[bruce343434]

It depends wether you believe in determinism. If you do, then everything is just "luck". If you believe that your mind is something special that can come to conclusions truly independently (create information out of thin air) then the consequences of actions are skill or intelligence.

Or whatever. "Luck" is just a dumb concept we humans use to handwave away edge cases.

[sausagefeet]

It does not require believing in determinism to believe a majority of one's outcome is based on context that they do not control. For myself, I didn't choose which country I was born in (I happen to be born in a wealthy country). I also was not born into abusive parents but rather parents who valued science and school. We happened to get a computer early because of my dad's job and I happen to have enjoyed it. That doesn't mean it's a deterministic outcome, but it is chaotic, in the sense that given all these inputs it's not possible to predict the outcome. And small perturbations can have significantly different outputs.

> "Luck" is just a dumb concept we humans use to handwave away edge cases.

Or maybe this view is just people who really want to believe there is something else. What is that something else?