The idea was still pissing people off decades later
April 14, 2025 12:48 AM Subscribe
What are the chances? That a lapsed luck philosopher meets an unluckiness magnet on Tinder and falls for her? That she falls for him? That she gets diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis? That they lose their accommodations over a coffee-pod dispute? It was the question Whittington the philosopher was initially pushing against. from Does Luck Exist? [Intelligencer; ungated]
In 2020, a professor at the University of Iowa named Michael Sauder noticed that one subject was tacitly off-limits in sociology. No matter how hard you looked, the literature was curiously silent about luck.
Could read Richard Wiseman's book....pretty unlucky to miss that out of a lit review?
Edited to add that Wiseman pops up nearly halfway through.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 2:25 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]
Could read Richard Wiseman's book....pretty unlucky to miss that out of a lit review?
Edited to add that Wiseman pops up nearly halfway through.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 2:25 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]
This feels like mostly the primacy effect? Once you start thinking you're lucky or unlucky, everything good or bad that happens to you could contribute to that "diagnosis."
Also, people make poor choices that seem good at the time. That doesn't mean they have bad luck.
I dunno, I'm unconvinced. And then
For Frank, the Cornell economist, it was the difference between life and death. After an episode of sudden cardiac arrest on the tennis court, his survival depended on the fluke of an ambulance being nearby, having been dispatched to a car accident that involved no serious injuries, allowing those EMTs to scoot a few hundred yards to get to him.
Stuff like this too, where one cannot know the outcome had things been different, attributing survival to luck...again, unknowable.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:52 AM on April 14 [7 favorites]
Also, people make poor choices that seem good at the time. That doesn't mean they have bad luck.
I dunno, I'm unconvinced. And then
For Frank, the Cornell economist, it was the difference between life and death. After an episode of sudden cardiac arrest on the tennis court, his survival depended on the fluke of an ambulance being nearby, having been dispatched to a car accident that involved no serious injuries, allowing those EMTs to scoot a few hundred yards to get to him.
Stuff like this too, where one cannot know the outcome had things been different, attributing survival to luck...again, unknowable.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:52 AM on April 14 [7 favorites]
Does luck exist? If free will exists? Sure. When all the quantum probabilities align in a way that goes with your interests that's luck.
Can you enhance luck? Sure. You can make your odds better by choosing your time. It's why casinos throw out card counters.
Do any animals have an affinity for luck? Dogs. They get you outside and in your neighborhood. Since I got a dog my local social connections have expanded by literal orders of magnitude. They are serendipity magnets.
Can you see the luck in certain things happening to you and feel luckier? Sure.
Can you rely on luck? Hell no.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:17 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
Can you enhance luck? Sure. You can make your odds better by choosing your time. It's why casinos throw out card counters.
Do any animals have an affinity for luck? Dogs. They get you outside and in your neighborhood. Since I got a dog my local social connections have expanded by literal orders of magnitude. They are serendipity magnets.
Can you see the luck in certain things happening to you and feel luckier? Sure.
Can you rely on luck? Hell no.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:17 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
Simon Clark's dad advocates Proactive Serendipity [10m YT]. My mother otoh, who was lucky, reckoned that you make your own luck by being alert to opportunities / choices and having a punt.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:21 AM on April 14 [3 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:21 AM on April 14 [3 favorites]
Do you want Teela Brown!?! This is how you end up with Teela Brown!!!
But seriously folks, I'm not seeing anything in this article that can define what luck is, much less measure it. I don't think we're in any danger of Puppeteer eugenics just yet.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 6:46 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
But seriously folks, I'm not seeing anything in this article that can define what luck is, much less measure it. I don't think we're in any danger of Puppeteer eugenics just yet.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 6:46 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
“We didn’t have enough money or job security at the time to play it safe, so we had to take a long-shot gamble,”
From AA, to used car being a lemon, to failing to fill out paperwork, to not reading terms and conditions, to taking the cheapest option to solve a problem without due diligence - almost every example of "bad luck" is "I shaved things down to a cheap and quick solution because I lacked the time and money to go with more reliable alternatives, and it didn't go perfectly".
Even something "trivial" like a middle name on a passport? We spent hours discussing that and looking at the implications of its presence or absence. That it was "luck" means they filled out life-changing paperwork with either gleeful abandon or a complete lack of time and care.
posted by NotAYakk at 6:52 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
From AA, to used car being a lemon, to failing to fill out paperwork, to not reading terms and conditions, to taking the cheapest option to solve a problem without due diligence - almost every example of "bad luck" is "I shaved things down to a cheap and quick solution because I lacked the time and money to go with more reliable alternatives, and it didn't go perfectly".
