getting tired of line jumpers

Luckily!

I would argue that many of the truly meaningful things we have very little control over. Maybe we have the illusion of control (and work really hard to have the illusion of control) but very little real control. Death, especially tragic death, comes to mind. Sure you could cower in a bunker for the rest of your life, but that's not going to stop the lightning or meteorite.

Also where you happen to be born has a ridiculously profound effect on your life - not much control over that.

Chaos theory style: People who make similar decisions given similar circumstances often have very different results. Whether you want to call that luck or not isn't particularly relevant...

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ApolloAndy said:
Sure you could cower in a bunker for the rest of your life, but that's not going to stop the lightning or meteorite.

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But that's not what I suggest. I suggest that the person who, through their choices, is not where the lightning strikes or the meteor hits is controlling his own 'luck' - it wasn't just dumb luck that he wasn't in harm's way. It was a choice. It might not have been a conscious choice to avoid harm, but that was the result. Had nothing to do with luck or fate or karma or anything other than that person's decisions up to that point.

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Also where you happen to be born has a ridiculously profound effect on your life - not much control over that.

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Tell that to the guy who said, "All men are created equal" ;)

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People who make similar decisions given similar circumstances often have very different results.

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Similar is not the same as exact.

3.233233 x 5.445455 is similar to 2.333233 x 4.545545 but they give very different results.

At the very least, I bet there's some interesting correlations between each of our takes on luck and our takes on other subjects that we discuss. :)

I'd have to say that once again I lean more toward the Gonch camp. I used to say plainly "there's no such thing as luck" without qualification. As I've aged, my stance has softenend...a little. The VAST majority of what people like to call luck...really is "preparation". It's tricky to try and prepare for all contingencies, but with some knowledge and foresight it seems to me that it's certainly possible to prepare for the widest array of potentialities and the most likely of circumstances...

Yeah, and what about, oh a slot mackine for instance. Spectators will watch a person pull a couple hundred dollars on a slot machine and say, "your lucky". But is that person lucky, or was it time for that machine to pay out?

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Lord Gonchar said:

Similar is not the same as exact.

3.233233 x 5.445455 is similar to 2.333233 x 4.545545 but they give very different results.

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Putting a quarter in a slot machine at 3:10 is remarkably similar to putting a quarter in a slot machine at 3:15. One could get you thousands of dollars, one could get you nothing.

The inital actions are similar enough to be indistinguishable (for instance, buying two different houses with big trees) but the end result (lightning or no lightning) is completely different.

There's very little control, preparation, wisdom, or skill involved in the outcome of many of those situations.

You could be the most brilliant scientist with the biggest super computer in the world and accurately predict that you tree has a 0.00000001% chance of getting struck by lightning while you live there while the house down the street has a 50% change. The lightning might still strike your house and not the other one in a completely unpredicatble way.

I can already hear someone saying "well then you should have improved your model for better predictability" to which I would reply "chaos theory."

I don't know if I'd call all this luck, but I still find it hard to believe that the outcome is always more or less a result of the person's preparedness (if that's what you're arguing).

*** Edited 7/8/2008 11:32:49 PM UTC by ApolloAndy***

Andy, isn't "chaos theory" what happens when all hell breaks loose at CP? Oh yeah, that's just a ride called Chaos.

You're still missing it, Andy.

I'm not suggesting that all those choices are conscious ones. I'm trying to make that very clear.

I might not consciously choose the house without the tree specifically because lightning might hit it or for any safety reasons at all. But the fact that I did end up choosing the house without a tree means I will never have to worry about it falling on my house regardless of my reasons.

I created a situation where that certain act of 'bad luck' cannot happen. A tree cannot fall onto my house when lightning strikes if there's no tree there to fall. It doesn't matter why I made that choice, just that I did.

Nothing lucky or unlucky about it - I chose to live there.

There's no point in bringing gambling into the conversation. By definition it's nothing more than probability driven by random numbers, and it's probably you're going to lose money.

I don't remember who was saying that luck is a human construct wrapped around things they can't explain, but I'm on board with that.

I'm disappointed no one responded to my entitlement rant. I wanted to fight. :)

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now I'm worried about being struck by cancer lightning while playing the lottery under a tree.

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Dude, get out from under that tree!

Let me bring the discussion back closer to where we started, with an example that I think quite plainly speaks to "random chance"---events that are completely outside of one's control. I have the perfect example:

You can't choose your parents. That's just "luck", or rather, "random chance".

