Causality in complex human societies is nowhere near as straightforward as you claim. Luck is just one of many factors in our lives. Do people owe a lot to luck?
Yes, for example, neither of us two were born in the middle of a raging civil war in central Africa and died at the age of 3 of preventable diseases caused by unsafe drinking water. That is luck, definitely.
But plenty of people waste their lucky moments and gain nothing from them. That does not concern wealth alone; people mess up great relationships for trivial reasons, behave recklessly when they should not, commit stupid crimes just for the lulz etc.
As far as comfortable myths go, the concept that luck is the main factor (or even the only factor) in someone's fate is a golden example. Luck is perfectly beyond your control, so if you look at your life and conclude that it sucks, you can rest comfortably in knowledge that it is in no sense your own fault, but a product of impersonal force de majeure that just selected you to be doomed.
I'd rather be cursed by Voldemort than adapt this mindset. It is very self-destructive.
It appears that the other factors you are thinking of are intelligence and temperament. But other people do argue that these are also luck. People do not choose their personality, and while they may change due to external events, that doesn't mean they deserve credit or blame regardless.
You can disagree, but maybe believing in free will is just the sort of person you are and nothing that physically exists chooses to act on itself.
Mark Twain wrote about this in the essay "What Is Man", although I don't take it entirely at face value. I suspect that he felt some (maybe subconscious) need to excuse himself for believing in the injustice of slavery but not taking part in the Civil War.
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Causality in complex human societies is nowhere near as straightforward as you claim. Luck is just one of many factors in our lives. Do people owe a lot to luck?
Yes, for example, neither of us two were born in the middle of a raging civil war in central Africa and died at the age of 3 of preventable diseases caused by unsafe drinking water. That is luck, definitely.
But plenty of people waste their lucky moments and gain nothing from them. That does not concern wealth alone; people mess up great relationships for trivial reasons, behave recklessly when they should not, commit stupid crimes just for the lulz etc.
As far as comfortable myths go, the concept that luck is the main factor (or even the only factor) in someone's fate is a golden example. Luck is perfectly beyond your control, so if you look at your life and conclude that it sucks, you can rest comfortably in knowledge that it is in no sense your own fault, but a product of impersonal force de majeure that just selected you to be doomed.
I'd rather be cursed by Voldemort than adapt this mindset. It is very self-destructive.
It appears that the other factors you are thinking of are intelligence and temperament. But other people do argue that these are also luck. People do not choose their personality, and while they may change due to external events, that doesn't mean they deserve credit or blame regardless.
You can disagree, but maybe believing in free will is just the sort of person you are and nothing that physically exists chooses to act on itself.
Mark Twain wrote about this in the essay "What Is Man", although I don't take it entirely at face value. I suspect that he felt some (maybe subconscious) need to excuse himself for believing in the injustice of slavery but not taking part in the Civil War.