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Comment by Noaidi | Hacker News Reader

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That is simply not true. If 6 completely qualified people make it to the last stage of an interview based on their qualifications, but the final chosen person was done by die roll, there was still non-luck involved. No amount of luck would have gotten you to the last stage in this example, and the only way for luck to have mattered is if you also put in the leg work.

I did not say there was no non luck involved. I said the outcome is always determined by luck.

An example will help maybe. If I need $10 and someone tells me they will give me $9 but the last dollar will be give to me based on the flip of a coin, I only can get that $10 if I am lucky.

And you can even put the luck at the beginning. Same situation but the person says I will give you $9 only if you get the first $1 based on the flip of a coin.

The only way you get $10 in those situations is based all on a lucky outcome. No amount of preparation can guarantee an outcome that involves luck.

I know it is hard because most have beeen brainwashed to think all success is based only on merit and hard work, but it is a lie told to us by lucky people.

Your two examples are extremely different. Walking away with $9 if you're unlucky and walking away with $0 if you're unlucky are two incredibly different outcomes.

Being successful from winning the lottery, versus being successful from working hard enough such that you qualify for a lottery with significantly better odds.

Sure luck is Involved, the outcome is determined by luck, but work is putting a hand on the scales. And in that sense, your prior comment of it being 100% luck is exaggerated

You can diminish luck, but you can’t get rid of it. That’s my point.

You said it yourself and your own sentence. The outcome is determined by luck. That was my only point which no one seems to want to accept.

But what is there to accept? I was lucky to be born and not be run over by a truck today. What is the purpose of this information? How do I internalize it and use it to guide my behaviour?

At least they sent the application, that was effort. So it can't be 100% luck right?

I did not say it was all luck. I said if any part of the outcome depends on luck, effort is meaningless when it come to the result. This is not to say that doing nothing is better, I am just being realistic.

But even going with your examples, effort isn't "meaningless", it's insufficient.

I might have misunderstood as english is not my native language but the 100% doesn't sit right with me in the original sentence.

In general I feel people downplay the effects of luck by a lot. My thinking is that the effort is everything but meaningless, in fact it's probably the only thing you can control.

Even if I agree with that characterization, I don’t see how that changes anything from what I said before.

I am sorry if you got “my success is purely because I am a hyper-talented genius” from my anecdote there, because that certainly wasn’t intended. There was absolutely luck involved, no argument, but my point about “applying to a job I wasn’t qualified for” still can hold.

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