[nonrandomstring]

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

It's true that effort helps success, and working for visibility is as important as working on making something great.

But sometimes life is just arbitrary.

Anyone who has worked in the "pop" media knows this. Artists pour their life and soul into films, symphonies and albums that get no listeners. They practice guitar for 10,000 hours and agonise over each note of a composition. They push and nothing happens, and they live in perpetual hope of "being discovered" in a world of overwhelming over-supply. One day some kid sticks a bangin' donk on a boing sound and it goes straight to the top of the charts with no explanation.

Unfair? Unjust?

Not really, if you allow for the essential randomness of things. Perhaps we put far too much belief in our ability to value things, and that includes marketing and communication as much as "quality" of design and execution.

[suoduandao2]

Right, but you can't jump to the top of the charts without sticking the donk on the boing first (I assume that means uploading an original track?). I've seen a lot of references to the role luck plays in success, and I don't mean to diminish that role, but you can't get lucky without putting yourself out there. Sticking a donk on a boing takes real effort, as does any other 'shot on net' that one might take.

[rizpanjwani]

You can’t win the lottery without buying it first but still a lottery is a lottery…

[suoduandao2]

Which game you play is certainly a factor. If you like composing original music that may be a game worth playing even if the odds are no better than an actual lottery.

[bruce511]

>> Unfair

Of course its unfair. Life is unfair. There is quite literally nothing in life that is "fair".

Fairness is the worst hope you can have. If you are waiting for life to treat you fair, then you will die disappointed. And if you are reading this, then likely you are so far ahead of fair that fairness can only be a step back.

If you have success, then the best thing you can do is spread some unfairness around. Help others up, you can't help everyone, so it's not fair, but it's the best you can do.

Give someone an unfair leg up, give someone an unfair opportunity. Pass on some of the unfairness you already have.

[nonrandomstring]

Almost. I love the bold poetic of how you put it. But let's please s/fair/equal/.

The vernacular use of fair means something more than "equality".

The idea that life could be equal is patently ridiculous, and self-evidently undesirable. Equality is the worst hope you can have.

> likely you are so far ahead of fair that fairness can only be a step back.

That's a bit too pared down for my tastes. It supposes a linear, monotonic, single dimensional quality of life upon which we all agree. None exists. The best candidate - per capita GDP - is fatally flawed, as discussed here in many vibrant exchanges. As if some (disastrous) communist type reckoning could "reset" the world to parity? No, of course it never could. For one thing we'd all be in different physical locations, different ages, mental abilities, and so on, each dimension having its attendant pros and cons. In such a transformation many aspects of "Our western life" would actually improve, and not to see that would be parochial.

I'd say, if you're reading this; you're probably in an position, intellectually, to appreciate how an imposed "equality" would radically change your life, and make it worse in many ways but better in some others. Such a thought ought to shine light on the richness of life and culture that makes this unfair world such a beautiful place.

What I love about your comment is that compassion is not made a dependent of any schoolboy ideologies about equality or fairness.

> If you have success, spread some unfairness around. Help others up. you can't help everyone, so it's not fair, but it's the best you can do.

Absolutely. Bravo.

> Give someone an unfair leg up, give someone an unfair opportunity. Pass on some of the unfairness you already have.

I find this "empowering others" an ideal that resonates with me as a subversive stance against brain-dead systems that hold people back so that the chosen few might rule. It's spreading "fairness" by spreading "unfairness". Tactical dissemination of knowledge (fairness redistribution) is, for me, a core true hacker value. Code is one of the most extraorinary ways to transfer power. Like blatantly telling my students how to game and hack the Kobayashi Maru dreamed up by "well meaning" but ignorant administrators.

[HWR_14]

> Unfair? Unjust? Not really

I'm not sure why you think that's neither unjust nor unfair. All you said is "it's random". I'm not sure why "it's random" implies it's not unfair or unjust.

[wizofaus]

Randomness applies to everybody. "Unfair" is more often used to describe a situation where when those in category A do the same things as those in category B, but only those in one category get rewarded for it. But which category you're in to start with may well be down to random chance.

[HWR_14]

> "Unfair" is more often used to describe a situation where when those in category A do the same things as those in category B, but only those in one category get rewarded for it.

That's exactly the situation here. There are "lucky" and "unlucky" people. Those are your two categories.

[kevinmalone]

Unfair and unlucky are different concepts. Randomness could be perceived as lucky and unlucky, but that’s not what they’re saying. Randomness, if truly random, is as fair as it gets.

[pc86]

The randomness of life is only unfair or unjust if you deserve fame and accolades proportional to your effort simply because you put the effort in. You don't.

[winnit]

That depends whether you consider things must either be just or unjust or whether they can simply not be just, without being an injustice.

[HWR_14]

I don't see what the distinction you're making is. It seems things are either just or unjust. That seems like standard logic.

[winnit]

There can exist a third category in which things are neither just nor unjust. It really depends on whether your logic system is two-valued or many. There isn’t any universal standard. Can’t you see that there are distinctions in strength between trust, don’t trust and distrust? If you’ve never dealt with someone before, you might not trust them. But you wouldn’t distrust them without specific reason.