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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: The role of luck in success
Thread: The role of luck in success This thread is 7 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT»
JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 14, 2011 08:39 PM

*leans back and watches del_diablo doing all the work*

Great job, mate. Fine points, well phrased.

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Shyranis
Shyranis


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted April 14, 2011 08:42 PM
Edited by Shyranis at 20:47, 14 Apr 2011.

Quote:
Smartmouth = insult? Are you kidding me?


Cultural difference? In north America it's like when you call somebody a "smart arse" or a "wise guy", it's sarcastic and derogatory. Typically used on mobster films only really though.



Anyway, obviously tax is required, especially to pull America out of the rut it's currently in debt-wise. The problem is that even when people slash budgets, they tend to cut taxes far, far more and raise the deficit far higher in the end... so the only solution is to put a freeze on all tax cuts (meaning, no new ones for a very, very long time) until everything else is sorted out, also close all of the loopholes that let companies make huge profits and still pay no taxes (or rather, get paid for not paying taxes like GE and Bank of America).
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Azagal
Azagal


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Smooth Snake
posted April 14, 2011 08:43 PM
Edited by Azagal at 21:00, 14 Apr 2011.

...I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not JJ...
____________
"All I can see is what's in front of me. And all I can do is keep moving forward" - The Heir Wielder of Names, Seeker of Thrones, King of Swords, Breaker of Infinities, Wheel Smashing Lord

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mvassilev
mvassilev


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 14, 2011 08:44 PM

del_diablo:
Quote:
Saving is bad.
Incorrect. Saving is good because it enables capital formation, which increases future output, which in turn enables a higher standard of living in the future. If capital accumulates, workers become more productive. Again, learn economics. It's called the Solow Model.

Quote:
On the other hand, when is tax being "punishing people"
When they're more productive, they pay more in taxes.

DF:
Solution - don't live in Poland.
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted April 14, 2011 08:52 PM
Edited by Doomforge at 20:53, 14 Apr 2011.

Quote:
Cultural difference? In north America it's like when you call somebody a "smart arse" or a "wise guy", it's sarcastic and derogatory. Typically used on mobster films only really though.


Sarcastic, yes, well intended But insulting? Not my intention, well, I might be wrong of course, especially since I don't know much about what Americans perceive as insulting.


Quote:
DF:
Solution - don't live in Poland.


This is a solution, yes. But Poland isn't even at the bottom of the food chain, there's a couple dozens of poorer countries out there, and what can people from those countries do to "be successful" financially? Work harder? that will most likely break their backs, or something, and definitively not make them richer... When you get a dollar per day, aiming for extra 40 cents isn't really going to do you any good.
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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 14, 2011 09:01 PM

Quote:
...I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not...
He does make fine points and they are well-phrased - Mvass shortening obviously will-willing his quotes doesn't change that one bit.

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del_diablo
del_diablo


Legendary Hero
Manifest
posted April 14, 2011 09:02 PM

Quote:
del_diablo:
Quote:
Saving is bad.
Especially when it is larger than your "reserves".
All saving above that line, is hoarding cash.
The only "good thing" about it is that we today have a working banking system, minus some countries where they have banking crisis due lack of regulation.
I recommend you to either learn economics, or start putting up full arguments.
Besides, if you knew economics, you would be well aware that the "filthy" rich do not really use their money, if you knew psycology you would know the exact reason why.
And I am not saying they are not using their money at all either, but I am saying your claim of them "investing the surplus" is a generalization that does not look like reality.

Incorrect. Saving is good because it enables capital formation, which increases future output, which in turn enables a higher standard of living in the future. If capital accumulates, workers become more productive. Again, learn economics. It's called the Solow Model.

Read the entire quote, your argument is already "refuted".
I would start by saying that you missed the part about what I have definided as hoarding, for the middleclass and the poor "saving" can not be hoarding per definition.
Which means: You are going to have to put up a better argument than that to be credible.
Please explain the Solow model, and what it has to do with investment, and why is it valid?
From a quick glimps at Wikipedia the idea is basically saving, and then investing in new tech, now praying for the non-collapse of a new bubble, which is related to circulation.
But the entire premise reallies on that you misinterpret what I call hoarding, to a definition that encompasses "savings".

