People emigrating to escape genocide have a different definition of failure which makes them more risk-tolerant.<p>When someone whose definition of failure is getting buried in an unmarked mass grave is competing against someone whose definition of failure is sleeping in their car for a few months, that first guy will risk more to win.<p>I recall from the movie Gattaca, when the natural-genes protagonist had a swimming contest against his engineered-genes brother, and won, the latter <i>demanded</i> to know &quot;How did you beat me?!&quot; and the former responded, &quot;I never saved anything for the swim back.&quot;  He was prepared to drown, so long as he could win before dying.<p>Having to go back to square one seems like a failure only to those people who are not aware that there is a square zero.  For those people, square one is still one step away from failure.