I was born into a life of modest privilege. At the time of my birth, 1969, my parents were both college graduates. My father had a well-paying job at the local utility company, and went on to earn an MBA and become an executive. My mother had the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom. They never worried about how to pay for food, clothing, the mortgage, etc. etc. etc. We were not wealthy, but we were more than comfortable. What's more, my parents had the foresight to put aside money for college for myself and my brothers. All three of us graduated from top-20 institutions nationally, and not only had no debt, but had money left over to "get started".

In mathematical terms, the circumstances of my birth are my initial conditions. The process evolves from there, influenced by the choices I make. Now, granted, plenty of people have frittered away their lives given the same initial conditions. On the other hand, if I were born with exactly the same genetic makeup to a single mother addicted to heroin, would I still be a tenured professor in a top-10 CS department?

I think it is fair to say that the chances are lower. Then again, there is a chance.

There is no disputing the fact that the circumstances of my birth had nothign to do with any choice I made. And, so, by Gonch's definition, they must be luck.

Edited to add: I see others have come up with this same example. Nevertheless, I think it is the easiest counter-example to the claim that "there is no such thing as luck."

*** Edited 7/9/2008 12:39:12 AM UTC by Brian Noble***

Strange, I'm with Gonch on this, even though I don't want to get into it.

You ever read "The Secret" or a book with a similar theory, Gonch?

I brought that up earlier.

The Secret is totally differnt from the Gonch View. The Secret is that if you just think "I'm giong to be rich" enough, then by golly, you'll be rich.

The best part of The Secret? It can't be refuted---if it doesn't work for you, it's not because it doesn't work. It's because you didn't believe it enough.

Not dissimilar to faith healing. A great racket.

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Jeff said:That is not correct. You didn't get on the ride any faster than anyone who entered the line when you got your FastPass. You just did something more productive with your time instead of waiting in line.

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You're still buying into the 'two places at once' spiel. Of course I was doing something more productive - I was riding other rides, which is the reason I went to the park in the first place. What I was *not* doing was waiting in the Space Mountain line. Waiting is bad, riding is good; hence the desire to eliminate waits by cutting. When I walked to the front of the queue, I cut in line. I did not wait for the ride, which meant I *did* get on faster than the others. This is not a difficult concept :)

Another example: let's say I spent my more-productive time standing in line for Space Mountain. Assuming the posted queue is an hour, I go a little over an hour before my FP time. I wait in the normal queue, get a ride, then immediately turn around and fastpass my way back on. I got two rides in the time everyone else got one. That's cutting.

If you strip away all the rhetoric, marketing and silliness, a fastpass is simply a pass to cut to the front of one line at a scheduled time. That's it - it accomplishes no more, no less. There are no phantom doubles, no 'more productive' waits, no being in two places at once. It's a one-time scheduled cut pass. Now, if they started something like forcing you into the shops during your 'virtual wait' (impossible, but for example) .. then I'd agree FP is something different and not a cut pass. But in its current config, it's a single-use cut pass.

Edited for stupid typo *** Edited 7/9/2008 1:15:18 AM UTC by metallik***

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Jeff said: I'm disappointed no one responded to my entitlement rant. I wanted to fight. :)

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I thought about taking you on, but I'm just feeling too amiable tonight. ;)

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Brian Noble said:
You can't choose your parents. That's just "luck", or rather, "random chance".

I was born into a life of modest privilege. At the time of my birth, 1969, my parents were both college graduates. My father had a well-paying job at the local utility company, and went on to earn an MBA and become an executive. My mother had the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom. They never worried about how to pay for food, clothing, the mortgage, etc. etc. etc. We were not wealthy, but we were more than comfortable. What's more, my parents had the foresight to put aside money for college for myself and my brothers. All three of us graduated from top-20 institutions nationally, and not only had no debt, but had money left over to "get started".

There is no disputing the fact that the circumstances of my birth had nothign to do with any choice I made. And, so, by Gonch's definition, they must be luck.

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My take on that would be that your circumstances are the result of your parent's decisions. You weren't lucky - your parents made a series of decisions that resulted in you being born into a good situation.

That's admittedly quite grey.

To me, the two things that are certain are birth and death. I can't really buy into either of those being luck as if they didn't happen there'd be no being to be lucky or not. I think those two events are outside the rules. They define the existence in which we make the choices. And if you're going to force me to qualify the circumstances of those two events, then I'd have to go back to the first part of this response - the choices made that lead to those events.