Quote:
On the other hand, when is tax being "punishing people"
When they're more productive, they pay more in taxes.

Answer:
As for the "core issue" that has spawned this:
The cost of living well is fixed, which means that all you earn above that threshold is nothing but luxury, but we don't tax everything above that do we?
Even a flat tax would be unfair, because it would mean that those under the cost of living would be paying harsh taxes.
Lets then say we start the "tax" at some point over this fine line of good living, that would still be unfair because the wealthy earn proportionally more money than those just above it. And unless the wealthy actually invested it all, they are hoarding gold and slowing down the economy by hoarding.
That means a proportional tax is the only "sane" method, if setup properly.
This of course implies that the state wanting taxes actually has something reasonable to spend them on.
If they do have something reasonable to spend it on, and they use a sane tax scheme, the people should bless their state for using a sane tax scheme on sane issues.


The alternative is to either have no tax, or starve the poor to death with flat tax.
Or we could have flat tax above a threshold, which means all above it would feel discriminated.
Either way: Someone will have to take the "blow" and the "punishment", the problem is that the rich won't even miss it.
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mvassilev
mvassilev


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 14, 2011 09:23 PM
Edited by mvassilev at 21:42, 14 Apr 2011.

DF:
Quote:
When you get a dollar per day, aiming for extra 40 cents isn't really going to do you any good.
When you make a dollar a day, an extra 40 cents is a lot.

del_diablo:
Perhaps I just don't understand you, then. Express yourself more clearly.

But you asked me to explain the Solow model. To really explain it takes some mathematics which I currently don't want to go into, but the basic idea is that output comes from capital and effective labor, the change of capital with respect to time is a function of saved output (output allocated to investment), capital depreciation, population growth, technological growth, and the currently capital stock per unit of effective labor. The more savings there is, the higher the growth rate of capital stock per unit of effective labor, leading to higher output, and higher output per unit of labor.
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Raelag84
Raelag84


Famous Hero
posted April 14, 2011 09:50 PM
Edited by Raelag84 at 21:50, 14 Apr 2011.

Quote:
But you asked me to explain the Solow model. To really explain it takes some mathematics which I currently don't want to go into, but the basic idea is that output comes from capital and effective labor, the change of capital with respect to time is a function of saved output (output allocated to investment), capital depreciation, population growth, technological growth, and the currently capital stock per unit of effective labor. The more savings there is, the higher the growth rate of capital stock per unit of effective labor, leading to higher output, and higher output per unit of labor.


This is a little off subject. But can we talk about this somewhere else, because you I assure you that's not the whole story.

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del_diablo
del_diablo


Legendary Hero
Manifest
posted April 14, 2011 09:57 PM

mvass: About what you explain about the Solow model.
You are now acting like Spinoza attempting to  fool people with numbers, or Descartes with making grand deductions based on false logic.
Solows model is a attempt at explaing reality, a bit like what blessed Sir Issac Newton did, and make it more "real" by putting on numbers so the art turns into hard science.
If you understood Solows model, you could explain it. If you can't explain it, then you can not use it as a argument.

But lets get back to what we where talking about:
1. First I define "hoarding" as putting a certain amount of  currency in a safe deposit(IE: A bank), if the amount of larger than what you need to go from zero and back to wealth
2. Then I claim that everyone who is filthy rich do not invest all the currency they earn, and that they are saving more money than what they need as a backup/reserve.
3. I then claim that the situation would look really grim IF we did not have a working banking system we have. The banking system allows us to place some money a safe place, get something for putting them there, and lets other take a loan of that money to invest.
4. Then you take a piece of what I have said, and put it out of context, where you claim that I have said "Saving is bad" with a completely straight face, and without explanation or forshading beforehand. What I said is really "Hoarding is bad".

If you are going to "argue", then take a look at the second bulletin instead of throwing stuff out of context.
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mvassilev
mvassilev


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 14, 2011 10:52 PM

del_diablo:
I do understand the Solow model, but believe it or not I have better things to do than explain its intricacies to people on the Internet - moreover, people who are hostile to it.

