
The Lottery of Life: Where To Be Born in 2013 - jacques_chester
http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-born-2013-lottery-life
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tokenadult
On the substance of the submitted article, I find it interesting that Taiwan
outranks (a little) the United States as a place to be born in 2013 by the
methodology used here by the editors of The Economist. The listing is broadly
plausible, but of course in most countries it is better to be born as a well-
off person in a stable family than as a member of that country's underclass in
an unstable family.

The lottery of HN submissions: when to submit to be noticed? That question is
raised by the two previous submissions of this interesting article.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4819542>

(40 days ago, 4 points, no comments)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4863788>

(29 days ago, NOT canonical URL, 6 points, one comment)

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jacques_chester
I wasn't aware it'd already been submitted. You're right that it's a bit of a
lottery.

Being in Australia, I find that stuff submitted in (my) morning seems to catch
some Europeans and night owls in the USA, from whom only a few upvotes are
required to climb the rankings.

Once you hit the front page, you're golden.

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jacques_chester
It's only been in the last few years I've realised how lucky I've been: born
in a stable, prosperous country to stable, intelligent parents.

I think the "birth lottery" is the single biggest stroke of luck there is.
It's so influential that people just don't see it. It's the elephant in the
room.

I'd be interested to see this list modified by profession. Australia might be
#2 on a general basis, but it would be hard to argue that being born in the
USA gives you the inside edge on getting ahead in the web industry, for
example.

Only one thing worries me:

> _Small economies dominate the top ten._

They also dominate the bottom 10. Might this be a sampling effect?

~~~
nekojima
Some of those countries in the bottom ten have quite large populations and
land areas too. They are also desperately poor, with inadequate
infrastructure, corrupt ineffectual governments, and lack a substantial civil
society willing & able to put pressure on the government to implement the
necessary developmental changes & reforms necessary for their country to
develop and to bring up the necessary living standards.

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Zaheer
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell as I'm sure many folks on HN have read really
digs into how external factors (time, school registration dates, etc) have a
significant impact of the success of individuals. Having just completed
reading it, I thought this was an interesting article.

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hudell
at least brazil wasn't overrated again.

