Luck Distribution
Sep 4, 2008 General Nonsense |
I have a theory that everyone is born with the same amount of luck, but it gets distributed unevenly. Some people have their best lucky days in childhood and run out of good fortune by the time they enter the job market. Others struggle early on and strike it rich later in life. Call it the Magic Johnson Effect. He had the perfect life and then contracted HIV. Or take most famous politicians or celebrities; their highs are almost perfectly matched by their lows. Even lottery winners tend to attract tragedy. It is as if the universe is trying to smooth out things.
You also know people who have never had a truly great year or a truly horrible one. They coast along at average.
There is no science to support my theory of luck distribution, but the anecdotal evidence is abundant. Take for example all the world leaders who spent some time in jail, either before or after hitting the big time. Or consider all the musicians who had lines of groupies and then died in a plane crash. Is it all a coincidence?
Yes. Or else our so-called reality really is a computer program.
You also know people who have never had a truly great year or a truly horrible one. They coast along at average.
There is no science to support my theory of luck distribution, but the anecdotal evidence is abundant. Take for example all the world leaders who spent some time in jail, either before or after hitting the big time. Or consider all the musicians who had lines of groupies and then died in a plane crash. Is it all a coincidence?
Yes. Or else our so-called reality really is a computer program.
Votes: -1
Comments
User Name: ben=catbert
Sep 9, 2008
0
I once had a similar theory that rarely anything really bad happens to pessimists because they perceive about everything that happens to them as 'bad'. Optimists, on the other hand, have heaps of bad luck until they finally lose it and accept the negative. I thought it was the universe's way of keeping everything even, at least through one's own perception.
Then I snapped out of it.
Then I snapped out of it.
User Name: Roby Bang
Sep 7, 2008
0
I think everyone has the same amout of good luck and bad luck, but in the cases of celebrities and millionaires, they take larger risks and they are more extreme, meaning that obviously when luck strikes, it's just intensified. For a normal guy, losing his wallet would be bad luck; for Donald Trump, losing out on a multi-million dollar deal is bad luck.
User Name: feanor1600
Sep 7, 2008
0
This works for nations and empires as well as people. Just look at Italian military history since the Romans.
User Name: SecretAsianMan
Sep 7, 2008
0
that's so weird i have had such a similar theory. I'm a christian so my theory is that God distributes the fortune. I've often been watching people's lives to see how evenly their fortune is distributed.
User Name: Brant
Sep 6, 2008
0
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only one.
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only two.
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only three.
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only four.
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only five
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only two.
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only three.
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only four.
I feel so lucky I could almost post four or five lines. Nope. Only five
User Name: Brant
Sep 6, 2008
0
Speaking of luck, I've been trying to post to this thread for an hour now. All of a sudden it works. Why? I've crashed Firefox and Chrome, IE 7 and Safari, Mozilla and Seamonkey trying to post to this messhuginnah site over the weeks or months and I still have no idea why sometimes I get two lemons and a cherry and sometimes a big fecking heap of quarters.
User Name: Brant
Sep 6, 2008
0
What Adams is describing is the Bundy Luck: when a good thing happens, a bad thing must happen to balance things out. This is the gambler's belief that he or she is "due" for good or bad luck. Luck doesn't work that way. It is random. But you can never convince it to stop working that way. It's like your life is a sitcom and you're the main joke, eh, Mr. Bundy?
User Name: Brant
Sep 6, 2008
0
Don't confuse good results with good luck: the luckiest man in the world might be a pariah living on dump in Cairo. His fellow garbage pickers wonder: "Why does he always find the good junk?" Because he's lucky. He has twenty fatal diseases which are not killing him.
User Name: ND
Sep 5, 2008
0
All of your examples involve people in the public eye. I submit that the child born in Ethiopia who barely avoids starvation for about 5 years and then dies of AIDS was not handed the same amount of "luck" at birth as Bill Gates.
User Name: Sciolist
Sep 5, 2008
0
This is selection bias followed by confirmation bias:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
In other words, you don't take a representative sample (which you are aware of, hence the mention of anecdotal evidence only), and then you only notice further anecdotal evidence that backs you up.
Now that I think about it, both of these biases seem like perfect Scott Adams material, perhaps you are aware of them but are posting for the sake of argument?
PS - I play poker for a living, and part of the reason I can do that is because people can fool themselves into thinking they're better than they really are because of these biases and a couple of other similiar ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
In other words, you don't take a representative sample (which you are aware of, hence the mention of anecdotal evidence only), and then you only notice further anecdotal evidence that backs you up.
Now that I think about it, both of these biases seem like perfect Scott Adams material, perhaps you are aware of them but are posting for the sake of argument?
PS - I play poker for a living, and part of the reason I can do that is because people can fool themselves into thinking they're better than they really are because of these biases and a couple of other similiar ones.