Regarding "hoarding" - if they put that money in the bank, then the bank can loan that money out, as you said, so what's the problem?
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del_diablo
del_diablo


Legendary Hero
Manifest
posted April 14, 2011 11:16 PM

Mvass: It is a lot "slower" and thus less effective than direct venture capitalism.
There are 2 problems:
1. It costs a lot more to take a loan than to get a investment, which increases the margins to get started
2. No matter how effective the banking system, you can never loan out more than 80-90% of what the bank is suppose to be keeping, which means that you are by default creating a 10-20% slowdown
The banking system today is at... perhaps 40-50% effectives?
Which brings us to the next point: Instead of hoarding the money in a bank, direct investments would have done wonders for the economy.
Above a certain amount of earnings, manually investing would get to painful, and large funds are more or less idiocy for anybody who knows anything.
And that means the surplus end up in banks.
Not a bad thing, because it is a major improvement over the situation before banking gained a proper foothold in the economy.

Which brings us to another joint of the economy:
The thing about "taxes" is that the goverment or state that collects them must use them, which means that you take money that would otherwise just rotten in a bank, and take it back into the economy.
If you know that directly investing the money inside the company would mean that the goverment takes less directly, you get a incentive to do that.
The "rich" will not miss the extra money, because they are after all sitting on the majority of the wealth in roughly any given country.
If you are lack on the tax on the other hand, the filthy rich tends to payout that as a prize to themselves. Which is bad for the economy compared to investing the money.
"Punishing the rich" would be when you start adding insane regulations, or add a 100% tax over what it costs to live. Or tax too high.
But that is not the issue, the issue is that you partially claimed that "tax where evil", and I have yet to hear a explanation on it.
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Fauch
Fauch


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 15, 2011 12:38 AM

with thousands of people who learnt the exact same things as you and are all willing to work hard, even just finding a job is a matter of luck and not of how good you are.

well, unless you already have experience in that work and super impressive achievments, but then, you were probably lucky enough in the 1st place for finding such a good job.

the problem isn't that people are slackers (well, some of them probably are) but if you ask them to do something they like, they'll give their best. but most of the time, they don't have that option. I've experienced doing a job I totally hated, and I was rather thinking about punching the guy next to me out of frustration that about giving my best.

Quote:
If I do my best it's not to show off to anyone it's so I'm happy with myself and with what I've done. If you don't give it your all you'll always have regrets.


and if your name is adolf eichmann?

a less extreme exemple, thanks to your hard work, the competitor goes bankrupt, lots of people lose their job. do you feel good about it?

(someone in my family said that he once refused a work because they told him they would fire someone to make room for him)


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mvassilev
mvassilev


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 15, 2011 01:20 AM

del_diablo:
Good, but you're only showing that putting the money into the bank isn't quite as good as investing it directly (if there's anything to invest in). How does "we need to tax the rich more" have anything to do with that? After all, as you admit, the money in the bank is loaned out, so it's not "rotting". (You're contradicting yourself.) After all, there are only two things you can do with money - it will either be consumed or invested.

Quote:
But that is not the issue, the issue is that you partially claimed that "tax where evil", and I have yet to hear a explanation on it.
Taxes are (a necessary) evil, because the government takes from people by force or threat of force. If someone initiates force against someone else, that harms them.
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Raelag84
Raelag84


Famous Hero
posted April 15, 2011 05:55 AM

I think there is a middle ground with this issue of a progressive tax.

What if we had a progressive tax that funds programs that don't just give money to poor people, but acctully makes them more productive. That way the poor won't die and the rich will at least get a more productive work force for their money.

I myself am a benificary of such a program. As my employer will attest I am a productive worker, but because of my autism I don't have alot of contacts. A government program eventually (It's government, things are always going to be slow) fixed the problem for me by providing the contacts I needed. Now I am a productive worker for a resort that serves rich people. How's that for a compromise?

