is luck real?

[aezakmi]

A lot of people say "that's bad luck" when something bad happens or "good luck" to show support or wish good stuff to someone.

but what is luck? does good/bad luck exist? I think facts and probability are more real

 

Last month I just had 10 exams and passed all of them with decent scores, and everyone told me how lucky I was, because guess... I didn't study for any of those exams, literally, I just went to some classes and even skipped a few to hang with friends, then I heard some guys studied even for A WEEK and still didn't managed to pass or got 0/10 points (you pass with at least a 5/10) my lowest one was 7.75/10 because I skipped two questions

I'm currently in the 3rd year of aeronautical engineering and a lot already dropped out of it because of the exams being too hard, I've been doing this since high school and it's been working so far lol

I'm not a nerd btw I like to hang out and don't like card or board games

 

[PlayStation 2]

I'm not real superstitious but there's just some things that nothing, to me anyway, can really explain, including stuff that involves me getting "lucky", so I'd argue luck is real, to an extent.

[Syntaxvgm]

I have a friend that if he sticks money into a lottery machine, he WILL win a small payout, like 100+. And hell buy more with the winnings (like 10$ worth, not the whole winnings), and win again. This has happened to him multiple times. 

He will do something like ask for a raise that I know is not in the companies budget, doenst match the position, in a job he could be replaced in easily and get it. Anything he does that is irresponsible, equivalent to dousing his life in gasoline and lighting a match just works out for him. 

Im not saying luck exists, I'm saying life is bullshit. 

[Drak3]

Luck is just a concept that excuses incompetence, either one's own or that of a third party.

 

You'd say it's bad luck that I'm going to wait more than two weeks for a shotgun that should have gotten to me in one.

 

I'd say I'm not buying jack shit online from Cabela's again.

[mr moose]

If by luck you mean random events that seem too improbable but in reality are very probably due to cognitive bias then sure,  luck exists.  I know lots of people who have not studied and passed, and a few that have studied and failed and even some who did middle ground.  Hell I even know one person who didn't even attend the exam or hand in the final assessment and still got a distinction.   9/10 it just comes down to what mood the assessor is in as to whether you pass or fail etc.    That's just life, it'll continue to happen in the work place too, you'll forget to hand something in and the boss will call you into the office and either due the fact someone else got the blame or he got a decent blowy that morning,  instead of getting punished you'll get promoted.

[aezakmi]

51 minutes ago, mr moose said:

9/10 it just comes down to what mood the assessor is in as to whether you pass or fail

they must be in a twisted mood when it comes to exams, I've seen a dude who wrote 4 pages fail because what he wrote "wasn't requested"

 

53 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Luck is just a concept that excuses incompetence, either one's own or that of a third party.

agree, wouldn't say that's "bad luck"

have you ever felt like you're surrounded of a bunch of incompetent a**hats? I did, in school, working, university, hell it even looks like some people is doing it on purpose because they don't have anything else to do but ruin others life

[Okjoek]

Luck is like a math equation cluttered with variables that we don't know the values of so we just put fancy letters in their place like X or Y. That's one way I've often looked at it.

[Tog Driver]

I don't really think so, it's just a word used to describe something that seems unlikely, happening, maybe multiple times in a row.

 

maybe something like, you are doing something really important, and nothing unimportant comes up to distract you, but when you're not doing something important you are surrounded by distractions, and this happens every day for two weeks.

[Syntaxvgm]

22 minutes ago, Arika S said:

well i wouldn't say it was incompetence that i survived a car crash that i absolutely should not have. walking away with very minor injuries (few scratches) from a 180km/h (combined) head on (other guys fault) and only spending about 2 hours in hospital is pretty damn lucky

Wow you fucking suck at dying. 

[Drak3]

12 minutes ago, theninja35 said:

What is winning the lottery to you? If it's not luck, then what is it?

Statistics.

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

well i wouldn't say it was incompetence that i survived a car crash that i absolutely should not have. walking away with very minor injuries (few scratches) from a 180km/h (combined) head on (other guys fault) and only spending about 2 hours in hospital is pretty damn lucky

That's not a luck thing. It's a science, engineering, and mathematics thing. Lots of angles, Newtons, G forces. In short, and in the words of one of my new favorite YouTubers - It's god damn terrifying.

 

[DimasRMDO]

For me, luck is just a random event that is based on our favors....

I just passed my diploma with quite satisfying score, and I didn't really study because I was being pessimistic after looking at my prediction grade (it was close to failing).

But during my final exam, somehow the questions just looked familiar to me, some questions were really hard but out-of-the-blue something just clicked in my head and I could answer the questions during last minutes (like around 5 minutes remaining).

I do believe luck is real, but I do not rely on it. If you want something done right, do it yourself with motivation, not just luck.

[Guest]

I consider luck to now be “the chance of circumstances to have fallen in your favor.” 

 

So whenever you’re lucky or on a hot streak, it’s that everything happened to fall in place in such a way that you benefit extensively. 

Not that there’s a ritual or something that occurred. 

