What role does luck play in your life?
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0:01 - 0:02Hello, everybody.
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0:02 - 0:06I'm honored to be here to talk to you,
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0:06 - 0:12and what I'm going to talk about today
is luck and justice -
0:12 - 0:14and the relation between them.
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0:14 - 0:16Some years ago,
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0:16 - 0:19a former student of mine called me
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0:19 - 0:21to talk about his daughter.
-
0:21 - 0:23It turns out his daughter
was a high school senior, -
0:23 - 0:29was seriously interested
in applying to Swarthmore, -
0:29 - 0:30where I taught,
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0:30 - 0:35and he wanted to get my sense
of whether she would get in. -
0:35 - 0:40Swarthmore is an extremely
hard school to get into. -
0:40 - 0:42So I said, "Well, tell me about her."
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0:42 - 0:44And he told me about her,
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0:44 - 0:47what her grades were like,
her board scores, -
0:47 - 0:49her extracurricular activities.
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0:49 - 0:51And she just sounded like a superstar,
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0:51 - 0:54wonderful, wonderful kid.
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0:54 - 0:56So I said, "She sounds fabulous.
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0:56 - 0:59She sounds like just the kind of student
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0:59 - 1:02that Swarthmore would love to have."
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1:02 - 1:05And so he said, "Well, does that mean
that she'll get in?" -
1:06 - 1:08And I said, "No.
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1:09 - 1:13There just aren't enough spots
in the Swarthmore class -
1:13 - 1:15for everybody who's good.
-
1:15 - 1:19There aren't enough spots at Harvard
or Yale or Princeton or Stanford. -
1:19 - 1:23There aren't enough spots
at Google or Amazon or Apple. -
1:23 - 1:28There aren't enough spots
at the TED Conference. -
1:28 - 1:30There are an awful lot of good people,
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1:30 - 1:33and some of them
are not going to make it." -
1:35 - 1:37So he said, "Well, what are we
supposed to do?" -
1:38 - 1:41And I said, "That's a very good question."
-
1:42 - 1:44What are we supposed to do?
-
1:44 - 1:48And I know what colleges
and universities have done. -
1:48 - 1:51In the interest of fairness,
-
1:51 - 1:56what they've done is
they've kept ratcheting up the standards -
1:56 - 2:02because it doesn't seem fair
to admit less qualified people -
2:02 - 2:05and reject better qualified people,
-
2:05 - 2:09so you just keep raising
the standards higher and higher -
2:09 - 2:11until they're high enough
that you can admit -
2:11 - 2:16only the number of students
that you can fit. -
2:16 - 2:22And this violates a lot of people's sense
of what justice and fairness is. -
2:22 - 2:25People in American society
have different opinions -
2:25 - 2:29about what it means
to say that some sort of process is just, -
2:29 - 2:33but I think there's one thing
that pretty much everyone agrees on, -
2:33 - 2:36that in a just system, a fair system,
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2:36 - 2:38people get what they deserve.
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2:38 - 2:41And what I was telling my former student
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2:41 - 2:45is that when it comes
to college admissions, -
2:45 - 2:49it just isn't true that people
get what they deserve. -
2:49 - 2:53Some people get what they deserve,
and some people don't, -
2:53 - 2:56and that's just the way it is.
-
2:56 - 3:00When you ratchet up requirements
as colleges have done, -
3:00 - 3:03what you do is you create
a crazy competition -
3:03 - 3:05among high school kids,
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3:05 - 3:08because it's not adequate to be good,
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3:08 - 3:10it's not adequate to be good enough,
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3:10 - 3:14you have to be better than everybody else
who is also applying. -
3:14 - 3:16And what this has done,
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3:16 - 3:18or what this has contributed to,
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3:18 - 3:22is a kind of epidemic
of anxiety and depression -
3:22 - 3:25that is just crushing our teenagers.