Even something "trivial" like a middle name on a passport? We spent hours discussing that and looking at the implications of its presence or absence. That it was "luck" means they filled out life-changing paperwork with either gleeful abandon or a complete lack of time and care.
posted by NotAYakk at 6:52 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
Was it luck (good or bad), the result of a series of events, choice?
I think that I don’t know what I think about luck. Does it exist? Sometimes I think it does and other days I don’t. Can it be explained? I think that pretty much everything can be explained but explanations aren’t necessarily always correct. What about pattern recognition? Human beings are really good at finding patterns where they don’t exist but we’re also pretty good at spotting patterns that are hard to see. Until something comes along that says “hey, hi! I’m the thing that has been helping/hindering you all these years” there’s really no way to know.
The big thing in this story, the thing that sticks out to me is that their luck seemed to change once they had stability in their lives which is no surprise at all.
posted by ashbury at 7:22 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
I think that I don’t know what I think about luck. Does it exist? Sometimes I think it does and other days I don’t. Can it be explained? I think that pretty much everything can be explained but explanations aren’t necessarily always correct. What about pattern recognition? Human beings are really good at finding patterns where they don’t exist but we’re also pretty good at spotting patterns that are hard to see. Until something comes along that says “hey, hi! I’m the thing that has been helping/hindering you all these years” there’s really no way to know.
The big thing in this story, the thing that sticks out to me is that their luck seemed to change once they had stability in their lives which is no surprise at all.
posted by ashbury at 7:22 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
I went into the article thinking "this really requires having a solid definition of luck".
In the realm of probability and statistics, the existence of luck is almost trivially testable, and anyone who says it exists is (justifiably) dismissed as not a serious thinker.
In the realm of psychology, when we get into the interplay of our experiences in the world and how our perceptions of those experiences are attributed to "luck", things are not so straightforward and testability isuch more difficult. The example from the article of where you are born having huge effects on your opportunities in life fits into this category.
What's frustrating to me is when you presume "luck" means the same thing in both of these realms, which is what this article (the the discussed philosopher) seem to want to do in spades.
posted by Pemdas at 7:23 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
In the realm of probability and statistics, the existence of luck is almost trivially testable, and anyone who says it exists is (justifiably) dismissed as not a serious thinker.
In the realm of psychology, when we get into the interplay of our experiences in the world and how our perceptions of those experiences are attributed to "luck", things are not so straightforward and testability isuch more difficult. The example from the article of where you are born having huge effects on your opportunities in life fits into this category.
What's frustrating to me is when you presume "luck" means the same thing in both of these realms, which is what this article (the the discussed philosopher) seem to want to do in spades.
posted by Pemdas at 7:23 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
There has been some really bad incidents where Hertz has had its customers arrested after falsely claiming they stole the car. So I'd recommend staying clear of Hertz.
posted by coberh at 7:36 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
posted by coberh at 7:36 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
I really enjoyed this article. While it wasn't conclusive -- how could it be, really? -- the author brought a variety of thinking and research to the table, and told a heck of a story in the process.
I think Wiseman's newspaper experiment, while a little fuzzy, was clever and maybe does tell us something. From the article: "The unlucky among his volunteers were less likely to notice those messages than their lucky counterparts: They were too anxious to see opportunity and good fortune staring them in the face."
Which is sort of the counterpoint to what I've always felt is the best take on luck, that of the legendary baseball general manager Branch Rickey: "Luck is the residue of design."
Rickey is deservedly best known for being the Brooklyn Dodgers executive who signed Jackie Robinson and launched integration in major league baseball. Previously, though, he had an amazing run of success with the St. Louis Cardinals, winning (iirc) five or six NL championships and three World Series in a little over a decade. Takes some luck, right?
Well, Rickey's almost as well known for the being the person who invented the "farm system," where major league teams own or operate a slate of minor league teams that serve as training grounds or finishing school for young players. His Cardinals farm system produced a bunch of Hall of Famers, including Stan Musial, Enos Slaughter, Joe Medwick and Dizzy Dean, who led them to those wins. So it's design, right?
