Whenever these kinds of discussions come up on HN , I notice two cognitive biases which always end up derailing the discussion .
One is where people think that they're infact quite talented and deserving of success its just that their luck wasn't favorable .
The other group is people who've worked their way out of pretty difficult circumstances and find explaining away everything as luck unacceptable at some level . This makes people want to believe in a certain position and triggers long arguments . Its a similar thing to the nature nurture debates that happen frequently on HN .
Let me give you guys an example . One day a friend told me that theres a really cool site called Hacker News which I should check out . I initially didnt understand most of the stuff people here were talking about but suffice to say that its changing my outlook on things . So maybe just maybe if I ever make it big wouldnt this count as luck ?
Another thing being that I have an interest in music . But when I was young I just never got around to learning the fundamentals . I'm teaching myself now but if someone musically knowledgeable was around me when I was young I'm quite sure I would be quite deeply into music by now .
Let me go deeper . Why this interest in music ? I had a small keyboard I always used to play with . What if it wasnt there ? Then later on more recently I saw someone play live which rekindled my interest and started me learning . If I hadnt seen that maybe I wouldnt be so interested . So yeah luck pretty much nudges us down different streams . But your swimming ability matters too ...
Life being an infinite graph search over an almost infinite search space of possibilities a randomised algorithm seems to be what nature prefers . Thats how evolution works by using luck to its advantage .
The ultimate lucky stroke could be , that evolution gave rise to our species in the first place but then you could say that the rabbit hole goes far deeper ....
One is where people think that they're infact quite talented and deserving of success its just that their luck wasn't favorable .
The other group is people who've worked their way out of pretty difficult circumstances and find explaining away everything as luck unacceptable at some level . This makes people want to believe in a certain position and triggers long arguments . Its a similar thing to the nature nurture debates that happen frequently on HN .
Let me give you guys an example . One day a friend told me that theres a really cool site called Hacker News which I should check out . I initially didnt understand most of the stuff people here were talking about but suffice to say that its changing my outlook on things . So maybe just maybe if I ever make it big wouldnt this count as luck ?
Another thing being that I have an interest in music . But when I was young I just never got around to learning the fundamentals . I'm teaching myself now but if someone musically knowledgeable was around me when I was young I'm quite sure I would be quite deeply into music by now .
Let me go deeper . Why this interest in music ? I had a small keyboard I always used to play with . What if it wasnt there ? Then later on more recently I saw someone play live which rekindled my interest and started me learning . If I hadnt seen that maybe I wouldnt be so interested . So yeah luck pretty much nudges us down different streams . But your swimming ability matters too ...
Life being an infinite graph search over an almost infinite search space of possibilities a randomised algorithm seems to be what nature prefers . Thats how evolution works by using luck to its advantage . The ultimate lucky stroke could be , that evolution gave rise to our species in the first place but then you could say that the rabbit hole goes far deeper ....