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> Lots of hard workers out there. I disagree with this. Never underestimate how many people just don't show up or try at all. Look at average screen time for

> Lots of hard workers out there. I disagree with this. Never underestimate how many people just don't show up or try at all. Look at average screen time for Americans as a data point. It's a ridiculous 12 hours a day of media usage. Just think about that. People are basically staring at their phones/tvs for 12 out of the 16 waking hours. As I get older I realize more often than not most successful people are not special, but simply were normally people that didn't screw up badly, showed up to work every day, and took better opportunities that were available. They graduated college with reasonable degrees, they didn't stay in bad jobs, or in dead-end cities. Eventually if you do that you will get a break, land at a successful company, get a big promotion, ect.

pengstrom 6y ago
This is an unfair argument if you're not acknowledging how media is designed to be addictive. Even we technical folk are susceptible. It's a convenient fantasy that the downtrodden deserve their place for being lazy.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  That makes it sound like individuals have no agency, or that we're blank slates, or that agency is evenly distributed and low. The point is that from screen addiction to exercise to nutrition to savings, there are varying degrees of self-control, and surely varying degrees of temptation and built-in advantages or disadvantages. We're conscious beings with a will, and there reaches a point where you struggle with your own will in order to evolve as a person. For some that's screen addiction. I'm only eager to write this comment so I can highlight the danger of a 'not my fault' mentality that's self-sabotaging.
- rjkennedy98 6y ago
  That's just one data point. I could go on and on about how people make obviously bad decisions. Take college major choice. Why do so many people get worthless degrees? They can do a simple google search to see how much people with X major make as salaries. It's not hidden or even a remote mystery. I won't get in to how people finance their education (not even reading the terms of their loans which are invariably awful). As for career, I lived for a year in Minnesota and was amazed at how many people were incredibly underpaid (like 80K a year for a senior software engineer) and simply did not try to change jobs. Similarly many also refused to even consider moving to a costal city with better pay. I've also had co-workers that stuck around at obviously failing companies (and then were upset when their options were worthless). And with investments, I've an aunt who inherited 50K about 20 years ago and just kept the money in the bank. Everyone knows you should be investing that money in the stock market or an appreciating asset, yet she is hardly unusual in just not investing the money. My mom invested it and made at least 4x on the money. There are tons of these kinds of things - which are all simple and obvious, but literally most people don't do them for reasons that are just beyond me. I had a friend who was a semester away from graduating at UCSD and dropped out to take music lessons at community college. I tried to explain to him that was an awful decision, but he was just dead set on it. I've seen this stuff happen over and over. Obviously, you can say that people don't have this kind literacy because they were poor, ignorant, ect. It doesn't change the fact that mostly getting by and moving up in the world is not rocket science or for special people, it's a matter of just making mostly reasonable decisions: choosing a reasonable career, saving money, showing up for work, taking good opportunities when given to you.
  - bluedino 6y ago
    >> Why do so many people get worthless degrees? A lot of people just want to go to art school.
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    While I don't disagree with the spirit of your post, moving to an entirely different region of the country is not always an easy or obvious choice for people.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
The 11-12 hour estimates of screen time include office work, e-mail, and so on. It’s incorrect to imply that all of that time is wasted. This idea that success comes to anyone who just shows up and puts in a little bit of effort because most people are watching TV or browsing the Internet for 12 hours a day is, to be blunt, extremely naive.
ck425 6y ago
I both agree and disagree with this. You're right that in a lot of places in western society (though not all) you can become pretty successful through good strategy and some hard work as you've described. But that's actually quite hard to do! Plenty of things in life can get in the way and more importantly having a good life strategy requires a level of knowledge not available to many. The reason so many entrepreneurs come from moderately well off backgrounds is that the middle class is far far better at teaching their kids the strategies to success than those less well off. The upper class are even better and can use their money and access to take shortcuts not available to the rest of us. If you're a working class kids whose family have never been to college or who hasn't been exposed to the 'professional class' you might have no idea how to get there and thus have no idea that you could get there. There are plenty of super smart kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds who would never even consider going to uni for a 'reasonable degree' because no ones implied it was possible for them.

pengstrom 6y ago

This is an unfair argument if you're not acknowledging how media is designed to be addictive. Even we technical folk are susceptible. It's a convenient fantasy that the downtrodden deserve their place for being lazy.

mancerayder 6y ago
That makes it sound like individuals have no agency, or that we're blank slates, or that agency is evenly distributed and low. The point is that from screen addiction to exercise to nutrition to savings, there are varying degrees of self-control, and surely varying degrees of temptation and built-in advantages or disadvantages. We're conscious beings with a will, and there reaches a point where you struggle with your own will in order to evolve as a person. For some that's screen addiction. I'm only eager to write this comment so I can highlight the danger of a 'not my fault' mentality that's self-sabotaging.
rjkennedy98 6y ago
That's just one data point. I could go on and on about how people make obviously bad decisions. Take college major choice. Why do so many people get worthless degrees? They can do a simple google search to see how much people with X major make as salaries. It's not hidden or even a remote mystery. I won't get in to how people finance their education (not even reading the terms of their loans which are invariably awful). As for career, I lived for a year in Minnesota and was amazed at how many people were incredibly underpaid (like 80K a year for a senior software engineer) and simply did not try to change jobs. Similarly many also refused to even consider moving to a costal city with better pay. I've also had co-workers that stuck around at obviously failing companies (and then were upset when their options were worthless). And with investments, I've an aunt who inherited 50K about 20 years ago and just kept the money in the bank. Everyone knows you should be investing that money in the stock market or an appreciating asset, yet she is hardly unusual in just not investing the money. My mom invested it and made at least 4x on the money. There are tons of these kinds of things - which are all simple and obvious, but literally most people don't do them for reasons that are just beyond me. I had a friend who was a semester away from graduating at UCSD and dropped out to take music lessons at community college. I tried to explain to him that was an awful decision, but he was just dead set on it. I've seen this stuff happen over and over. Obviously, you can say that people don't have this kind literacy because they were poor, ignorant, ect. It doesn't change the fact that mostly getting by and moving up in the world is not rocket science or for special people, it's a matter of just making mostly reasonable decisions: choosing a reasonable career, saving money, showing up for work, taking good opportunities when given to you.
- bluedino 6y ago
  >> Why do so many people get worthless degrees? A lot of people just want to go to art school.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  While I don't disagree with the spirit of your post, moving to an entirely different region of the country is not always an easy or obvious choice for people.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

The 11-12 hour estimates of screen time include office work, e-mail, and so on. It’s incorrect to imply that all of that time is wasted. This idea that success comes to anyone who just shows up and puts in a little bit of effort because most people are watching TV or browsing the Internet for 12 hours a day is, to be blunt, extremely naive.

ck425 6y ago

I both agree and disagree with this. You're right that in a lot of places in western society (though not all) you can become pretty successful through good strategy and some hard work as you've described. But that's actually quite hard to do! Plenty of things in life can get in the way and more importantly having a good life strategy requires a level of knowledge not available to many. The reason so many entrepreneurs come from moderately well off backgrounds is that the middle class is far far better at teaching their kids the strategies to success than those less well off. The upper class are even better and can use their money and access to take shortcuts not available to the rest of us. If you're a working class kids whose family have never been to college or who hasn't been exposed to the 'professional class' you might have no idea how to get there and thus have no idea that you could get there. There are plenty of super smart kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds who would never even consider going to uni for a 'reasonable degree' because no ones implied it was possible for them.