Statistical luck is definitely real but ontological luck isn’t. Most poker players don’t know the difference. I am nearly positive that I have had above average luck since I started playing regularly again in December (and I have the data recorded for me to actually calculate it, but doesn’t seem worth it to figure it out if my software doesn’t do it automatically).
As an example, since you replied to my comment, I rode a <1/1000 wave of luck to 5th place in a poker tournament, for a $540 win.
So, a while ago I succeeded in phasing “good luck” out of my vocabulary, and I replaced it with “enjoy,” which has the great virtue of being only 2 syllables. But reading that has inspired me to seek another replacement.
At the moment, what comes to mind are “make your own luck,” “think positively,” and “prepare well.” All of those are longer, though, and it’s not clear they’re better. Thoughts / suggestions?
Between members, perhaps, but most of the people I interact with are not part of the Less Wrong Conspiracy, and it’s not clear to me what that would mean to them, whereas something like “choose well” seems less ambiguous.
I’ve used “have fun” for the past several years. “Choose well” occurred to me within the last week or so, I’ve been signing my emails with it. Both are two syllables, “choose well” works for rationalists and sounds like what you’re looking for.
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I guess you could maybe get away with that reply if the correct decision theoretic generalization of anthropic selection (in a sufficiently big universe, ain’t gotta be quantum) isn’t technically ontologically fundamental… but alas, I’d bet the infinitely reflective meta-contrarian stack returns ‘true’ for Luck. (Just not Luck for people who aren’t you (given some actually coherent definition of ‘you’, which of course might not look much like it does at the moment).) It’s almost as if the Universe likes to laugh at prodigies of refutation, or something. (Maybe we should reify Irony, too?)
Edited to add: This Wiki article) on the fallacious side of reification is mildly informative. LW talks a lot about map-territory confusion but it seems as if reification is a particularly dangerous special case. Also, kinda relatedly, I’ve started to notice how common is synecdoche, which is sort of worrying since in practice synecdoche seems to mostly be an accidental confusion of meta levels...
The last time someone told me “Good luck”, I replied, “I don’t believe in an ontologically fundamental tendency toward positive outcomes.”
I’ve always been fond of the Penn Jillette line, “Luck is statistics taken personally”
I remember a line from the book “Blindspots” by Sorensen that goes something like, “random selection is biased in favor of lucky people”.
Thereby guaranteeing that this would be the last time that anybody said that to you. (^_^)
Eh, I think I’d do it again.
Statistical luck is definitely real but ontological luck isn’t. Most poker players don’t know the difference. I am nearly positive that I have had above average luck since I started playing regularly again in December (and I have the data recorded for me to actually calculate it, but doesn’t seem worth it to figure it out if my software doesn’t do it automatically).
As an example, since you replied to my comment, I rode a <1/1000 wave of luck to 5th place in a poker tournament, for a $540 win.
Wanna bet? ;P
No chance that http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf holds any truth?
So, a while ago I succeeded in phasing “good luck” out of my vocabulary, and I replaced it with “enjoy,” which has the great virtue of being only 2 syllables. But reading that has inspired me to seek another replacement.
At the moment, what comes to mind are “make your own luck,” “think positively,” and “prepare well.” All of those are longer, though, and it’s not clear they’re better. Thoughts / suggestions?
How about just one syllable—“win”. Maybe this should be the standard well-wishing utterance among the Less Wrong Conspiracy.
Between members, perhaps, but most of the people I interact with are not part of the Less Wrong Conspiracy, and it’s not clear to me what that would mean to them, whereas something like “choose well” seems less ambiguous.
Every Conspiracy needs a secret handshake.
I’ve used “have fun” for the past several years. “Choose well” occurred to me within the last week or so, I’ve been signing my emails with it. Both are two syllables, “choose well” works for rationalists and sounds like what you’re looking for.
Oooh, I like that. I’ll give it a try.
Be lucky! It sounds very similar to good luck, and is clearly a substitute; it’s just a bit more active. It does have three syllables, however.
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I guess you could maybe get away with that reply if the correct decision theoretic generalization of anthropic selection (in a sufficiently big universe, ain’t gotta be quantum) isn’t technically ontologically fundamental… but alas, I’d bet the infinitely reflective meta-contrarian stack returns ‘true’ for Luck. (Just not Luck for people who aren’t you (given some actually coherent definition of ‘you’, which of course might not look much like it does at the moment).) It’s almost as if the Universe likes to laugh at prodigies of refutation, or something. (Maybe we should reify Irony, too?)
Edited to add: This Wiki article) on the fallacious side of reification is mildly informative. LW talks a lot about map-territory confusion but it seems as if reification is a particularly dangerous special case. Also, kinda relatedly, I’ve started to notice how common is synecdoche, which is sort of worrying since in practice synecdoche seems to mostly be an accidental confusion of meta levels...
what