched a 2007 youtube course on circuits at MIT and learned the material, the value of such a skillset would be equal to the value of flipping Burgers at Burger King.

> in 1980

Ironically, my grandfather at the time made his career by selling correspondence courses for college degrees. It was the equivalent in those days. He met my grandmother selling her a course in mechanical engineering she used to get a better job at the phone company.

My grandfather started literally at the bottom - shoveling coal into a steamship's boiler. A dirty, dangerous, sweaty job he did for years. He improved his lot by taking correspondence courses, and liked them so much decided on a career in selling them, primarily to sailors.

> If everyone

I wouldn't conflate "don't" with "can't".

I know about the MIT course because I took it myself (along with others) to fill in gaps in my education. And why not? Education doesn't stop with the diploma.

All completely irrelevant since they don't provide the official certifications which employers check.

Not to mention entirely dependent on the unsupported precept that traditional teaching structures were apparently worthless - but, it's cheap to put your money where your mouth is on this: are you going to save a lot of time and money and educate your children solely via these resources?

> official certifications which employers check

Yet I wangled a job writing software despite a mechanical engineering job achieved without CS courses. I also know several people at Microsoft in programming jobs who had no college experience. There are tens of thousands of employers, all different. You can even start your own business doing programming, EE design, whatever.

> apparently worthless

Not at all. It's maybe a harder road, sure, but it's navigable for those who want to do it for free.

How do you define wealthy Walter? I’m 25 and “unremarkable” and my net worth is only a quarter million. I make about $200k at a company you’d probably consider unimpressive.

Not everyone can be remarkable enough to go to CalTech.

I'm confused by your argument, because I'd consider making $200K/yr to be firmly on the side of wealthy. Also, I think he was talking about the circumstances being unremarkable, not the people themselves. (Minor note, since you brought it up: it's spelled "Caltech".)

Id wager if you asked most of your graduating classmates if $200k@25 is impressive, most or all would say no. That’s a new grad’s total compensation and I’m several years in already.

Appreciate the correction on spelling. I’m more a Midwest guy myself.

Where on earth did you go to school? Most people I know — even in tech — aren’t making $200k well into their 30s.

You should negotiate working remotely and move out of the US, with that kind of income you could live like a king in most of the rest of the planet. I'm not even being snarky

lol with that income you'd live like a king in most of the US

The fact that you think a net worth of a quarter of a million dollars at 25 is unremarkable goes to show how completely out of touch you are.

Some days I can't tell which comments on HN are parody and which aren't...

I’m sorry what seems to be satirical about my statement?

You're only a few years into your career, not saddled with an oversized tuition from a prestigious university, and already making $200k with a sizable net worth. In my books that's absolutely a path to wealth!

"only" a quarter million

Some people have tunnel vision.

It seems a lot easier, given the fact that accessing an audience or starting a business requires significantly less capital than it did back then. Although maybe there's a side to your argument that I'm missing?

I think they meant bootstrapping a life not a business.

You do everything right, then one day a cop decides you were reaching for a gun instead of a wallet. Yes, choices matter, but sometimes the choices of others limit your own.

I've been pulled over many times. Here's what I do:

1. put my hands on the wheel in plain sight and keep them there

2. when the cop says "driver's license" I say "it's in my wallet in my right front pocket. I do not move.

3. cop says "ok, you can get your wallet".

4. I use one hand to get my wallet and the license.

5. cop says "registration"

6. I say "it's in the glove box" and I do not move.

7. cop says "ok you can get it"

8. I move slowly to get it.

What I never do is lunge for my cell phone, reach under the seat, turn around and try to get something from the back seat, try to grab the officer, try to drive off, etc.

Nothing's perfect, but your odds of survival improve greatly by doing this.

Yes, I've been held at gunpoint by a cop, too. Been robbed at gunpoint as well.

Really living the dream there Walter.

> in the US it is not true

That is patently false. You can divide Americans into any number of segments which they are born into and reliably determine that segment's success. E.g. white people earn more than black people. Children of rich parents do better in school than children of poor parents. Lawyers who graduated in 2000 are more successful than ones who graduated in 2008. Forces out of their control determined this. Their "conditions" are functions of this. Your statement would imply that the people in these segments just happened to make worse choices unrelated to the circumstances of their segments. That would be quite the coincidence.

Yes, like your lawyer example there's plenty of evidence where outcomes for people doing basically the same work varies a lot across times and places.

Maximally small government / libertarian people would like to pretend that everything is about individual character because this would justify their preferred public policies, but thinking about it even a little bit it should be obvious that internal and external factors both matter.

I remember in a previous discussion here Walter was objecting even to the use of standard economic terminology around things like what wealth-creation means (dating back to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776), so I'd take his views here with a grain of salt.

To be honest, this comment section is full of blanket dismissals that speak to living in a bubble away from people with very real grievances. I would say it is not particularly philosophical or moral or factual - it is a reflection of personal material status.

I feel like most comments here reflect actual reality. Middle class of America is incredibly privileged. I feel like vocal minorities took over the media circles and got amplified disproportionately, especially after the pandemic hit and the only way to get information was through these narrow channels.