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del_diablo
del_diablo


Legendary Hero
Manifest
posted April 15, 2011 11:39 AM

Quote:
del_diablo:
Good, but you're only showing that putting the money into the bank isn't quite as good as investing it directly (if there's anything to invest in). How does "we need to tax the rich more" have anything to do with that? After all, as you admit, the money in the bank is loaned out, so it's not "rotting". (You're contradicting yourself.) After all, there are only two things you can do with money - it will either be consumed or invested.

1. Because the economy is a 0 sum system(almost)
2. The cost of living is fixed
3. "Fair tax" would be to take more of those who will not miss it.
Your argument is already refuted a few posts back
And "rotting"?  If you have 10% of the economy that is never moved around, then it is "rotting", so my assumption are true, for the definiton. If those 10% was invested, they would move.
Besides, in economics the term is "stagnation" not "rotting".

Quote:
Quote:
But that is not the issue, the issue is that you partially claimed that "tax where evil", and I have yet to hear a explanation on it.
Taxes are (a necessary) evil, because the government takes from people by force or threat of force. If someone initiates force against someone else, that harms them.

Seen that argumetn before, and it falls down to the core issue that society is nothing more than veiled threats, and that living is to threaten all other life.
Hence, it is a zero argument reallying on confusion.
Besides, threat of force to make a person live with freedom is better than having each person have infinite amount of threats and thus take freedom of each other.
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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted April 15, 2011 11:19 PM bonus applied by angelito on 28 Apr 2011.
Edited by Corribus at 23:25, 15 Apr 2011.

Yeah, this turned out far longer than I thought it would when I started it a few days ago.  Apologies in advance to your eyes if you decide to read it all.  
_________

Alright, some interesting responses here.  I feel I'm going to be swimming upstream a bit on this one, and I find it particularly irksome that I'm on the same general side as Elodin, but you know what they say about politics and strange bedfellows.

I can’t possibly respond to everything, so I’m going to pick up on major themes.  

JollyJ has accused me of being as bad or worse than Obama because of my treatment of the word “fortunate”.  

Quote:
JJ: as fasr as I have an idea about language, LUCK and LUCKY have different meanings than FORTUNE and FORTUNATE, if you dig a bit deeper.


I hate to break out dictionaries, but in the interest of settling this lexicographic issue I will quote from www.dictionary.com:

Fortunate:

1. Having good fortune; receiving good from uncertain or unexpected sources; lucky: a fortunate young actor who got the lead in the play.

2. Bringing or indicating good fortune; resulting favorably; auspicious: She made a fortunate decision to go on to Medical school.

Related to the word “fortunate” are also the words:

Fortune: 4. chance; luck; 8. good luck; success; prosperity: a family blessed by fortune.

Fortuitous: 1.  happening or produced by chance; accidental: a fortuitous encounter. 2. lucky; fortunate: a series of fortuitous events that advanced her career. )

This usage note is also provided: FORTUNATE  implies that the success is obtained by the operation of favorable circumstances more than by direct effort; it is usually applied to grave or large matters (especially those happening in the ordinary course of things): fortunate in one's choice of a wife; a fortunate investment.

Etymologically speaking, “fortunate” comes from the Latin fortis, meaning chance or luck.

Have I established yet that in common parlance a fortunate outcome is synonymous with a lucky outcome, one brought about by mere chance?

However, let’s disregard what Obama actually said.  That was just a setup for the discussion.  The question really still stands: what part does luck play in success, and if it does play a role, should that be a reason to equalize wealth?

With respect to the first part, I think we need to define luck. Luck refers to the perceived quality of a randomly determined outcome.  Good luck refers to an instance of a perceived favorable outcome and bad luck is the opposite.  A lucky person is someone who is perceived to frequently get favorable outcomes in random processes or nonrandom processes which are perceived to be random.  The word “perceived” is important here, because in truly random processes nobody is more likely to have favorable or unfavorable outcomes.  Furthermore, the frequency of good outcomes that qualifies as being “lucky” varies from person to person, and, more importantly, any given outcome has no universal, inherent value: the value judgment is made by the perceiver.  E.g., while I might consider someone lucky for having a job that allows him to travel a lot, another person, who prefers to stay at home, would consider such a person unlucky.  

