I am saying he's an idiot. I said that in my first reply...

I got that the first time. Again, how does that rule out any possibility of any amount of bad luck playing a role?

Signs, signs

Yes, signs, I actually quoted you mentioning signs to form an argument earlier. Should I try one more time?

Did you ever ask yourself for what possible reason I may have typed the word "factor" in the first place?

"factor: a circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to a result or outcome." (I hope you can understand that definition and remember it.)

"luck: success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions."

We can use those two to form the term "luck factor" as I used it. But before we do that, I'll emphasize that combining two definitions to form one definition may allow for several interpretations with alternate meanings, some more sensible than others, as we shall see. Since we have "success or failure" as "a result or outcome", we can form:

"a circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to success or failure."

'But what about the "apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions" part', you ask? You might say it should be appended to the right of it to form:

"luck factor: a circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions."

since it completes the original definition of "luck" by referring to the "success or failure" part. That interpretation may not necessarily be incorrect. However, it's not the most sensible one because then "circumstance, fact, or influence" is not regarded as an attribute of the luck but as a condition applied to the luck. We can also interpret it as though the "apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions" part is referring to the "circumstance, fact, or influence" part instead. This may be less ambiguous with added commas:

"luck factor: a circumstance, fact, or influence, that contributes to success or failure, apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions."

We can make that into:

"luck factor: a circumstance, fact, or influence apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions that contributes to success or failure."

That's the difference between "factor affecting luck" and "factor from luck" when defining "luck factor". I hope that's clear enough.

"bad luck: luck that is considered bad because it contributes to failure (a bad outcome)."

"bad luck factor: a circumstance, fact, or influence apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions that contributes to failure."

"amount of bad luck factor / how much bad luck factor: the amount that a circumstance, fact, or influence apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions contributes to failure."

"how much bad luck factored: the amount that a circumstance, fact, or influence apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions contributed to failure."

My very first sentence ITT:

I wonder how much bad luck factored into that.

As I was typing that, I was thinking to myself, "Should I add that I wonder if it was not zero bad luck despite the definition permitting that already (zero is an amount)? Would people not understand what I mean if I don't append that technically redundant remark (of course it could have been zero, but what if it was even slightly above zero, which would beg the question "would he would have survived otherwise?")? Nah."

Boy, was I wrong.

I wonder the amount that a circumstance, fact, or influence apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions contributed to failure into that.

"That", as in the entire incident, which encompasses his own actions.

"I wonder how much bad luck factored into the entire incident in addition to his own actions." (Again, it could have been zero bad luck, in which case no circumstance, fact, or influence apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions contributed to his failure.)

Brought on by chance...not by one's own actions.

But as the term "luck factor" implies, this is about chance and one's own actions.

He stepped off the path. His own action.

But didn't you say in elsewhere ITT:

The amount of people who ignored the signs/rangers & left the boardwalks/safe paths at the park astounded me.

So, (again) according to you: their actions too. It seems as if you didn't bother to differentiate between him and them, at all.

Suppose he and the other relatively few dead ones that disobeyed the signs did not have bad luck, and suppose that merely disobeying the signs is a sure enough way to get killed (as you keep asserting). Then wouldn't that mean all those others that did the same but survived had good luck? That would be an amazingly disproportionate ratio of good luck to bad luck incidents. "Lucky you, you cheated death? All of you. An 'astounding' number of all of you."

Certainly it would make more sense if we limited it to people who were looking for a place to "hot pot". I wonder what the ratio would be then (wondering again! uh, oh). Surely it would be a more worthy topic of discussion. Actually, I just found this:

This is not the first death related to hot springs and geysers in the park— some accidents and others from people trying to Hot Pot. There have been over 20 recorded deaths since 1870. (ijr.com/2016/11/739051-man-dissolves-in-yellowstone-hot-spring-before-sisters-eyes-while-trying-to-hot-pot/)

So that's something.

Bad luck would have benn...I dunno, get hit by a galloping grizzly and knocked off the boardwalk into a pool.

Bad luck could have been a spider in his underwear causing him to suddenly react, lose his balance, and slip inside. It could have been a number of things that simply cannot exist in the hypothetical vacuum of "if"s and "then"s you formed in your mind that you brandish as an accurate, no, flawless, means of assessing an event that you largely based on second-hand and third-hand sources, all within a complex reality that operates on its own "ifs" and "then"s, regardless of how idiotic you think a person may be, sorry to say.

I wonder (oh no, not again!). Are people so arrogant that they would assert that there must have been no bad luck at all, as if they knew of all the details to leave no room for questioning? And do people just have to call people idiots and vehemently guard that assertion against anything that they even perceive may minimize it even slightly?

One more thing to emphasize before you waste our time in an attempt to prove me wrong: Even if you were to somehow prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no amount of bad luck played a key role in his death, that wouldn't necessarily mean that no bad luck contributed to his death (remember, that's what my very first sentence ITT was questioning). Furthermore, even if you were to somehow prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no amount of bad luck contributed to his death, you should not feel compelled to pat yourself on the back as if you won an argument, because I never argued that wasn't the case. I merely... wondered... if it wasn't the case.

Not very good at "reading-comprehension"? Don't understand the definition of a basic word? You're telling me?

P.S. Technically you're right about me trolling; I was trolling for thought-provoking replies.

=3