Or was it luck, in that they recruited and signed the right schoolboy players? But those signings came from building a robust professional scouting system, so, design. But how'd Rickey get the sharp-eyed scouts, and how'd the scouts get the kids to sign on the dotted line?
Maybe it's design, with the residue of luck, all the way down.
posted by martin q blank at 7:59 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
I think Wiseman's newspaper experiment, while a little fuzzy, was clever and maybe does tell us something. From the article: "The unlucky among his volunteers were less likely to notice those messages than their lucky counterparts: They were too anxious to see opportunity and good fortune staring them in the face."
Which is sort of the counterpoint to what I've always felt is the best take on luck, that of the legendary baseball general manager Branch Rickey: "Luck is the residue of design."
Rickey is deservedly best known for being the Brooklyn Dodgers executive who signed Jackie Robinson and launched integration in major league baseball. Previously, though, he had an amazing run of success with the St. Louis Cardinals, winning (iirc) five or six NL championships and three World Series in a little over a decade. Takes some luck, right?
Well, Rickey's almost as well known for the being the person who invented the "farm system," where major league teams own or operate a slate of minor league teams that serve as training grounds or finishing school for young players. His Cardinals farm system produced a bunch of Hall of Famers, including Stan Musial, Enos Slaughter, Joe Medwick and Dizzy Dean, who led them to those wins. So it's design, right?
Or was it luck, in that they recruited and signed the right schoolboy players? But those signings came from building a robust professional scouting system, so, design. But how'd Rickey get the sharp-eyed scouts, and how'd the scouts get the kids to sign on the dotted line?
Maybe it's design, with the residue of luck, all the way down.
posted by martin q blank at 7:59 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
"Superstition brings bad luck." --- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum.
posted by SPrintF at 8:26 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 8:26 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
In the realm of probability and statistics, the existence of luck is almost trivially testable, and anyone who says it exists is (justifiably) dismissed as not a serious thinker.
I don't really understand this assertion. If you sample a probability distribution ten times for ten different people, the person with the greatest deviation from the mean is the (un)lucky one. How is that not a perfectly rational and relevant definition of luck?
posted by grog at 9:09 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
I don't really understand this assertion. If you sample a probability distribution ten times for ten different people, the person with the greatest deviation from the mean is the (un)lucky one. How is that not a perfectly rational and relevant definition of luck?
posted by grog at 9:09 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
If causation can propagate backward in time, which is at least a respectable hypothesis in physics these days, then I think luck could exist.
I've had a handful of prescient dreams and so did my mother, and if such dreams are a real phenomenon, they would also seem to entail the possibility of luck.
posted by jamjam at 9:21 AM on April 14 [3 favorites]
I've had a handful of prescient dreams and so did my mother, and if such dreams are a real phenomenon, they would also seem to entail the possibility of luck.
posted by jamjam at 9:21 AM on April 14 [3 favorites]
Any time I feel close to giving in to the seductive idea that life’s disappointments are unevenly distributed, I remind myself of this quote from Cormac McCarthy: “ You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
posted by runningdogofcapitalism at 9:41 AM on April 14 [16 favorites]
posted by runningdogofcapitalism at 9:41 AM on April 14 [16 favorites]
I don't really understand this assertion. If you sample a probability distribution ten times for ten different people, the person with the greatest deviation from the mean is the (un)lucky one. How is that not a perfectly rational and relevant definition of luck?
I guess that deserves some clarification. If you define luck as having had good outcomes from random processes, sure, no one in the prob and stats world is going to have an issue with that. But if you define luck as something attached to a person that influences the outcome of random processes, that's what's easily testable and dismissed.
Perhaps it's good to distinguish between "I got lucky" and "I am lucky".
posted by Pemdas at 10:24 AM on April 14 [7 favorites]
I guess that deserves some clarification. If you define luck as having had good outcomes from random processes, sure, no one in the prob and stats world is going to have an issue with that. But if you define luck as something attached to a person that influences the outcome of random processes, that's what's easily testable and dismissed.
Perhaps it's good to distinguish between "I got lucky" and "I am lucky".
posted by Pemdas at 10:24 AM on April 14 [7 favorites]
“had they been parked on the street, the automobile association’s jumpstart would’ve been free, but because it was in a driveway, the guy had no choice but to charge them 150 pounds.”
