LogFAQs > #910682035

Zeus posted...

And skill is nothing more than a poor substitute for luck.

Not unless you're dealing with a definition of luck that is so far removed from what luck actually is it no longer qualifies as luck. See above example of someone programming by just slapping the keyboard.

Yes, for something like bowling or darts someone who just gets really lucky could bowl 300 or throw a nine-shot game - that's still feasible. But someone couldn't practice law or medicine or accounting or engineering just by luck. You couldn't recite Shakespeare on stage with zero practice by luck. That's just not what luck is. You could potentially compensate for some physical abilities (assuming you already know the rules, but even then some things - like, say, playing a musical instrument at a concert level - could not reasonably be done simply by luck), but you can't make up for a lack of knowledge with luck.

If you could, your above stipulation on aging wouldn't apply because you're basically altering how the universe works at that point. You would just continually defy the odds of entropy and cease aging altogether. Since you've already acknowledged that's not the case, there have to be some reasonable limits on this power.

Zeus posted...

For starters, just because you land a job doesn't mean you aren't also going to work and you're wrongly assuming that a certain mindset.

I have no idea what you're saying with the back half of this sentence, but addressing the first part you're now arguing two different things. Above you argued that you would automatically be able to do anything to a high degree - program a fantastic video game, star in a blockbuster movie, etc. - and you would get by purely on luck. Now you're arguing that you would have to work at things.

Those can't both be true. It's impossible to "work at" something if luck already makes you automatically fantastically successful at it. I mean, if I magically made you a champion chess player, able to outplay anyone in the world and even outplay machines, how would you work at that skill? How would you possibly improve something that you're already (for all intents and purposes) perfect at?

Zeus posted...

And if somebody just lucks into things all their life, they're just going to think it's normal.

Yeah, but we're getting to select our own powers here - we're obviously going to be aware of it.

Zeus posted...

Because that stops people?

It would stop me. I'm a one woman kinda guy - open relationships have absolutely zero appeal for me.

Zeus posted...

And you can substitute it for whatever because there's countless stuff that could go wrong and kill you at any point.

Look at it from a statistical point of view. Life expectancy in first world nations is roughly 80 years (give or take a couple years - US is 78, Canada is 82, UK is 81, etc.). That means, on any given day, you have a roughly 1 in 29200 chance - about 0.0034% - of dying to *something*. You don't need fantastic luck to beat those odds.

Zeus posted...

Wait, what? How big of an island now?

Dunno whether you're asking about population or physical size, but pretty small in both cases.
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