[Note also the inherent prevalent bias of thinking that what jobs we have are randomly determined.  Another factor of perception!  I know, this is at least partially attributable to loose language usage, but it still stands that when a lot of people label someone as lucky for this or that, the processes involved are often not random at all.  I might think my best friend is really lucky because he has a really hot girlfriend, but that getting a girlfriend is not the result of a random process, so luck and chance really are inappropriate descriptors at this point.  We often use the term “luck” erroneously to describe anyone who is a situation we perceive as “high quality” or “desirable”, because we neglect to consider the nonrandom factors that influenced the development of that situation.  It’s an emotional rather than rational judgment/determination.]

In truly random processes, work/energy has to be used in order to change the statistical distribution of outcomes.  This is thermodynamics.  Note that a person who works to change their likelihood of a positive outcome will often still be perceived as being lucky, because the perceiver is often not aware of what efforts the person has taken to change his likelihood of obtaining a “positive” outcome.  E.g., a person who wins at cards may be perceived to be lucky, until it is revealed that he was expending energy to cheat and bend the odds in his favor.  This highlights the fact that a person’s “luck” may change, but it only changes because outsiders’ perceptions change as a response to new information or new stimuli.      

As a result of these considerations, I ask: is there really such a thing as an objectively determined “lucky” or “fortunate” person, or is it only something that’s only in our minds?  Some people appear to get positive outcomes on random processes more often than others.  This is a statistical illusion brought about by small sample sizes or systematic bias (which would thus nullify the premise of a truly random process).  Most people have a poor understanding of statistics, which doesn’t help.  The point is that some people are always going to win more than others in the short term.  The question to think about in the context of this discussion is whether it is more morally appropriate for governments to normalize the outcomes, or to normalize – as best it can – the factors which inject systematic bias into the processes which determine those outcomes.  In laymen’s terms, the question is whether you take from the rich and give to the poor (adjust outcomes ex post facto), or do your best to give everyone an equal starting position (remove systematic bias) and let the hard-workers, the disciplined and the good planners reap the rewards they have earned.

Anyway, keeping the idea of perception in mind, consider the following responses from your fellow HC members:

Gnomes: You were born and then basically given a million dollars for being born because of who your father/ mother is. How is this not lucky?

Raelag84: It is lucky to have wealthy parents because no one choose [sic] your parents.

Doomforge: success - financial, at least - is 100% luck based. Even if not via rich parents and profitable friendships, but through intelligence or some other talent - that talent is still nothing of a person's effort, but rather, a lucky dice roll at birth.

JollyJoker: That said, OF COURSE blind Luck plays a starring role: (1) Genetics - not your own doing. They give you mental and bodily prerequisites necessary for certain well-paidjobs [sic]. (2) Heritage and upbringing - not your own doing. Give you more or less opportunities and connections. (3) General surroundings/relative stability and wealth of your respective country - not your own doing.

Jabanoss: I mean it's all very simple, if you are a successful football player then you have either been blessed with a good physique or an usually good ability to train. In both cases you have been lucky enough to have good genes.

There is something fundamentally wrong with these arguments.  

First, the explanation of inheritance (Gnomes and Raeleg) is not a solution, if only because that money didn’t just appear out of thin air.  Someone else had it first and passed it to you.  Thus we are still left with the problem of whether that wealth was generated through “luck” or some other factor.  Jabanoss’s example of a football player also poses some instructive questions.  Supposing a football player is very strong, this is because of two major possibilities: genetics, nutrition, or work ethic.   Work ethic is certainly not luck, and it does take quite a work ethic to become a top-tier athlete.  Nutrition requires discipline (also not based on luck) as well as availability of quality foods (possibly based on luck – good food costs money and proximity to good sources may be based on luck, although we still haven’t determined whether availability of money is based on luck or work).  Genetics may be based on luck – I’ll get to that in a minute.  In any case, we can conclude that while success as an athlete MIGHT have something to do with luck, it certainly isn’t totally so.  After all, even someone with the perfect genes cannot become a famous athlete just by sitting on the couch.