If possible, go out. Talk to people. It's quite refreshing how different the world is outside of the media machine.

Thank you. An empathetic voice of reason - for a change (a rarity on HN)

On a practical level, this is a bad view to hold.

Individuals with an external locus of control have worse life outcomes. Having an internal locus of control, the idea that you do have a large amount of control over your life, results in better outcomes.

I definitely believe they're correlated, but are there any studies demonstrating a causal relationship?

The trouble with being a victim is there's nothing to be done about it. Deciding to not being a victim is empowering, as it means you can do something about it.

This makes no sense at all. If you have been or are being victimized, recognizing it is the first step to taking an action to counter it.

If someone steals from your car, nobody plays philosophical games about whether you were victimized and understanding that you were is the very first step to even understanding the situation and then adopting habits of not leaving expensive stuff in your car, investing in locks, taking a focus to the causes of crime, etc...

How does being a victim imply that nothing can be done? It seems to me that the opposite could be the case.

For example: If I'm the victim of a crime, the first step to reporting the crime is acknowledging that fact. Certain categories of criminals (con artists and sexual abusers) rely on the fact that victims are often reluctant to acknowledge their victimhood, even to themselves. This allows those individuals' behavior to go unreported so they can prey on more people.

> How does being a victim imply that nothing can be done?

Because if you had no role in the matter, you couldn't have prevented it.

The fact that something in the past couldn't have been prevented doesn't mean that there's nothing to be done in the present.

There's also the fact that often you couldn't have prevented it.

It can be made less likely. It's the victim mindset that makes the victim believe it can't be prevented, which in turn prevents the person in question from making changes that will prevent problems in the future.

Chicago cops frisking you all the time -- wear skin tight pants.

Car accident -- use defensive driving techniques.

Being shot and killed for sleeping at a Wendy's -- don't resist arrest.

Wife divorced you, took your house and kids -- don't get married, OR, learn to discriminate.

Sexist manager won't promote you -- join a company run by females, OR, start your own company.

Pandemic -- move to the country.

On the other hand, if you prefer not to solve your problems yourself, you can say "Why should I change, when other people are the ones doing something wrong", fold your arms, and wait for a man to solve your problem for you.

Being a victim is what reaction a person takes to events. If they believe that nothing could have been done, then they believe they are powerless.

This doesn't make sense - often times we are powerless. No amount of "not being a victim" is going to bring back your husband who died in a car accident, or a soldier who died in war, nor is being a victim either.

Do you mean being a victim, or being helpless?

I am a victim of a crime - I need to take the required action to get legal retribution.

Saying “I am not a victim” does nothing to help me.

I don't know I agree with you there are no victims in America, but I strongly agree with you it's pointless to dwell on as an individual matter.

At the moment, I'm going out for a run because running seems to stave off old age dementia. Ah'll be back later.

Walter, please don't say these things. I get what you're trying to communicate but there is such thing as a victim. You can be doing everything right and still have harm brought to you and your loved ones by circumstances beyond your control. People who lost their families in 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina didn't end up that way because they didn't have a plan or weren't busy.

This isn't how I read OP's post. The OP isn't talking about a catastrophic or life-altering event which makes one a victim. Rather, being faced with difficult circumstances and life choices which can be altered and addressed with effort and plain hard work instead of blaming others and falling into victimhood.

While the OP might not have intended it this way, that's also a formula for perpetuating any 'difficult circumstances' that happen to be profitable for others.

A simple example which was in the news this week due to a Supreme court case: crack sentencing disparities. You made a bad life choice and sold 50 grams of cocaine and got caught, you might go away for 2 years and then turn your life around. But if you sold 5 grams of crack and got caught, you were probably going away for 20 years. The penalties for crack were literally 100 times higher.

Now, consuming crack is really bad for you, but consider the situation of some kid without much life experience that is tempted into making a quick buck. Depending on where they happen to be and what's in front of them, the same failure of morality/judgment would have staggeringly different consequences.

FWIW, I strongly disagree with harsh sentences for drug crimes. I also strongly disagree with harsh sentences for juveniles - note that I qualified my statements with "adults" not children.

But you're not in charge, so having nice attitudes or empathy isn't really helpful to anyone. What is helpful is to acknowledge up front that those kind of problems exist rather than being so aggressively upbeat.

Your approach to dealing with life is valid, but you push it so aggressively it makes you sound like one of those yoga evangelists who is so into their thing that they lose sight of how it's not the answer to every problem.

What the debate actually is about is whether it is possible to be subject to sexism or racism, whether those can influence outcomes and whether it is valid to talk about those. The problem is that if you state it like that, people will argue whether sexism and racism exist. So, op and the rest of HN go for the next best thing: trying to categorically deny that is is possible to be harmed by actions of others.

Note how there are no complains about harm of victimhood when single guys complain about being single and blame society for it.

