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The Statistical Loser

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Dante

Git
SF Pro
SF Supporter
#1
I'm not sure if I have mentioned this on the forum before (I have been around for a while) but this is something I came up with a while back to explain my life, of course I was very depressed at the time so I understand now that it doesn't describe MY life as a whole, but it is a useful concept anyway, for clarity of explanation I will try doing this in stages.

1) Luck can be defined as unpredictable circumstances outside the observer's control which exert influence on the course of events for the observer producing an effect which is positive, negative or neutral for the observer.

2) On a completely "average" day your moment to moment luck should be graded on a bell curve centred on neutral with extremely positive or negative luck being rare, and less extreme luck being more common, with events of neutral luck being most common (and funnily enough entirely ignored by you).

3) The actual centre of the bell curve for each day will never actually be perfectly in the middle, some days your luck will be more positive than others, and for a completely "average" life, the averages of every day of your life can also be graded on a bell curve centred on neutral luck, with extremely lucky or unlucky days being rather rare in your life, and less extreme luck being more common with most days having roughly neutral luck.

4) The actual centre of the bell curve of a person's luck throughout their life will never be perfectly centred on neutral, some people's lives will be more lucky than others, and some will be less so, if you map the average luck of every person in the world, their average luck will be graded on (you guessed it) a bell curve centred on neutral luck, with extremely lucky and unlucky people being rare and... well you get the idea.

The "Statistical Loser" is the poor bastard who has the distinction of being the data point of life-time luck which is furthest into the "unlucky" end of the bell-curve, this person will have bad luck almost every single day, all their bell-curves will be centred on "oh fuck why did I even bother hoping something good might happen", they would lose any game of chance, and even though someone being ALWAYS unlucky seems to break the laws of probability, their existence is a statistical certainty, making the claim that "your luck cant be ALL bad ALL the time" a pointless statement which cannot be true for everyone.

I believed I was the Statistical Loser, it wasn't a self-pitying thought, it was almost validating, the idea that I had proven with mathematical theory that it was perfectly reasonable, and in fact a certainty, that someone could have such a miserable life without it being in any way their fault, and that I was that person, was almost freeing in a grim sort of way, but also stated that my luck would never get better. I do not believe I am the statistical loser for the entire human race, but I do believe I am the statistical loser at least for my immediate social circle.
 
#2
That's definitely possible, but fortunately enough for us, we are able to affect reality with our will. I have a hard time squaring that with my agreement with deterministic philosophy, but depending on your cognitive skill level, you can make more out of a shitty situation than someone with less cognitive skill.

I agree that there is some level of objective measurement of the shittiness of events, but to some extent our interpretation of events can cause a shift in subjective interpretation of those events. That's where mental illness and therapy exert their effects.

Being depressed will cause you to interpret already shitty events in an even shittier way. Proper therapy can help you interpret them in a more helpful way.

I'm really glad that you are reaching out here. Hopefully there is at least one person IRL that can provide you some support as well. Times are tough right now. Please keep hanging in there.
 

Dante

Git
SF Pro
SF Supporter
#3
The thing that reminded me of this recently is a run of extreme back luck I have been having, starting from Wednesday morning my bell curve has been centred on "suffer, bitch" with everything I attempt ending up as an overcomplicated unprecedented failure, tasks that should have taken 5 minutes and zero effort I barely manage to complete after 2 hours of hard slog, tasks that should have been routine end up being absolutely impossible, gates get stuck just as I need to enter a building, equipment went goes missing, I get stuck behind a strangely high number of learner drivers in traffic, all the clients suddenly became extremely demanding and unreasonable, everyone I try to avoid find me so easily its like they are all tracking me on GPS.

One example of my luck was a task at work where I was supposed to map 4 network drives on a PC, that's a NOTHING task (I work in ICT), about 30 seconds per drive but the guy made me wait 20 minutes before he let me even on this PC, then everything went wrong, his computer froze, the program I was mapping the drives for (it needed access to the drives) stopped working, his connection to the server stopped working, and he KEPT getting called away RIGHT when I needed details from him to fix all this, and the problems just kept coming. In the end my 2 minute task of mapping 4 drives turned into editing config files manually, reinstalling software suites, changing proxy details, creating a new login for the guy, rooting through credentials manager for some idiotic credential which was blocking the server access, disabling "fast boot", restarting the PC, updating group policy and repeatedly hunting down a guy who refused to stay in his office. All told it took me over an hour and a half. EVERYTHING I have done for the last 3 days has gone like this. The only thought that stopped me breaking down has been that this is just a blip, a "statistical loser" of a week which will eventually end, a datapoint on my lifetime bell-curve on the low end of my range of luck, nothing more.
 

Dante

Git
SF Pro
SF Supporter
#4
That's definitely possible, but fortunately enough for us, we are able to affect reality with our will. I have a hard time squaring that with my agreement with deterministic philosophy, but depending on your cognitive skill level, you can make more out of a shitty situation than someone with less cognitive skill.

I agree that there is some level of objective measurement of the shittiness of events, but to some extent our interpretation of events can cause a shift in subjective interpretation of those events. That's where mental illness and therapy exert their effects.

Being depressed will cause you to interpret already shitty events in an even shittier way. Proper therapy can help you interpret them in a more helpful way.