The bigger problem with these arguments has to do with the idea that genetic inheritance is some sort of lottery.  Which prompts the question: Are your genes based on luck?  JJ et al. seem to think so, but it’s not really a simple problem.

For one thing, genes aren’t randomly determined.  You get them from your parents.  Which means that there are a limited number of options – i.e., the genes you could possibly get aren’t drawn from the entire realm of possibilities.  However, what genes you do get from the possible combinations of your parents’ genes are randomly determined (50/50, say, of getting a dominant trait if one of your parents is homozygous recessive and one is heterozygous).  Luck?  Well, hold on. Consider: the gene pool you have access to is not randomly determined – your father CHOSE your mother (and vice-versa), and in so doing CHOSE your gene pool.  No, you have no control over it, but the available combinations from which your genes were derived certainly weren’t randomly determined.  And if any step in a sequence of processes is non-random, then the overall process is non-random, even if it has some random elements.

Aside from genetics, we also are confronted with the insinuation that what family a person is born into is randomly determined. This is a difficult metaphysical problem which, believe it or not, gets into issues of determinism, free will, the soul, and the definition of a person.  I’m not sure I want to get into any of that unless someone really wants to go there.

[I will, however, rather incredulously, call out Doom’s statement that every talent is the result of a dice roll (implied: determined at birth or before).  Really?  Doesn’t that trivialize every accomplishment made by any person ever?  Brilliance might be chalked up to genetics – which aren’t random anyway – but you think every successful violinist, architect, doctor, astronomer, philosopher, comedian, actor, carpenter, acrobat and novelist had nothing to do with their talents or the development of their talents?  I find that as depressing as it is indefensible.]  

So I’ll keep away from that for now.  What I’d like to point out more than anything is that a lot of the quotes above share a comment conceptual error: we must be careful not to confuse a random process with a process over which we have no control.  These two things are not the same, yet this very confusion causes people to ascribe a quality/quantity of luck to something that has nothing whatsoever to do with probability.  For instance, JJ says that luck plays a starring role in: “General surroundings/relative stability and wealth of your respective country - not your own doing.”  No, you have no control over it, but what does that have to do with luck?  Whether I happen to be a citizen of Zimbabwe or France certainly has a perceived quality attached to it.  But was my citizenship really randomly determined?  Let me rephrase: assuming I am a citizen of France (and therefore, likely to be judged as being lucky by many, mostly epicureans ), did I ever have a chance of being born in Zimbabwe?  [Metaphysical problem alert!!] If the answer is no, what has my citizenship to do with chance and luck?  Absolutely nothing!  As I stated above, luck is a perception of quality based on a presumed probabilistic outcome.  And just as perceptions are subjective and often based on poor information and personal biases, so is this notion of luck.

The other issue I want to touch upon is embodied in JJ’s statement:

Quote:
JJ:Indeed, if you think about it - if a doctor or a lawyer, a judge or a politician, an architect or estate agent is wealthy, can you really say their comparative wealth has nothing to do with luck, when you look at a policeman? A nurse? A truck driver? A trashman?


This is a partially valid statement.  The valid part is that it is clear that we cannot conclude that hard work alone ensures success.  I did not mean to imply this in my opening post.  Clearly a trash man works hard, perhaps harder than a doctor even, and yet the compensation is clearly not the same.  Although to be fair, the simple argument that both a trash man a doctor work equally hard for nonequal pay neglects the fact that gaining the doctor skill set takes a lot more time and work than the trash-man skill set does.  Even so, boiling down success to a simple dilemma of luck or hard-work is clearly oversimplifying.  

The invalid part of JJ’s statement is to ascribe this in any way to luck.    

The pay scale itself is due to differing values of the services provided and the basic principles of supply and demand.  Clearly, just about anyone can be a trash man, yet it takes a very specific skill set to be a doctor.  Blizz already addressed this point on page 1, post 13, so I won’t belabor it.  You can argue those values if you want, but
because these values are determined largely through society’s morals, perceptions and needs, and the markets, of course, I think it’s rather inappropriate for government to forcefully impose its own valuation algorithm on these different trades through overzealous tax policies.  In any case, I think that’s beyond the scope of this topic.