You might be born into a 'good' situation or a 'bad' one, but the situation you're born into isn't randomly setup - it's the result of choices too.

The only difference between you and the kid born to a crack addict is the decisions your parents made versus the decisions their parents made. And two other parents wouldn't create you - they'd create a different being. You couldn't have been born to different parents - you wouldn't be you. You're parents could have let you be born into a different situation, but that's just a matter of their choices...not luck.

Again, I have to ask if I'm conveying my ideas correctly. Is this making sense on some level? I know what I'm trying to say, but I'm not sure it's coming across correctly. :)

*** Edited 7/9/2008 7:24:44 AM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

It's purely my own definition, and may differ from yours, but I'd say "luck" may be a combination of several random factors or events that lead to an unexpected result. Or it may be a series of random, unrelated events that have one result a disproportionate number of times.

For example, a person who doesn't live in your neighborhood and seldom travels there is driving down your street when the tree in your front yard is struck by lightning and falls onto the trunk of his car as he passes by. No skill, talent, or conscious decision involved. But the right combination of things happened at the same time to result in an "unlucky" outcome.

Does anyone remember hearing about a man-- I think he lived in PA-- who won several million dollars playing the lottery? Except he won amounts of several hundred thousand to a million 5 or 6 different times. Sure he probably played a lot, but surely no more than many other people who never win a dime. I'd call that guy "lucky."

So maybe that's what luck is-- something happening for good or bad despite a ridiculously low probability that it will happen.

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Jeff, as for entitlement, it could be argued that people who spend more money feel entitled to special treatment. Whether it be short lines in an amusement park, a good table in a restaurant, political favors, tax breaks, etc. I'll bet a lot of people who pay for special treatment and don't feel they were treated specially enough do the loudest complaining.

Discuss.

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RatherGoodBear said:
For example, a person who doesn't live in your neighborhood and seldom travels there is driving down your street when the tree in your front yard is struck by lightning and falls onto the trunk of his car as he passes by. No skill, talent, or conscious decision involved. But the right combination of things happened at the same time to result in an "unlucky" outcome.

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But I still say he chose to drive down my street during a storm. He created his own luck. If he'd have taken any other street or come at any other time or gone a little slower or faster, it probably wouldn't have happened.

The result isn't entirely random. The man had to do a specific series of things to be there at that moment.

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metallik said:

Another example: let's say I spent my more-productive time standing in line for Space Mountain....I wait in the normal queue, get a ride, then immediately turn around and fastpass my way back on. I got two rides in the time everyone else got one. That's cutting.

If you strip away all the rhetoric, marketing and silliness, a fastpass is simply a pass to cut to the front of one line at a scheduled time. That's it - it accomplishes no more, no less. There are no phantom doubles, no 'more productive' waits, no being in two places at once. It's a one-time scheduled cut pass.

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You can try and explain it 'till you are blue in the face, it still won't get through to some people here.

I will repeat the part I liked most about your comment. Two rides on Space Mountain, for example, in the time it takes another person to ride once IS line cutting. I don't understand how some people can't see that unless they are blinded with greed for more rides.

I am going to Busch gardens in a few days. If the lines are moving at a snails pace because everyone is using Quick Queue, then my Cousin and I will be forced to buy it too in order to get some coasters for our $60 admission fees. I really hope that they aren't selling a Bizillion QQ tickets. That would make "standby" lines much longer and the park would be holding the good experience at ransom.

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metallik said:
If you strip away all the rhetoric, marketing and silliness, a fastpass is simply a pass to cut to the front of one line at a scheduled time.

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No, it's a pass to ride at a specific time.

I believe that's the definition of a reservation. No different than if you show up at a restaraunt on a Firday evening and are told the wait for a table is about an hour but I show up after you and still get in before you because I already reserved a table.

No different than if you show up at the movie theatre on a Saturday night and are told tickets are sold out and while you're standing there trying to decide which other movie to see, I stroll up and get into the movie you were just turned away from because I already bought my seat.

(I covered this all already - 5th post down on page 3)

It's not line cutting. The parks have instituted a reservation system that allows people to reserve a seat and they fill unreserved seats from the stand-by line. Happens lots of places.

I guess its good that most people don't understand how FastPass works and what a reservation is... that way, those of us who do get the concept, can easily have access to them and work the system to our advantage.