Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

The role of luck is decisive, as anyone who agrees with Sam Harris’s ideas on free will would agree.

I think there's a really unfortunate and pernicious misreading of SH's ideas that you may be falling prey to here

Please explain how I’m misreading him

There's a very real sense in which each state follows from each prior state, sure. A good take will cause you to be careful about which broad directions you set course for and which content you consume. A bad one will cause you to dismiss your own responsibility for anything.

Of course, whether you tend toward a good take or a bad one is, on some layer, beyond your control. So I offer this tweet as a non-consensual course-corrector: HAVE THE GOOD TAKE. RESIST THE BAD ONE.

I appreciate your taking the time to respond. I still don’t see how I’ve misread him. It really all boils down to luck. The amount of control or responsibility we assume for our lives is still more luck. The probability that we will have a good take or resist bad ones is luck.

When you look at yourself, do you congratulate yourself and say “my, I was scrappy?” Or do you say, “wow, I got lucky?” Which one promotes arrogance?