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3:25 - 3:28We are wrecking a generation
with this kind of competition. -
3:29 - 3:31As I was thinking about this,
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3:31 - 3:34it occurred to me
there's a way to fix this problem. -
3:34 - 3:36And here's what we could do:
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3:37 - 3:40when people apply to college,
-
3:40 - 3:45we distinguish between the applicants
who are good enough to be successful -
3:46 - 3:47and the ones who aren't,
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3:47 - 3:51and we reject the ones who aren't
good enough to be successful, -
3:51 - 3:55and then we take all of the others,
and we put their names in a hat, -
3:55 - 3:57and we just pick them out at random
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3:57 - 3:59and admit them.
-
3:59 - 4:03In other words, we do
college admissions by lottery, -
4:03 - 4:08and maybe we do job offers
at tech companies by lottery, -
4:08 - 4:10and -- perish the thought --
-
4:10 - 4:14maybe we even make decisions
about who gets invited to talk at TED -
4:14 - 4:15by lottery.
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4:16 - 4:18Now, don't misunderstand me,
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4:18 - 4:22a lottery like this is not
going to eliminate the injustice. -
4:22 - 4:26There will still be plenty of people
who don't get what they deserve. -
4:26 - 4:29But at least it's honest.
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4:29 - 4:35It reveals the injustice for what it is
instead of pretending otherwise, -
4:35 - 4:38and it punctures the incredible
pressure balloon -
4:38 - 4:42that our high school kids
are now living under. -
4:43 - 4:47So why is it that this perfectly
reasonable proposal, -
4:47 - 4:49if I do say so myself,
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4:49 - 4:51doesn't get any serious discussion?
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4:52 - 4:53I think I know why.
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4:54 - 4:57I think it's that we hate the idea
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4:57 - 5:03that really important things in life
might happen by luck or by chance, -
5:03 - 5:08that really important things in our lives
are not under our control. -
5:08 - 5:09I hate that idea.
-
5:09 - 5:12It's not surprising
that people hate that idea, -
5:12 - 5:16but it simply is the way things are.
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5:17 - 5:22First of all, college admissions
already is a lottery. -
5:22 - 5:25It's just that the admissions officers
pretend that it isn't. -
5:25 - 5:27So let's be honest about it.
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5:27 - 5:29And second,
-
5:29 - 5:32I think if we appreciated
that it was a lottery, -
5:32 - 5:37it would also get us to acknowledge
the importance of good fortune -
5:37 - 5:39in almost every one of our lives.
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5:39 - 5:41Take me.
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5:42 - 5:47Almost all the most significant
events in my life have occurred, -
5:47 - 5:48to a large degree,
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5:48 - 5:50as a result of good luck.
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5:51 - 5:54When I was in seventh grade,
my family left New York -
5:54 - 5:57and went to Westchester County.
-
5:57 - 5:58Right at the beginning of school,
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5:58 - 6:01I met a lovely young girl
who became my friend, -
6:01 - 6:04then she became my best friend,
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6:04 - 6:07then she became my girlfriend
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6:07 - 6:09and then she became my wife.
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6:09 - 6:11Happily, she's been my wife now
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6:11 - 6:13for 52 years.
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6:13 - 6:17I had very little to do with this.
This was a lucky accident. -
6:18 - 6:20I went off to college,
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6:20 - 6:25and in my first semester, I signed up
for a class in introduction to psychology. -
6:25 - 6:27I didn't even know what psychology was,
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6:27 - 6:30but it fit into my schedule
and it met requirements, -
6:30 - 6:31so I took it.
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6:31 - 6:33And by luck, the class was taught
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6:33 - 6:38by a superstar introductory
psychology teacher, a legend. -
6:39 - 6:42Because of that, I became
a psychology major. -
6:42 - 6:44Went off to graduate school.
-
6:44 - 6:46I was finishing up.
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6:46 - 6:49A friend of mine who taught
at Swarthmore decided -
6:49 - 6:51he didn't want to be a professor anymore,
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6:51 - 6:54and so he quit to go to medical school.