[Chaos_Sorcerer]

Free will doesn't exist.

 

I never understood why a lot of people who say that luck doesn't exist say that it's because everything happens by chance...that's exactly what luck is...

[Guest]

Depends on your luck, tbh

[Chaos_Sorcerer]

12 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Statistics.

That's not a luck thing. It's a science, engineering, and mathematics thing. Lots of angles, Newtons, G forces. In short, and in the words of one of my new favorite YouTubers - It's god damn terrifying.

Luck isn't just some completely superstitious thing that is based on leprechauns and rabbit feet. It's just anything that happens from chance rather that isn't controlled by you. If you were driving on a road just under the speed limit and some boulder fell off the side of a cliff and onto your car, that has absolutely nothing to do with your own incompetence. It has everything to do with chance, and the environment - like you said, stats - that's precisely what luck is. 

 

In other words, luck isn't the opposite of chance or probability - they are one and the same. 

 

Really, you are a slave to biochemistry and therefore can't control any of your actions. Everything, really, then, is up to luck. 

[Sauron]

I think superstition is shallow and arbitrary, unlike religion it doesn't aim to teach or explain anything and what supposedly brings luck or misfortune seems to be based on nothing other than hear say. There's no point in me believing that an exam, which was written 3 days ago, would suddenly be about things I'm more uncertain about because a random black cat crossed my path this morning.

 

If you don't mean superstition but, instead, the possibility that some random event will go in your favour, then yes, obviously luck exists. I just don't think it's influenced by specific arbitrary conditions.

[BarackOBatman]

Depends on what your definition of "Luck" is.

I would rather call it happenstance.

I believe that i can come across fortune or misfortune in life as a result of the actions of a third party.

I do not believe that i can come across fortune or misfortune in life as a result of being lucky or unlucky.

In my book, If someone wins the lottery 5 times, they aren't inherently "lucky" by superstition or supernatural causes. They just so happened to win something despite inconceivably low odds.

 

What pisses me off is when someone considers something good or bad luck when it was the result of THEIR OWN actions. Things like getting a job that you applied for, receiving a pay raise. Getting in a car accident while texting and driving.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I don't really think about this seriously, but I don't think there is a thing called "luck", only a set of parameters that add up to an event.

[Guest]

Luck is not real, but some people are considered luckier than others. Some people make their own luck some people are born into it through no fault of their own. 

 

Karma is definitely real. If you are nice to people they are nice to you back. Always treat others how you want to be treated and good luck will come to you. 

 

I am pretty religious and I know some of you not so much, but I believe God has a large role to play in luck. He's always there for me anyway. Believe if you want, it is your choice. 

[Drak3]

11 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Karma is definitely real

No, it's not.

11 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

If you are nice to people they are nice to you back.

That's human decency, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

 

12 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Always treat others how you want to be treated and good luck will come to you. 

No, the universe just flatout hates all of us. The only "lucky" ones are those that work for their "luck."

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

No, it's not.

That's human decency, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

 

No, the universe just flatout hates all of us. The only "lucky" ones are those that work for their "luck."

I’m telling my opinion i’m not telling you to believe.

[Taja]

Luck exists, PERIOD. What people are discussing here are semantics and language.

You can misuse the word luck: "Im lucky because I studied for 5 minutes and got a 10" - that is not inherently lucky, you can be smart, the test can be easy, anyway.

Saying "I did ONE question from the 400 available on the book, and that question was on the test, with the same numbers" - then that is a lucky strike. Something unnusual happening, making your life better somehow is kinda the definition of luck,

Getting hit by a stray bullet is unnusual but BAD for you, so it is the opposite of luck: unluck.

[Chaos_Sorcerer]

13 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

No, the universe just flatout hates all of us. The only "lucky" ones are those that work for their "luck."

Yes, because "work" is what allowed the vast majority of lottery winners to gain millions of dollars over night. Or allowed someone like you or myself to be born to loving, caring families. Or allowed that stage 4 cancer patient to miraculously survive. 

 

Free will is an illusion. It does not exist in a scientific context. The notion that anyone can "work" toward anything (meritocracy), then, is also an illusion. You can't expect effort or "hard work" to solve every problem, or anything close to that, for that matter. I would say that the majority of factors that contribute to our "success" or well-being are completely out of the influence of our conscious selves. 

 

Luck is just chance. That's all it is. We have "bad luck" if an asteroid suddenly hits our planet and kills all of us because none of us (at least according to our current knowledge) can cause that to happen. 

[EPENEX]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck

Quote

Luck is the experience of notably positive, negative, or improbable events. The naturalistic interpretation is that positive and negative events happen all the time in human lives, both due to random and non-random natural and artificial processes, and that even improbable events can happen by random chance. In this view, being "lucky" or "unlucky" is simply a descriptive label that points out an event's positivity, negativity, or improbability.

 

As it says, luck is just a way to describe something's positivity, negativity, or improbability. So if something good happens, you could call yourself "lucky" or if something rare occurs like winning the lottery, you could call yourself "lucky". It's just a superficial way to describe an event.