I'm really glad that you are reaching out here. Hopefully there is at least one person IRL that can provide you some support as well. Times are tough right now. Please keep hanging in there.
I completely agree that luck isnt the only determining factor in life, and I have also completely accepted my relative "Statistical Loser" status, not as a "im doomed" sort of thing, but more of a realisation that I have to work harder than others I know to achieve the same results because I also have to overcome my own luck. As I said before, this idea came about during a low point, but has been a great help, properly labelling and truly accepting a negative in life can help you tolerate it and move on with what needs doing so much easier than when you cant isolate it as easily. You can dismiss things as "oh, thats just me being the statistical loser" rather than obsess over problems or get disheartened.

Lumping bad things together in a helpfully labelled box is useful because boxes can be closed and put away so you can focus on other things.
 
#5
I completely agree that luck isnt the only determining factor in life, and I have also completely accepted my relative "Statistical Loser" status, not as a "im doomed" sort of thing, but more of a realisation that I have to work harder than others I know to achieve the same results because I also have to overcome my own luck. As I said before, this idea came about during a low point, but has been a great help, properly labelling and truly accepting a negative in life can help you tolerate it and move on with what needs doing so much easier than when you cant isolate it as easily. You can dismiss things as "oh, thats just me being the statistical loser" rather than obsess over problems or get disheartened.

Lumping bad things together in a helpfully labelled box is useful because boxes can be closed and put away so you can focus on other things.
Fair enough, that's probably relatively healthy. I'm glad you're having luck with that :)
 

Human Ex Machinae

Void Where Prohibited
Staff Alumni
#6
My thoughts on the word and concept, 'luck':
What is it? What doeth it? Is it something that can be bestowed on us, or denied? Does it originate within us? Is it something that's inextricably interwoven with us and our sense of identity? Do we control it? Does it control us? Does it make any sense?
 
#7
The "Statistical Loser" is the poor bastard who has the distinction of being the data point of life-time luck which is furthest into the "unlucky" end of the bell-curve, this person will have bad luck almost every single day, all their bell-curves will be centred on "oh fuck why did I even bother hoping something good might happen", they would lose any game of chance, and even though someone being ALWAYS unlucky seems to break the laws of probability, their existence is a statistical certainty, making the claim that "your luck cant be ALL bad ALL the time" a pointless statement which cannot be true for everyone.
If the statistical loser and the statistical winner bet against one another in a coin toss, neither is more likely to win, right? That is, the statistical loser's chances are as good as anybody's, it's just that there's some chance that someone loses any bet, and therefor there is some chance that someone loses (or wins) every bet.
 

Legate Lanius

Well-Known Member
#8
If the statistical loser and the statistical winner bet against one another in a coin toss, neither is more likely to win, right? That is, the statistical loser's chances are as good as anybody's, it's just that there's some chance that someone loses any bet, and therefor there is some chance that someone loses (or wins) every bet.
You got it.
I'm not sure if I have mentioned this on the forum before (I have been around for a while) but this is something I came up with a while back to explain my life, of course I was very depressed at the time so I understand now that it doesn't describe MY life as a whole, but it is a useful concept anyway, for clarity of explanation I will try doing this in stages.

1) Luck can be defined as unpredictable circumstances outside the observer's control which exert influence on the course of events for the observer producing an effect which is positive, negative or neutral for the observer.

2) On a completely "average" day your moment to moment luck should be graded on a bell curve centred on neutral with extremely positive or negative luck being rare, and less extreme luck being more common, with events of neutral luck being most common (and funnily enough entirely ignored by you).

3) The actual centre of the bell curve for each day will never actually be perfectly in the middle, some days your luck will be more positive than others, and for a completely "average" life, the averages of every day of your life can also be graded on a bell curve centred on neutral luck, with extremely lucky or unlucky days being rather rare in your life, and less extreme luck being more common with most days having roughly neutral luck.

4) The actual centre of the bell curve of a person's luck throughout their life will never be perfectly centred on neutral, some people's lives will be more lucky than others, and some will be less so, if you map the average luck of every person in the world, their average luck will be graded on (you guessed it) a bell curve centred on neutral luck, with extremely lucky and unlucky people being rare and... well you get the idea.

The "Statistical Loser" is the poor bastard who has the distinction of being the data point of life-time luck which is furthest into the "unlucky" end of the bell-curve, this person will have bad luck almost every single day, all their bell-curves will be centred on "oh fuck why did I even bother hoping something good might happen", they would lose any game of chance, and even though someone being ALWAYS unlucky seems to break the laws of probability, their existence is a statistical certainty, making the claim that "your luck cant be ALL bad ALL the time" a pointless statement which cannot be true for everyone.

I believed I was the Statistical Loser, it wasn't a self-pitying thought, it was almost validating, the idea that I had proven with mathematical theory that it was perfectly reasonable, and in fact a certainty, that someone could have such a miserable life without it being in any way their fault, and that I was that person, was almost freeing in a grim sort of way, but also stated that my luck would never get better. I do not believe I am the statistical loser for the entire human race, but I do believe I am the statistical loser at least for my immediate social circle.
You fail to acknowledge that our entire "output" is made out of environment and genetics, both completely pre-determined (which is what we call luck :P). Oh, and please let go of the illusion of "fault", it only creates more suffering.
 
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