OK no. You know if you put the vehicle in neutral and push it into the street, they’ll tow it/jump it/whatever the contract says for free. I have done this. You say, “Yeah, I had just pulled out to go to the grocery store (or whatever) and it died ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “
posted by toodleydoodley at 10:50 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
OK no. You know if you put the vehicle in neutral and push it into the street, they’ll tow it/jump it/whatever the contract says for free. I have done this. You say, “Yeah, I had just pulled out to go to the grocery store (or whatever) and it died ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “
posted by toodleydoodley at 10:50 AM on April 14 [4 favorites]
jamjam: " I've had a handful of prescient dreams and so did my mother, and if such dreams are a real phenomenon, they would also seem to entail the possibility of luck."
Right? If luck exists then you’d think that all the things within the sphere of spirituality, ghosts, devils and demons and angels, elves and fairies and goblins, esp, witchcraft and wizardry, precognition, and so on would also have to exist. And vice versa. I think that this is where many people who consider themselves to be rational hit a wall; that stuff isn’t real so how can luck be real? It’s easier to put luck in a separate category from that stuff (along with superstition, perhaps), laugh about it and admit that it’s silly but still somewhat believe in it.
posted by ashbury at 10:56 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
Right? If luck exists then you’d think that all the things within the sphere of spirituality, ghosts, devils and demons and angels, elves and fairies and goblins, esp, witchcraft and wizardry, precognition, and so on would also have to exist. And vice versa. I think that this is where many people who consider themselves to be rational hit a wall; that stuff isn’t real so how can luck be real? It’s easier to put luck in a separate category from that stuff (along with superstition, perhaps), laugh about it and admit that it’s silly but still somewhat believe in it.
posted by ashbury at 10:56 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
Ray Charles & Jimmy lewis - If it wasn't for bad luck
posted by ashbury at 10:58 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]
posted by ashbury at 10:58 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]
Perhaps it's good to distinguish between "I got lucky" and "I am lucky".
IMO that's kind a meaningless distinction, though in aggregate I completely agree. Statistics cover populations of events, not individual outcomes, people's memories are short, and reasons for success or failure are myriad. And lives are collections of events. A person who has several positive events in a defined time period where they are in the group with the greatest deviation from the mean is a 'lucky person'.
It's basically the same as the stock con where you send recommendations pro and against certain stocks to a large group of people, and the few where you got every one right - that's the target of the con.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:04 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]
IMO that's kind a meaningless distinction, though in aggregate I completely agree. Statistics cover populations of events, not individual outcomes, people's memories are short, and reasons for success or failure are myriad. And lives are collections of events. A person who has several positive events in a defined time period where they are in the group with the greatest deviation from the mean is a 'lucky person'.
It's basically the same as the stock con where you send recommendations pro and against certain stocks to a large group of people, and the few where you got every one right - that's the target of the con.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:04 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]
> A person who has several positive events in a defined time period
> where they are in the group with the greatest deviation from the
> mean is a 'lucky person'.
That's just defining a "lucky person" as "a person who got lucky", which is trite. If that person is somehow always the one who gets lucky, time after time, then you can start to wonder whether the luck is a characteristic of the person rather than just random, which is what I think was really meant by a "lucky person". And if that person's offspring also show the same trait then... well, see the Teela Brown refrence upthread. But really, it suggests that that person is just able and willing to make better decisions in more situations than most people, which can be the result of many things other than "luck".
On the flip side, I know a few people who consider themselves "unlucky people" because they too frequently experience bad outcomes and their lives are never-ending drama. This is surely a personal trait but it is not "bad luck" - it's not hard to run your life in a way that leads to this happening but it's harder to see that you're doing that when you're the one doing it, and even harder to see how to change it.
posted by merlynkline at 3:18 PM on April 14 [4 favorites]
> where they are in the group with the greatest deviation from the
> mean is a 'lucky person'.
That's just defining a "lucky person" as "a person who got lucky", which is trite. If that person is somehow always the one who gets lucky, time after time, then you can start to wonder whether the luck is a characteristic of the person rather than just random, which is what I think was really meant by a "lucky person". And if that person's offspring also show the same trait then... well, see the Teela Brown refrence upthread. But really, it suggests that that person is just able and willing to make better decisions in more situations than most people, which can be the result of many things other than "luck".
