7 ms·

Is this a moral or a factual statement? I guess I'd reject the whole victim/perpetrator dichotomy and say that people's conditions are contingent on forces lar

• WalterBright 5y ago
  > people's conditions are contingent on forces largely out of their control. That's a factual statement. It is a factual statement, I agree, but in the US it is not true. Peoples' lives are the sum of their choices, large and small. One can choose to learn how to make better choices. I spent a significant portion of every day learning to make better choices and doing things that will improve my life. Such as exercising. Improving my diet. Trying to eliminate unproductive behaviors. Etc.
  • baleeeeeeve 5y ago
    Okay, but you have to acknowledge that your experience was with a version of the United States that no longer exists. Things have changed a lot for people on the bottom rungs since the '90s, Walter. Some sympathy for the fact that bootstrapping is vastly more difficult for young people today might be a better look.
    • WalterBright 5y ago
      It's never been easier and cheaper to get an education in the US, start a business, reach a global marketplace, learn how to do anything you want to do, etc. When I was young it was pretty much unheard of for people to get wealthy before 25. Now it's commonplace and unremarkable.
      • the_only_law 5y ago
        > It's never been easier and cheaper to get an education in the US Source? even the most conservative people I know who went to school in the 80s/90s say they could never afford it now. I myself am trying to figure out how to pay for it without $40k grand in debt if I choose to go back.
        • WalterBright 5y ago
          MIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQxyVuLeCs&list=PL9F74AFA03AA06A11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQxyVuLeCs&list=PL9F74AFA03... K-12: https://www.khanacademy.org/ https://www.khanacademy.org/ All free, available on the supercomputer in your pocket.
          • XorNot 5y ago
            All completely irrelevant since they don't provide the official certifications which employers check. Not to mention entirely dependent on the unsupported precept that traditional teaching structures were apparently worthless - but, it's cheap to put your money where your mouth is on this: are you going to save a lot of time and money and educate your children solely via these resources?
            • WalterBright 5y ago
              > official certifications which employers check Yet I wangled a job writing software despite a mechanical engineering job achieved without CS courses. I also know several people at Microsoft in programming jobs who had no college experience. There are tens of thousands of employers, all different. You can even start your own business doing programming, EE design, whatever. > apparently worthless Not at all. It's maybe a harder road, sure, but it's navigable for those who want to do it for free.
          • staticman2 5y ago
            You could have made the same argument in 1908, telling people to self educate at their local library. If everyone watched a 2007 youtube course on circuits at MIT and learned the material, the value of such a skillset would be equal to the value of flipping Burgers at Burger King.
      • rejectedandsad 5y ago
        How do you define wealthy Walter? I’m 25 and “unremarkable” and my net worth is only a quarter million. I make about $200k at a company you’d probably consider unimpressive. Not everyone can be remarkable enough to go to CalTech.
        • lfowles 5y ago
          Some days I can't tell which comments on HN are parody and which aren't...
          • rejectedandsad 5y ago
            I’m sorry what seems to be satirical about my statement?
            • lfowles 5y ago
              You're only a few years into your career, not saddled with an oversized tuition from a prestigious university, and already making $200k with a sizable net worth. In my books that's absolutely a path to wealth!
            • jpindar 5y ago
              "only" a quarter million
              • DoreenMichele 5y ago
                Some people have tunnel vision.
        • BalinKing 5y ago
          I'm confused by your argument, because I'd consider making $200K/yr to be firmly on the side of wealthy. Also, I think he was talking about the circumstances being unremarkable, not the people themselves. (Minor note, since you brought it up: it's spelled "Caltech".)
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • uvnq 5y ago
      It seems a lot easier, given the fact that accessing an audience or starting a business requires significantly less capital than it did back then. Although maybe there's a side to your argument that I'm missing?
      • pseudalopex 5y ago
        I think they meant bootstrapping a life not a business.
    • anonfornoreason 5y ago
      Disagree, it's never been easier. The country is awash in vast amounts of money, trying to find ways to be invested, to be spent. Access to information and resources is higher than it has ever been. Sure, it's hard to just get by if you aren't out there hustling. The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over. The world is your oyster if you are willing to put in the time and have any ability to plan, organize, and work.
      • pseudalopex 5y ago
        Most businesses fail. Why do you think that is?
        • WalterBright 5y ago
          80% of businesses fail in 5 years. There are many reasons, but the usual ones revolve around things like not understanding accounting, not putting in the effort, etc. It's also true that many very successful people failed at business time after time before figuring it out. Fortunately, American culture doesn't look askance at people that fail at business and try again.
          • pseudalopex 5y ago
            What percent of businesses fail because the owners don't understand accounting? What percent fail because they don't put in the effort? Where did you find this data?
            • WalterBright 5y ago
              Google "why businesses fail" and there's a lot of information.
      • treis 5y ago
        >The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over. Covid craziness aside, that's still true. You can't do it in California, or Seattle or NYC but outside of those areas it's easily obtainable. Most of these "homes were so cheap" anecdotes neglect to mention that you might be paying 18% interest on your cheap houses. Or they are talking about a place like NYC in the 70s. Yeah you could have gotten a house for a song in a bankrupt city suffering through the crack epidemic.
  • whydoibother 5y ago
    What about people who suffer trauma, childhood or otherwise, due to the decisions of others? Saying people's lives are strictly in their control is just not true.
