How is that anything like a lottery?
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To "win the genetic lottery" just means to have been born with good genes, it doesn't mean your parents didn't have them or pass them on to you. eg https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2oeo41/in_what_ways_have_you_won_and_lost_the_genetic/ … https://www.quora.com/What-is-genetic-lottery …https://www.businessinsider.com/behind-the-scenes-with-the-worlds-most-self-aware-supermodel-2014-7?IR=T …
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I agree that the expression isn't used the way it might if we designed it ourselves, but idioms mean what people use them to mean, not what we think they should mean. Nick's tweets imply that Harden is at fault because she's used the common meaning that he didn't know about.
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Replying to @s8mb @Outsideness and
I’m not sure that’s what it does imply. You’re right that this is how the term is used, but there’s also a value in criticising the use of the term, because uncritical use of it might lead to the lottery metaphor being taken literally over time
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Replying to @RyanKhurana @s8mb and
What are you talking about?! Uncritical use? Sam's using the term correctly. No one except Steve Sailer and Nick Land have ever used the phrase genetic lottery to imply that genetic traits are random and not inherited.
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Replying to @Sam_Dumitriu @s8mb and
I’m not saying he’s not using the term as it’s commonly used, but why is that a reason to not criticise the metaphor?
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Replying to @RyanKhurana @s8mb and
Because the metaphor makes perfect sense. You are lucky to have been born with good genetic traits. Just as lottery winners are lucky. This is simple stuff.
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Replying to @Sam_Dumitriu @RyanKhurana and
No metaphor that requires bizarre religious ideas to scan can be reasonably said to "make perfect sense". ...
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... It's on exactly the level of saying: "You should count yourself lucky you weren't born as a chipmunk."
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