I get the feeling that the idea of "If you work hard and work smart, you will succeed" is more true in America than in the rest of the world. Living in Germany

I get the feeling that the idea of "If you work hard and work smart, you will succeed" is more true in America than in the rest of the world. Living in Germany, I think this might explain why I get into arguments with people on HN when I comment about the unfairness of the system. There may be a mismatch between our experiences. It seems that working hard does seem to lead to success for most people in America. I think it could be that there are fewer cracks in the system and therefore fewer people tend to fall through them as they do in Europe... That said, as few cracks as there may be in the US system, those that do exist seem to run deep; people who fall through them may have a much harder fall; it doesn't surprise me that the US has a homelessness and opioid problem - That's what happens to people who fall through the cracks; you don't see them on HN complaining about how unfair things are (as I tend to do - Complaining is an activity reserved for partial losers, not complete losers). In America, the winners get to shoot rockets up into space. On the other hand, the only things that losers shoot up are schools and heroin...