The real topic here is that there should not be such a thing as activism. It should be shameful to talk openly talking about disadvantages or -isms. Instead, you should pretend none of that exists, so that everybody feels good about society being fair. It makes you feel safe and in control too. Bad things happen to people who deserve it.

I've often thought about what I'd have done in those towers on 9/11. New York's finest who ran to that maelstrom to help are indeed New York's Finest.

I agree you can do everything right and still have grievous harm befall you. But you can dramatically reduce the odds of that.

For example, I know what sorts of natural disasters the Pacific Northwest is prone to. I've taken steps to reduce the odds of one of them destroying me. There's still an element of risk, and I accept that.

It's tough to know where to begin with something so obviously false and trivializing.

What amount of violence would you need to experience before you would acknowledge victimization? There's plenty that goes around that you apparently don't know about.

Let's say you are poor, went to a protest, and got arrested. You can't make bail (you're poor) and are fired from your job because you are in in jail. You easily win your case and see no prison time, but your life has been massively impacted in the negative by others unjustly.

This person was a victim of policing and likely the system in general that creates these trade-offs and punishes a lack of material wealth. You cannot begin to even understand the situation without acknowledging the fault and the injustice.

What does living in the US have to do with it? Different people do well or badly in every country.

This is actually an artefact of America's protestant ethical roots: "Your circumstances are of your own sinful devising. Develop a strong work ethic and you'll live a good life; it's merely your choices and discipline that stand between you and a successful life."

It's an unfortunate moral code that creates unrealistic expectations, as well as handy judgments for those in the lower classes (and moral justification for those with too much wealth and power). The "meritocracy" is the modern form. I got to watch it in action during the few years I lived there.

I certainly hope you're joking

Nope. Not remotely.

Ah, so the reason that - just to pick an example here - my father who put in long hours as an IT professional and then came home to teach me and my siblings and kickstart my tech career, passed away is because he didn't come up with a plan and get busy not being a cancer victim?

Somebody who loses their legs after getting hit by a drunk driver just needs to make a plan, stop being a victim and try to grow their legs back.

Got COVID? The ticket to a speedy recovery is hard work and positive thinking.

Pull yourself up out of nutritional deficiency and homelessness by your bootstraps! If you don't have boots, start by making some out of leaves and twigs.

Come on, Walter. You can say "sound mind and body" if you like but the reality is that "normal" is an arbitrary distinction set by one person or another, and at any moment you can become a victim because you get pushed out of "normal". You or I can look at someone and say "what do they have to complain about?" but you have no way to know if they're currently dying of an autoimmune disease or being blackmailed or working 3 jobs to pay off their spouse's medical bills.

I'm sorry you lost your father, cancer is a terrible disease. I lost my mom to cancer.

The vast majority of victims are of sound mind and body, they aren't legless. If your legs are crushed by a drunk, you have my sympathy. If you were playing on the freeway at the time, my sympathies would be a bit muted.

> Got COVID?

Personally, I did everything I could to reduce my risk, and am now vaccinated. 2/3 of Americans are not vaccinated, yet one can now just walk in and get vaccinated. I'm respectful and sympathetic to the health workers and essential workers who put their lives at risk.

But today, when vaccines (in the US) are trivially available, I'm not so sympathetic to those who do not get one, and then get Covid.

I had a conversation with one person who said she wasn't getting the vaccine because God would look out for her. I replied that God looked out for her by making the vaccine available.

The overwhelming majority of people in America are of sound mind and body.

It’s truly hard to overstate what a ridiculous position you have staked out here with this argument.

You’ve picked some arbitrary definition of what it means to be a victim based on god only knows what philosophy or life experience and then tried to state it as some kind of objective fact or enlightened wisdom.

> ridiculous position

I'm well aware of how other people perceive it. It's completely contrary to the barrage of what I call "cult of the victim" that spews forth from nearly all media.

I don't expect to change your mind. But give it a chance. For example,

A man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg.

Victim: "I'm so unlucky, my leg broke. Oh, life is so unfair."

Non-Victim: "Phew, I'm so lucky! I could have broken my neck! My broken leg will heal and I'll be fine. Next time I won't leave my toys laying on the steps."

Walter: "I put carpet on the stairs so I wouldn't slip on them. I go jogging to (in part) increase bone density so they are less likely to break."

Listen I’m glad this approach seems to work to you and I hope it might even get you through some dark times one day, but there is a reason you are using contrived child like examples here, it’s because it doesn’t hold up to anything remotely dark.

What life lessons do you want for the parent of a child who was sexually abused for example? Are they allowed to feel like a victim? What about the child?

It's completely contrary to the barrage of what I call "cult of the victim" that spews forth from nearly all media.

[Villain music]

"‘He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me’–for those who brood on this, hostility isn’t stilled.

"‘He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me’–for those who don’t brood on this, hostility is stilled.

"Hostilities aren’t stilled through hostility, regardless.

"Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth.

"Unlike those who don’t realize that we’re here on the verge of perishing, those who do: their quarrels are stilled."

--Dhammapada, ch. 1, circa 1st century common era (trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Dhp/Ch01.html

No, outside of programming subjects, he often emits statements along that line.