User Name: Alatoruk
Sep 5, 2008
0
but if it is a computer program then its Random number generator is only psuedo
User Name: marc1111
Sep 5, 2008
0
There is a scientific explanation. Luck is simply random occurrences that have either positive or negative effects. Imagine tossing a coin where each heads is a good luck event and each tails a bad luck event. Overall you'd expect to get a roughly equal amount of 'bad luck' and 'good luck'.
The fact that different people have these different volatility profiles (some people have really good luck followed by really bad luck, others just coast) is explainable as well. Depending on the situation that you're in (career, lifestyle, etc) a random effect can multiply up non linearly or stay linear. Essentially if you pick a high risk - high reward lifestyle you'd expect each 'luck' event to have a bigger effect on your life than if you pick a low risk - low reward lifestyle.
A high risk strategy might be budding pop star that meets a record exec randomly will have fantastic 'good luck' but then when he gets dropped for whatever reason it's really bad luck. A librarian doesn't have the same upsides but doesn't have the downsides.
The fact that different people have these different volatility profiles (some people have really good luck followed by really bad luck, others just coast) is explainable as well. Depending on the situation that you're in (career, lifestyle, etc) a random effect can multiply up non linearly or stay linear. Essentially if you pick a high risk - high reward lifestyle you'd expect each 'luck' event to have a bigger effect on your life than if you pick a low risk - low reward lifestyle.
A high risk strategy might be budding pop star that meets a record exec randomly will have fantastic 'good luck' but then when he gets dropped for whatever reason it's really bad luck. A librarian doesn't have the same upsides but doesn't have the downsides.
User Name: sjanlaird
Sep 5, 2008
0
And speaking of Steven Seagal, he just disproves Scott's theory. You can't tell me that he hasn't been shoveling great fistfuls of jammy luck down his gullet from day 1.
User Name: sjanlaird
Sep 5, 2008
0
"There was a great line in the movie Under Siege 2. Luck favors the prepared mind."
Dude. That was lifted from Louis Pasteur. Not that I would diss Steven Seagal.
Dude. That was lifted from Louis Pasteur. Not that I would diss Steven Seagal.
User Name: coljac
Sep 4, 2008
0
This isn't a whole lot different from the null hypothesis that luck is randomness - you'd expect clumping in some cases, and an even distribution in others. The Law of Rationed Luck doesn't add much to that I'd say.
On the other hand, some people are born with a chronic disease, spend their early years in and out of hospital and die before adolescence. It would seem such a life is a counterexample to the theory unless all childhood cancer sufferers happen to be lottery winners.
On the other hand, some people are born with a chronic disease, spend their early years in and out of hospital and die before adolescence. It would seem such a life is a counterexample to the theory unless all childhood cancer sufferers happen to be lottery winners.
User Name: itegem
Sep 4, 2008
0
I think your observations are more about risk/reward then luck. Those people that take more risk have a higher chance of hitting it big (luck) or sinking deep (bad luck). Those people that don't take risks have a higher chance of rather dull life with neither big highs or deep lows.
All this of course averaged over a large population. There will always be exceptions. Like someone that buys once in a life time a lottery ticket and then hits the jack pot, or those that try to avoid risks and then find themselves drowning in a tsunami that started hundreds of !$%*! away.
By the way lottery winners tend to start taking way more risk with the price money in the bank because they feel secure and therefore feel way more comfortable taking risks they would have normally avoided (or couldn't afford, e.g. skydiving).
All this of course averaged over a large population. There will always be exceptions. Like someone that buys once in a life time a lottery ticket and then hits the jack pot, or those that try to avoid risks and then find themselves drowning in a tsunami that started hundreds of !$%*! away.
By the way lottery winners tend to start taking way more risk with the price money in the bank because they feel secure and therefore feel way more comfortable taking risks they would have normally avoided (or couldn't afford, e.g. skydiving).
User Name: flipit
Sep 4, 2008
+1
See comment below first:
What you mention supports Scott's argument. Those that make mistakes early, may learn from them and not repeat them later. To belabor the point, those that do not experience difficulties early in life may pay for it later.I am a soft believer in, "from bad many good things may come" especially when, the bad is self inflicted.
We each have some good and some bad luck. Equal amounts? I don't think so.
I've had what seemed to be terrible things happen to me that led me down a path to some of the best things. How could we have compassion or wisdom if we did not experience some "bad luck"?
Seems too much "good luck" early on can develop the kind of character flaws that naturally gravitate toward "bad luck" later on. Witness many rock stars or spoiled rich kids.
What you mention supports Scott's argument. Those that make mistakes early, may learn from them and not repeat them later. To belabor the point, those that do not experience difficulties early in life may pay for it later.I am a soft believer in, "from bad many good things may come" especially when, the bad is self inflicted.
We each have some good and some bad luck. Equal amounts? I don't think so.
I've had what seemed to be terrible things happen to me that led me down a path to some of the best things. How could we have compassion or wisdom if we did not experience some "bad luck"?
Seems too much "good luck" early on can develop the kind of character flaws that naturally gravitate toward "bad luck" later on. Witness many rock stars or spoiled rich kids.
