The unlucky overstate the role of luck
The lucky understate the role of luck
It boils down to incentives,
and even to epistemology (theory of knowledge)
On the extreme — the extremely lucky has NO DATA invalidating the role of HIMSELF, and something SPECIAL about himself — in his exceptional outcomes
He is, by definition, the epicentre, the only constant at the centre of all those propitious events
It’s not only NOT insane to assume that MAYBE all those great things HAVE something to do with him
It’s actually the simplest explanation… Occam’s razor indeed
Conversely the extremely unlucky can do EVERYTHING RIGHT, truly,
But he can still fail. It will, statistically, happen
At which point, it really is not so implausible to conclude that there is something wrong with him
It will save him a lot of effort too
Indeed, the last point (lot of effort) is already a problem of incentives
Normally being DELUSIONAL — i.e. having warped model of reality — is undesirable,
It’s really a tautology: obviously if your map is wrong — you can’t really get to the destination, unless by chance
HOWEVER,
Since chance is, by definition, unpredictable (over short term — and often over long term too) — the secret source of your ability/inability (i.e. chance) is AS UNKNOWN to OTHERS as it is to you
And it can persist for long
The benefit of the doubt you get due to your tremendous success will for long have bearing in how others appraise you
Likewise the stigma of great failures can follow you for the rest of your life,
and definitely your current underperformance will not be advantageous to you rubbing shoulders with people of the same competence but far greater results
The point is,
when you’re lucky — you’re INCENTIVISED to BELIEVE that your LUCK is really your ABILITY
and when you’re unlucky — you’re INCENTIVISED to believe that you have gotten unlucky, or at least haven’t gotten lucky, like those lucky did
That STORY is preferable
And the story of you being a SUCCESS, rather than lucky — is BELIEVABLE. Because again — the world cannot verify this quickly either, and even if it could — it will still give you some benefit of the doubt
Likewise the story that super-successful have MERELY gotten lucky is quite plausible too — because we are all envious, no matter our successes — and like to believe those outperforming us are doing nothing better than we are
Indeed,
The amount of extra doubt necessary to question all one’s life outcomes, and account for luck — is often a cost that seems unjustified
Most often DECISIONS HAVE TO BE MADE even when you’re UNCERTAIN of what’s the right course of action
If you also start doubting your judgement as clouded by chance — this task becomes even more difficult
So again: a SLIGHT OPTIMISM BIAS is often preferable
Indeed: action can actually expose you to more good fortune
unlike inaction — which exposes you to nothing (but decay)
Except of course, fundamentally, untruth can not be good, can it?
If you blow up due to your hubris — you risk losing everything. Not unfeasible
Perhaps more importantly: once you think you know — you lose ability to learn
It really doesn’t matter what you “achieved” — it’s what you DID today
Great luck, success are a curse because they make you think you “made it”
You thus lose the only thing that life’s about = purpose, drive
It’s better to forever stay hungry and incomplete — so that you ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING — and thus LIVE
To LIVE is to do something, not to “be a winner”
Or rather — you are a winner if you did something wonderful today — not yesterday
But if you did something wonderful yesterday, luck or not — you have a perverse incentive to SIT on that victory, and identify with it
It paralyses you and you become not alive but dead inside, instead
You’re just a photograph of a dead man from 10 years ago
Finally, the problem of social cohesion
No, we are NOT equal and trying to equalise what’s not equal is iniquitous
However, an extreme disrupts entire society
This instability in turn causes worse outcomes for everyone
I’m not arguing for correcting for someone’s luck, or bad luck
+we already have means of correcting — by insurance, hedging, taxing, safety nets, etc.
However, mere awareness of the ELEMENT OF LUCK and how it plays out in real life — is of course desirable
We should idolise extreme success in EXTREMELY OBJECTIVE FIELDS — rather than random moonshots
We shouldn’t demonise random moonshots. I am more than certain that average billionaire, or super-rich, is FAR more admirable then you and I
But we shouldn’t idolise it either, on account of the element of luck that confuses the assessment
We should rather idolise truly objective excellence
I dislike sports, except maybe I don’t
But one thing that sport shows is indeed how extremely wide the band of skills is
A competitor that would absolutely crush another competitor, would still be absolutely crushed by yet another competitor, who in turn would still be absolutely crushed by yet another competitor… and so on
This makes you realise what a gulf there is between people’s skills
You realise that — and billionaires existing ceases being such an inscrutable thing
MAYBE they truly are 100x more efficient and productive and skilled than an average business person
Maybe not 1000000 times. But 100 times yes
And finally,
what is this OBJECTIVE excellence?
I speak of it all the time,
I ultimately believe “WHAT YOU DID TODAY” is the most objective source for LIFE-LIVING
IF you had a problem today — then solved it — this is VERY objective
Bigger problems are downstream from that
And “what you did today” is relatively humble — you can’t boast how you did something “epoch-making” today, it was just another day
And yet, the truth about your life is what you did day by day
This solution is of course not perfect, it doesn’t account for asymmetric, crucial decisions, made couple times a year at most,
But those decisions too, ultimately, happen TODAY,
Indeed one could argue that the most powerful aspect of focus on today is INDEED just this focus on ruthless prioritisation — and to perform truly ELITE-level today — you of course want to frontload all the hardest problems, hardest decisions, most high ROI endeavours
Then of course we DO have some matters which are objective
They are never “everything” in isolation, but they all are quite objective metrics in and of themselves;
-You can’t bullshit knowledge. It can be wrong knowledge, but that is still some skin in the game
-You can’t bullshit science. The more strict, hard science it is — the harder it is to bullshit
-You can’t bullshit engineering. If it doesn’t work — it doesn’t work. Quite binary
-You can’t bullshit the clock. You worked or not. Even if it’s bs work
-You can’t bullshit priorities. Either something is TOP priority or not. You did top priority thing or not, or you waved your hands instead
-You can’t bullshit habits. Either you do it every day or not. And habits are how skills are acquired. And skills are what you then use to produce value
-etc.
That’s what I mean by “what you did today” — all those things apply
AND some of those things remain objective at scale — e.g. physics phd, ability to software engineer, healthy habits, etc.
Anyone who fails those — of course is in no position to blame “LUCK” for his failures,
And anyone who fails those — of course is in no position to attribute his past successes to his skills — since he’s clearly a fucking loser. You are what you did today