[FRIAM] Talent and Moral Luck - Steelman attempt

[Marcus Daniels]

I never could understand why people continue to play chess, or Go, or watch Jeopardy given that humans have been surpassed in these games.   Will people watch computers play each other?

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2021 8:55 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Talent and Moral Luck - Steelman attempt

Steelman attempt below.

I wasn't there for the "Talent" discussion on Friday, but got a bit of a recap from Nick and Jon later. Nick was trying to use some thoughts on "talent" to set up some other discussion (which is silly), and apparently never quite pulled the later discussion together and didn't know exactly what the wanted, he just knew it didn't happen. My take is that he wanted to start a discussion about "Moral Luck": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck

"Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agent> is assigned moral blame<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blame> or praise<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise> for an action or its consequences even if it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. "

The "moral luck" issue doesn't really depend as much on our discussing "morals" as it might seem, it works for a discussion of anything we "value", and FRIAM definitely values "talent". Whether or not one is "talented" depends a lot on where they find themselves. There is both a "luck" aspect to the immediate context in which one develops (parents, schools, neighborhood, etc.) and also to what type of abilities the larger society values. Nick seemed to want to talk primarily about the latter. For an example of that: Not long ago, the best video game players in the world were heroes to their friends 20 years ago, and today they are making a living by winning international championships and getting product endorsements. League of Legends is a decade old, averages 50 million players daily, 115 million total, and its world championship has a $5 million prize pool, not to mention the endorsement possibilities for the winners... and there are games that are much bigger. Why should the best video game player today be widely recognized as "talented" and paid millions of dollars a year for that talent, while the best video game player of 40 years ago is basically unknown and probably has a normal day job. The answer is, in some important sense, "luck" (or so the argument goes).

I think Nick wants to know: IF we accept that there is a boat load of luck involved in the kind he is describing, THEN what, if anything, should we change about our attitudes (or about society at large) in recognition of that fact. The success simply can't be attributed just to the individual, and that seems relevant to what we admire and reward.



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