I was thinking something very similar as I read the letter and hear people talk about luck in a similar way. I think attributing things to luck, while seemingly humble, can be dismissive and/or simplistic. Yes, we're all lucky to be in our situations -- living in this time, fed, privileged. Though, whether this luck is experienced positively or not is entirely subjective. Also, to ascribe our given situation to luck dismisses the concerted efforts of all living things of this time and past that have guided us to our current situation -- once again, without qualifying it as good or bad. It is almost disabling in it's message. The flip side is that many things happened that were dreamed, planned, intended, and carried out to land us in our situation. This to me feels more empowering, hopeful, appreciative, and also responsible than casting off as merely luck.

I prefer the word opportunity in a lot of those situations.

Sure there's luck in whether or not you get an opportunity but spending the whole day on twitter complaining about _ isn't going to give you any ....

I was searching for what to answer people who attribute everything I’ve done to luck. There’s the classic “It’s strange because the more I work the more I’m lucky”, but that’s very condescending. Thank you for offering me a positive alternative. In a sense it makes me owe work to my society.

I think it's more correct to attribute what you receive to luck, rather than what you give.

On the other hand, if you received nothing in return for your work, would you do it?

Again, this is the filthy accusation that people have scammed their way.

You’ve written one reasoning-in-absurdum, now write the opposite side.

No, it is not an accusation.

If you accept that the world is not "just" (just-world-fallacy), then you will also believe that rewards are indeterministic. It follows that rewards are attributed to luck, while effort and results are (by definition) not.

There is no accusation of dishonesty in this argument, and no need to feel accused of scamming.

(One point is that people who persist longer, receive more awards because the "area" under their luck-curve is larger. And people who have lots bad luck in the beginning get discouraged and stop trying ...)

That's a nice point. A society where everyone makes everything just a little bit better for the next random person will be a society full of nice surprises, rather than nasty ones.

So an answer to the prisoner's dilemma would be a shared belief in doing good? Interesting.

Western Europe (not only) social system is based on such belief. It kept working till a lot of immigrants from pretty bad corrupted countries came in, abusing the system in ways it wasn't planned for.

So it works, sometimes, on limited populations.

It certainly helps when you all look alike and share other similar values.

> not just what's best for ourselves but what's best for all of us

One can paraphrase the Summary of the Law (Luke 10:25-37) as, Seek the truth; face the facts; seek the best for others as for your self.

Couldn't agree more. Many (most?) of our opportunities are afforded by the family, community and society in which we grew up. Of course individual talent and choices make a difference, but it's my feeling that many people wildly underestimate how much their external life circumstances contribute to their success or happiness. In fairness, it goes against our sense of self-efficacy.

Like a lot of things recently, it reminds me again of Timothy Snyder's book On Freedom. I think the world would be on a much better path if more people took its core message to heart: that your "freedom" in how to lead your life is not just an absence of oppression, but something made possible for you by an entire society collaborating on giving others these opportunities, by maintaining infrastructure, education, emergency services, etc. etc.

I like the thought experiment of considering how much of your current life's comforts and liberties you would still have if you lived as a hermit in the woods. Nobody tells you what to do there, but you'd quickly find out how much your luck depended on society.

Being able to buy my food at the supermarket instead of having to go hunt and forage for it every day gives me a lot of additional energy and time to exercise other freedoms.

You're lucky to have that perspective.

What are you trying to say with this, that you disagree, or that it's an intelligent perspective afforded to those who are not hopeless? I don't see how anyone can disagree that the aggregate actions of your parents, your locality, your culture, your nation, play the largest role in the cards you are dealt from the beginning.

> If we make choices based on not just what's best for ourselves but what's best for all of us, we will all suddenly become more "lucky".

I personally know handful of extremely lucky people who spent their entire lives doing the exact opposite of this

I think the point is that this only works in the aggregate. Individuals in a group/organization/society can make small positive decisions that improve the likelihood that any individual in that same group will get "lucky".

There's a sort of "freeloader" problem, though, which is that the ones who get "lucky" don't themselves have to be making positive choices. In fact, being a selfish individual in a group of generous ones can be an easy way to get ahead - as long as you can get away with it without being noticed or punished.

The point is not that individual luck plays no part. It's about what your environment offers you as a baseline, not accounting for individual luck.

I don’t disagree but there is also an immense impact of random, pure luck outside of any environment that plays a huge part in many lives

I read it as in alignment with the previous definition of luck; meaning that a number of previous conscious decisions have created a world where they could come to this understanding of luck

I think it's hard to put into practice, but the veil of ignorance is an interesting philosophy for this