On the flip side, I know a few people who consider themselves "unlucky people" because they too frequently experience bad outcomes and their lives are never-ending drama. This is surely a personal trait but it is not "bad luck" - it's not hard to run your life in a way that leads to this happening but it's harder to see that you're doing that when you're the one doing it, and even harder to see how to change it.
posted by merlynkline at 3:18 PM on April 14 [4 favorites]
Humans are very bad at probability. The_Vegetables has it, with the stock scam— in older days it was horse races. If the chances of something are one in a billion, then it happened to eight people on the planet. That's the chances of, say, getting heads 30 times in a row (if everyone is trying).
I feel for the woman in the article, but someone is always on the bad end of the odds, however you define them. That is, I'm afraid, a more parsimonious explanation than that godlings are watching over us and interfering for good or ill. (Consider that Ms. Davis's demon would have to have control over websites, her relationships, her health, her car, her research subjects, etc. That's a very miscellaneous set of powers.)
I think it's inappropriate to look for failings on Davis's part, but it's certainly conceivable that some kinds of "bad luck" depend on personality or unconscious habits. And FWIW "bad luck" is an unfalsifiable hypothesis: everything bad confirms it, anything good is ignored.
posted by zompist at 4:30 PM on April 14 [4 favorites]
I feel for the woman in the article, but someone is always on the bad end of the odds, however you define them. That is, I'm afraid, a more parsimonious explanation than that godlings are watching over us and interfering for good or ill. (Consider that Ms. Davis's demon would have to have control over websites, her relationships, her health, her car, her research subjects, etc. That's a very miscellaneous set of powers.)
I think it's inappropriate to look for failings on Davis's part, but it's certainly conceivable that some kinds of "bad luck" depend on personality or unconscious habits. And FWIW "bad luck" is an unfalsifiable hypothesis: everything bad confirms it, anything good is ignored.
posted by zompist at 4:30 PM on April 14 [4 favorites]
but someone is always on the bad end of the odds, however you define them.
drive on the wrong side of the road, you keep on crashing
posted by ovvl at 5:30 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]
drive on the wrong side of the road, you keep on crashing
posted by ovvl at 5:30 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]
For Frank, the Cornell economist, it was the difference between life and death. After an episode of sudden cardiac arrest on the tennis court, his survival depended on the fluke of an ambulance being nearby, having been dispatched to a car accident that involved no serious injuries, allowing those EMTs to scoot a few hundred yards to get to him.
I think it's much more lucky to not have a cardiac arrest in the first place. In that sense, I'm much luckier every day than Frank was that day.
"Luck" is a nonsense word. It doesn't have any meaningful definition.
posted by signal at 7:30 PM on April 14 [2 favorites]
I think it's much more lucky to not have a cardiac arrest in the first place. In that sense, I'm much luckier every day than Frank was that day.
"Luck" is a nonsense word. It doesn't have any meaningful definition.
posted by signal at 7:30 PM on April 14 [2 favorites]
Physics allows for reverse causality: but humanity's location in the universe does not. At our scale, temperature, time since the big bang macroscopic reverse causality is so unlikely that I lack the math to distinguish it from zero.
In the cold heath death of the ancient future, when even iron stars have evaporated, the arrow of time will no longer point. But here and now the enthropic pressure of our shared circumstance make the weathervane of time point hither.
So no, there ain't a mechanism for dreaming the future. Even dreams are far too heavy to float backwards.
posted by NotAYakk at 9:50 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]
In the cold heath death of the ancient future, when even iron stars have evaporated, the arrow of time will no longer point. But here and now the enthropic pressure of our shared circumstance make the weathervane of time point hither.
So no, there ain't a mechanism for dreaming the future. Even dreams are far too heavy to float backwards.
posted by NotAYakk at 9:50 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]
The problem is that statistically we are all the most incredibly improbable of extremely unlikely miracles. Each of us is 1 out millions of sperm combined with one out of 250 eggs combining at each step of lineage existing on the most absurd just-so fallacy of a world in a just-so fallacy of a galaxy in a just-so universe, etc...
You might have some localized misfortune, even terrible misfortune, but it is still completely overwhelmed by how staggering lucky every single person is to even exist at all on this weird rock hurtling through space. That I exist is such ridiculous good luck for me.
posted by srboisvert at 7:21 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]
You might have some localized misfortune, even terrible misfortune, but it is still completely overwhelmed by how staggering lucky every single person is to even exist at all on this weird rock hurtling through space. That I exist is such ridiculous good luck for me.
posted by srboisvert at 7:21 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]
While reading the article, I tried to answer Bezos' "Are you lucky?" question for myself.