    • WalterBright 5y ago
      Help is available for mental issues from psychological trauma. Even self-help, there is endless material freely available. For mental issues from physical trauma, like a brain injury, I qualified my statement with being of "sound mind". I feel immense empathy for such people.
      • whydoibother 5y ago
        I'm bringing this up because you said people's lives are the sum of their actions. I think we both agree psychological trauma can affect people immensely. However, your statement saying they can just go get help is really hand-wavy and oversimplifies the situation. People who suffer trauma during childhood can have impaired brain development, stunted emotional development, poor executive decision making, and are way more likely to enter situations that retraumatize them -- causing more damage. Simply saying "I will not be a victim" isn't really a thing. You adapt to the trauma by learning coping skills that are not healthy. When this happens in childhood, it is baked into your personality and then later in life you are left wondering which parts of you are really "you" and which are just maladaptive coping. Thus, the sum of you isn't due to just your decisions. I speak from personal experience on this. I've never had a victim mentality. But now, at 35, going to therapy for cPTSD, I look at the young child I was and can truly see I was a victim. Does this mean I go around now saying I am a victim? No. But, realizing that I was in the past allows me to show more understanding and sympathy for myself.
        • WalterBright 5y ago
          I'm glad you could overcome these problems.
  • Kye 5y ago
    You do everything right, then one day a cop decides you were reaching for a gun instead of a wallet. Yes, choices matter, but sometimes the choices of others limit your own.
    • WalterBright 5y ago
      I've been pulled over many times. Here's what I do: 1. put my hands on the wheel in plain sight and keep them there 2. when the cop says "driver's license" I say "it's in my wallet in my right front pocket. I do not move. 3. cop says "ok, you can get your wallet". 4. I use one hand to get my wallet and the license. 5. cop says "registration" 6. I say "it's in the glove box" and I do not move. 7. cop says "ok you can get it" 8. I move slowly to get it. What I never do is lunge for my cell phone, reach under the seat, turn around and try to get something from the back seat, try to grab the officer, try to drive off, etc. Nothing's perfect, but your odds of survival improve greatly by doing this. Yes, I've been held at gunpoint by a cop, too. Been robbed at gunpoint as well.
      • anigbrowl 5y ago
        Really living the dream there Walter.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • sokoloff 5y ago
    It’s a sum of their choices and their parents’ choices*, heavily weighted toward theirs, but I think my success is at least 20% the consequences of my parents’ hard work and good choices. * - and a sliver of teachers and other influential adults, but the overwhelmingly majority are from people who could say good night and good morning to each other.
  • runaway 5y ago
    > in the US it is not true That is patently false. You can divide Americans into any number of segments which they are born into and reliably determine that segment's success. E.g. white people earn more than black people. Children of rich parents do better in school than children of poor parents. Lawyers who graduated in 2000 are more successful than ones who graduated in 2008. Forces out of their control determined this. Their "conditions" are functions of this. Your statement would imply that the people in these segments just happened to make worse choices unrelated to the circumstances of their segments. That would be quite the coincidence.
    • throwaway34241 5y ago
      Yes, like your lawyer example there's plenty of evidence where outcomes for people doing basically the same work varies a lot across times and places. Maximally small government / libertarian people would like to pretend that everything is about individual character because this would justify their preferred public policies, but thinking about it even a little bit it should be obvious that internal and external factors both matter. I remember in a previous discussion here Walter was objecting even to the use of standard economic terminology around things like what wealth-creation means (dating back to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776), so I'd take his views here with a grain of salt.
  • revscat 5y ago
    The single biggest and most accurate predictor of financial success, or lack thereof, is which zip code people are born in. Libertarian sentiments like yours refuse to acknowledge in any meaningful sense environmental effects upon a population’s well-being, instead almost exclusively focusing on individual choice. Which is absurd, and why it is not respected despite decades of evangelical proselytizing.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • Clubber 5y ago
      Do you have any cites for that data? What is success defined as? I've heard that causation thrown around lately but have never seen the actual study. I can see it at the extremes, meaning Martha's Vineyard and Compton perhaps as examples of positive and negative predictors. I haven't visited either, so I wouldn't know first hand. The vast, vast majority of zip codes aren't the extreme by definition. In my zip code, there are both wealthy people in million dollar properties as well as HUD housing and the majority somewhere in between.
• initplus 5y ago
  On a practical level, this is a bad view to hold. Individuals with an external locus of control have worse life outcomes. Having an internal locus of control, the idea that you do have a large amount of control over your life, results in better outcomes.
  • Rayhem 5y ago
    I definitely believe they're correlated, but are there any studies demonstrating a causal relationship?
• shirakawasuna 5y ago
  To be honest, this comment section is full of blanket dismissals that speak to living in a bubble away from people with very real grievances. I would say it is not particularly philosophical or moral or factual - it is a reflection of personal material status.
  • systemvoltage 5y ago
    I feel like most comments here reflect actual reality. Middle class of America is incredibly privileged. I feel like vocal minorities took over the media circles and got amplified disproportionately, especially after the pandemic hit and the only way to get information was through these narrow channels. If possible, go out. Talk to people. It's quite refreshing how different the world is outside of the media machine.
  • ptr2voidStar 5y ago
    Thank you. An empathetic voice of reason - for a change (a rarity on HN)
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]