Comment by codexon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by codexon | Hacker News Reader

He has convolved luck with happiness.

If someone believes he is happy, he is happy.

If someone believes he is the lucky, he is not necessarily lucky.

Seeing the world rose colored glasses does not make you any luckier, it makes you happier. By only asking for those that self-identified as lucky or unlucky, he has failed to isolate the variable of happiness.

Here is an excerpt from the book which points out the author's faulty reasoning.

"On average both `lucky' and `unlucky' participants lost about £2.50. Wiseman's conclusion: `The results indicated that luck wasn't due to psychic ability'."

In this quote it is revealed that the people who "felt" lucky really weren't lucky. In fact, they were about as lucky as the people who felt unlucky. The people who were "lucky" also expected to win twice as much as people who felt "unlucky". So his whole experiment is flawed.

This is the type of optimism hawked by many self-help gurus. But then again, it doesn't really matter if your situation really has improved with these "tips" as the Romans found out with church and bread and circuses. Keep the plebs amused and fearful and they will willfully ignore everything else.

I disagree; I think he is just using a slightly different definition of luck than you are. Luck is not simply a matter of "defying the odds" or getting the better end of coinflips more often. It's also about opportunities. I think the article did a nice job of examining how "lucky" people are often more fortunate largely because they give themselves more chances to be lucky.

The point about perception of luck being self-perpetuating is good as well. If you view yourself as unlucky, you will tend to be more timid in situations where you might need a little luck to succeed, while a lucky individual will be willing to take more chances.

This dynamic is very visible in poker... After a run of bad luck, it's very easy to miss an opportunity to do something like play a drawing hand aggressively to make a player fold (I don't want to get the money in and lose, again!), instead taking a more passive, less successful route (I'll call the flop... of course, I missed again and don't have odds to continue, now I have to fold.).

Again, being willing to take risks for greater gain doesn't make you luckier.

In the case of poker, it might be smarter to pretend to play aggressively after a losing streak, but at this point, you are using reverse psychology and you are playing smarter, NOT luckier.

Ever heard of the overaggressive guy that failed a business or died in a stunt? No, of course not. You only hear the success stories which make it seem like the answer to life is aggressiveness.

Re-read the article. The people who considered themselves "lucky" turned out to be more observant, and therefore would encounter unexpected opportunities. The people who considered themselves "unlucky" would miss glaring opportunities that should have been staring them in the face. If opportunities keep on dropping in your lap but not in others, after a while you're likely to feel lucky. If opportunities keep on not dropping in your lap while they do in others, after a while you're likely to feel unlucky. Objectively you just don't understand the source of your consistent fortune. But that is how it will feel.

It isn't about risks or risk-taking at all. It is about better observation leading to noticing and taking advantage of opportunities. What is the risk in being given an offer to easily make 250 British pounds? The unlucky people didn't even see it! (The lucky people presumably would have noticed that, but didn't because they noticed that the second page gave them the answer they were looking for so they didn't read the rest of the paper.)

He then figured out some of the factors that lead to the improved observation rate, and found that he could teach "luckiness" as a skill. Of course you aren't going to actually be lucky if you learn that skill. But if you have it you'll have more opportunities to take advantage of. And that's pretty worthwhile.

That is easily an artifact of verification bias.

There was no effort in trying to introduce events that would be negative if aggressively pursued such as a Nigerian 411 or lottery scam. You certainly aren't lucky if you noticed one of these and decided it was a nice opportunity.

The perception is definitely verification bias. However there was an effort to train "unlucky" people to be more "lucky", and there was evidence that this really improved their lives. So while there are cases that it will cause them to fall for scams, on the whole it seems to be a good change.

The "training" wasn't actually luck, it was a training of attitude.

Sure it may have improved their lives, but attributing this to luck is as much of a mistake as saying that learning to prospect for gold is increasing my luck at getting rich.

You conflate two separate things there – 'noticing' and 'deciding it was a nice opportunity'.

The article claimed that noticing opportunities was a characteristic of lucky people. It did not say that lucky people were any more likely to be more risk-taking or credulous than other people.

> The article claimed that noticing opportunities was a characteristic of lucky people. It did not say that lucky people were any more likely to be more risk-taking or credulous than other people.

No I did not conflate them. The author only presented "good" opportunities, so it is obvious that the people who noticed them would always benefit from being more observant of things they deem good.

In fact this attitude made them more expectant that good things happen to them, as evidenced by the lottery test where they expected to win twice as much as the people who were "unlucky".

If you naturally expect to benefit more from any such activity, isn't this naturally more risk-taking and credulous?

The article was saying that luck was down to mindset, not psychic ability!

Richard Wiseman's claims are in no way affected by the experiment you just mentioned, because games of pure chance are not affected by mindset. Most of life is affected by mindset.

Again you and the author are twisting the definition of luck.

I will use this example again. If I learn how to prospect for gold, does this count as increasing my luck since chances are higher that I will be able to find gold? The answer is a resounding no.

Getting a better life from a positive mindset cannot be attributed to luck anymore than learning any other skill (say a MD) is making me any luckier.

Twisting your definition of luck? Obviously the "lucky" people in the experiment considered themselves lucky based on a different metric than yours. The "unlucky" people seemed to be using a similar metric. This experiment addressed that metric. So what's the problem?

I will use this example again. If I learn how to prospect for gold, does this count as increasing my luck since chances are higher that I will be able to find gold?

How did you learn to prospect for gold? How did you decide where to prospect? If you're "lucky", you saw someone at the bar buy a round of shots because of a nice day prospecting, you struck up a conversation with him, became acquaintances, and joined him on his next prospecting trip. If you're "unlucky", you thought, Man, that guy's so lucky. Everyone's luckier than me, as you took the shot and ordered another beer.

The "unlucky" people seemed to be using a similar metric. This experiment addressed that metric. So what's the problem?

Like I said before, just because you think you are lucky does not mean you are lucky. Just as thinking that you are smart does not mean you are smart.

If you're "lucky", you saw someone at the bar buy a round of shots because of a nice day prospecting, you struck up a conversation with him, became acquaintances, and joined him on his next prospecting trip. If you're "unlucky", you thought, Man, that guy's so lucky. Everyone's luckier than me, as you took the shot and ordered another beer.

That isn't called luck. That is called being optimistic.

Consider this scenario: "Lucky" person A notices a Nigerian 411 scam, and decides to do it, not knowing it was a scam, while "unlucky" person B does not know that those are scams as well, but did not notice it anyway because "unlucky" people are less perceptive.

Who is truly the lucky one now? The "unlucky" person is, because not only did he not waste his time on that "opportunity", but the chance that he does not lose any money is much higher than the "lucky" chump who likes to believe that everything is a gift from the heavens just for him.

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