For example, in a Master's program, I was a little bored in class so I worked through an unrelated and sticky population genetics problem, solving it after a lot of legwork and a flash of inspiration. That same exact problem showed up on the exam, and I got a perfect score.
Another example involves scoring parking spaces. Only after much experience accrued did I start to consider certain blocks "lucky," but of course each one has its own schedule and turnover rate, all of which eventually became known to me. Also, it helps to know where alternate side parking is forcing everyone to clear out, as well as "luckier" times of day, etc.
Every example I could think of represented "the residue of design" or the lack thereof, so I'll say that luck is what's left after knowledge and judgment reach their limits.
But do I believe in jinxes? Do I try not to anger the gods with my hubris?
Damn right I do.
posted by whuppy at 7:59 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]
For example, in a Master's program, I was a little bored in class so I worked through an unrelated and sticky population genetics problem, solving it after a lot of legwork and a flash of inspiration. That same exact problem showed up on the exam, and I got a perfect score.
Another example involves scoring parking spaces. Only after much experience accrued did I start to consider certain blocks "lucky," but of course each one has its own schedule and turnover rate, all of which eventually became known to me. Also, it helps to know where alternate side parking is forcing everyone to clear out, as well as "luckier" times of day, etc.
Every example I could think of represented "the residue of design" or the lack thereof, so I'll say that luck is what's left after knowledge and judgment reach their limits.
But do I believe in jinxes? Do I try not to anger the gods with my hubris?
Damn right I do.
posted by whuppy at 7:59 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]
I hear that Stoicism has gotten a bad name these days, but there's something to looking at fortune and misfortune with a sense of equanimity.
For example, Alzheimer's runs in our family. My maternal grandmother's last years were awful for everyone. Who's to say my Mom succumbing to cancer in her 80s with a clear mind was a worse fate?
And then there's my best friend, who also succumbed to cancer. His mom also had a brutal and prolonged case of Alzheimer's. Harder to say he was "saved" because he died about 26 years younger than my Mom.
What's the lesson here? Look for a silver lining but don't be a Dr. Pangloss about it? Fuck if I know.
Good luck, everyone! You'll need it.
posted by whuppy at 8:16 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]
For example, Alzheimer's runs in our family. My maternal grandmother's last years were awful for everyone. Who's to say my Mom succumbing to cancer in her 80s with a clear mind was a worse fate?
And then there's my best friend, who also succumbed to cancer. His mom also had a brutal and prolonged case of Alzheimer's. Harder to say he was "saved" because he died about 26 years younger than my Mom.
What's the lesson here? Look for a silver lining but don't be a Dr. Pangloss about it? Fuck if I know.
Good luck, everyone! You'll need it.
posted by whuppy at 8:16 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]
A person who has several positive events in a defined time period where they are in the group with the greatest deviation from the mean is a 'lucky person'.
But what is being discussed here is whether you can label anyone or anything 'lucky' in the sense of "will be lucky in the future."
posted by straight at 4:31 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]
But what is being discussed here is whether you can label anyone or anything 'lucky' in the sense of "will be lucky in the future."
posted by straight at 4:31 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]
Humans are very bad at probability.
I felt this acutely when I worked in market research. If an outcome was predicted as 90% probable and it didn't happen, people consistently assumed the prediction was inaccurate rather than accepting that that 10% was what happened. See also: election results.
"our minds run less on math, more on stories"
I think "luck", like most things, is us attempting to create order out of chaos. By using a thought-terminating cliche of "that was lucky/unlucky" you reduce the cognitive load of having to think about all the interconnected and often random systems that caused the outcome in question. We all know that we don't know why some things happen but rather than sit in that uncertainty, it's easier to file it under "luck" and move on.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:38 AM on April 16 [1 favorite]
I felt this acutely when I worked in market research. If an outcome was predicted as 90% probable and it didn't happen, people consistently assumed the prediction was inaccurate rather than accepting that that 10% was what happened. See also: election results.
"our minds run less on math, more on stories"
I think "luck", like most things, is us attempting to create order out of chaos. By using a thought-terminating cliche of "that was lucky/unlucky" you reduce the cognitive load of having to think about all the interconnected and often random systems that caused the outcome in question. We all know that we don't know why some things happen but rather than sit in that uncertainty, it's easier to file it under "luck" and move on.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:38 AM on April 16 [1 favorite]
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