As to whether comparative wealth of doctor vs. trash man has to do with luck – I don’t see how that’s the case at all.  The pay scale, as I said, is determined by economics, which certainly isn’t luck.  This leaves the various factors which enable one person to go to medical school versus those which cause a person to “settle” for trash man.  Is luck the only factor here?  I hardly think so.  I might grant you that some random or pseudo-random events in a person’s life can affect what job they eventually have, and certainly your starting point can (which as I’ve is something you can’t control but isn’t necessarily based on luck), but other things clearly have only partial to zero relationship to chance or luck: personal characteristics, ambition, genetics, health, discipline, etc.  

Let me state as a last remark here that true random chance CAN indeed play a role in success.  If you’re in the timber industry and lightning strikes your mill and burns it to the ground, that might be based largely on chance and bad luck.  Certainly a gambler’s success is a perfect example of how success can be based significantly on probabilistic events (but not totally!).  But I submit that what we often perceive to be related to luck is something else masquerading as chance, and it would be immensely difficult to, in an unbiased fashion, separate the factors which are truly chance-based from those which aren’t that feed into “success” – which is, by the way, a term that is also rather subjective.

Strangely, even if you could effect this separation, in the end I do think it’s kind of a moot point.  Even if you were to prove that success is purely determined by chance, I still don’t see how that gives the government the right to equalize wealth and normalize success.  I wonder, would people who advocate this enforced redistribution of “luck” also advocate a government program that takes blood from AIDs patients and injects them into healthy people?  After all, if AIDs patients are unlucky and healthy people are therefore lucky*, should we not, in the spirit of making sure everyone has the same amount of success and health and wellbeing, remove that factor from society and make everyone equal?  Why is it only wealth but not health that should be normalized by stealing poverty/viruses from the poor/sick and giving it to the wealthy/healthy?

I personally think a better solution for everyone would be to help normalize the starting points rather than equalize the end-points.  I feel some sympathy for people who start in poverty and have a much steeper climb toward success than people who start in wealth.  I don’t think the appropriate solution is to steal from the successful and just give to the poor (welfare).  The appropriate solution is to put the poor on the path to success.  That may take some of my tax dollars of course but I’m far more willing to part with tax money in this way than just handing dollar after dollar out to someone just because he doesn’t have a job and likely never will.  Motivate a man to work rather than compensate him for not working.  Because if he fails at that point… well then luck had nothing to do with it.

*The subject of disease is actually a good one to discuss in this context.  Is getting an illness like AIDs or cancer really a matter of luck?  If success could be measured as a function of not getting cancer – does luck have anything to do with success in this case?  Hmm… the analogy is not so bad as you might initially think.  Perhaps future discussion should center around this point.

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mvassilev
mvassilev


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted April 16, 2011 12:27 AM

del_diablo:
Quote:
1. Because the economy is a 0 sum system(almost)
Not even close. Every time there is any kind of voluntary exchange (assuming there's no fraud), there is a gain. It's definitely not zero-sum.

Quote:
If those 10% was invested, they would move.
What I'd like to know is how higher taxes are going to lead to higher investment.

Quote:
Besides, threat of force to make a person live with freedom is better than having each person have infinite amount of threats and thus take freedom of each other.
Of course, which is why I said taxation is a necessary evil. If I didn't, I'd say it was an unnecessary evil.
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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted April 16, 2011 01:23 AM

@mvass
Quote:
If someone initiates force against someone else, that harms them.

Please justify this statement for all instances of force.

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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Undefeatable Hero
posted April 16, 2011 01:43 AM

Suppose I have a set of preferences according to which I act of my own free will. I derive maximum utility from acting according to this set of preferences (if I didn't, I'd have changed how I act until I act in accordance with those preferences), and acting in any other way will make me less happy. The only way to make me act differently is to either present me with a positive incentive to do so (in which case I will voluntarily change the way I act, in a way that is in accordance with my preferences) or to force me to act otherwise (in which case I will necessarily be less happy).
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