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6:55 - 6:58The job that he occupied opened up,
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6:58 - 7:00I applied for it, I got it,
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7:00 - 7:03the only job I've ever applied for.
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7:03 - 7:06I spent 45 years teaching at Swarthmore,
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7:06 - 7:11an institution that had an enormous impact
on the shape that my career took. -
7:11 - 7:13And to just give one last example,
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7:13 - 7:17I was giving a talk about
some of my work in New York, -
7:17 - 7:21and there was somebody in the audience
who came up to me after my talk. -
7:21 - 7:22He introduced himself.
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7:22 - 7:24He said, "My name is Chris.
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7:24 - 7:26Would you like to give a talk at TED?"
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7:27 - 7:30And my response was, "What's TED?"
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7:31 - 7:33Well, I mean, he told me,
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7:33 - 7:37and TED then wasn't what it is now.
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7:37 - 7:39But in the intervening years,
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7:39 - 7:41the talks I've given at TED
have been watched -
7:41 - 7:44by more than 20 million people.
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7:44 - 7:47So the conclusion is, I'm a lucky man.
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7:47 - 7:49I'm lucky about my marriage.
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7:49 - 7:50I'm lucky about my education.
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7:50 - 7:52I'm lucky about my career.
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7:52 - 7:59And I'm lucky to have had a platform
and a voice at something like TED. -
7:59 - 8:01Did I deserve the success I've had?
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8:01 - 8:02Sure I deserve that success,
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8:03 - 8:05just as you probably deserve your success.
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8:05 - 8:11But lots of people also deserve
successes like ours -
8:11 - 8:13who haven't had it.
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8:14 - 8:16So do people get what they deserve?
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8:16 - 8:18Is society just?
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8:19 - 8:21Of course not.
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8:21 - 8:27Working hard and playing by the rules
is just no guarantee of anything. -
8:27 - 8:31If we appreciate the inevitability
of this kind of injustice -
8:31 - 8:34and the centrality of good fortune,
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8:34 - 8:36we might ask ourselves
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8:36 - 8:38what responsibilities do we have
-
8:38 - 8:44to the people we are now celebrating
as heroes in this time of the pandemic -
8:44 - 8:48when a serious illness
befalls their family -
8:48 - 8:52to make sure that they remain whole
and their lives aren't ruined -
8:52 - 8:56by the cost of dealing with the illness?
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8:56 - 8:59What do we owe people who struggle,
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8:59 - 9:03work hard and are less lucky than we are?
-
9:04 - 9:06About a half century ago,
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9:06 - 9:10the philosopher John Rawls wrote a book
called "A Theory of Justice," -
9:10 - 9:15and in that book, he introduced a concept
that he called "the veil of ignorance." -
9:15 - 9:16The question he posed was:
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9:16 - 9:22If you didn't know what your position
in society was going to be, -
9:22 - 9:26what kind of a society
would you want to create? -
9:26 - 9:28And what he suggested
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9:28 - 9:31is that when we don't know
whether we're going to enter society -
9:31 - 9:33at the top or at the bottom,
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9:33 - 9:37what we want is a society
that is pretty damn equal, -
9:37 - 9:39so that even the unlucky
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9:39 - 9:43will be able to live decent,
meaningful and satisfying lives. -
9:43 - 9:49So bring this back, all of you lucky,
successful people, to your communities, -
9:49 - 9:56and do what you can to make sure
that we honor and take care of -
9:56 - 10:00people who are just as deserving
of success as we are, -
10:00 - 10:02but just not as lucky.
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10:02 - 10:04Thank you.
- Title:
- What role does luck play in your life?
- Speaker:
- Barry Schwartz
- Description:
-
Chance plays a far bigger role in life than we're willing to admit, says psychologist Barry Schwartz. Of course, working hard and following the rules can get you far -- but the rest could boil down to simple good fortune. Schwartz examines the overlooked link between luck, merit and success, offering an intriguing solution to equalize opportunity -- starting with college admissions.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 10:16
Oliver Friedman edited English subtitles for What role does luck play in your life? | ||
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