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Services and manufacturing are fungible and the rest of your tough guy act is even less convincing. Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk all came from at leas

Services and manufacturing are fungible and the rest of your tough guy act is even less convincing. Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk all came from at least upper-middle class background. None of them was ever at risk of starvation. The carrot-and-stick approach to motivation works–in an extremely small band of human experience. But as it works in that band, which is the lower middle class, it draws people in from both sides: those richer ease up a bit, those immediately below put in an extra hour. That's why it's sort of the default experience. It's also a "winnable struggle" so it makes for good stories and is overrepresented in film and literature. But, once you leave that narrow band, other forces are clearly at work. If inflicting pain on homeless people worked to motivate them to successfully get off the streets, there wouldn't be any homeless people. Because life on the streets sucks. If you think they are "lazy", have you ever toyed with the idea of just quitting and checking out an underpass with a good view? No...? But you do have a vague idea what laziness is? So then: that's not it.

zpeti 5y ago
How about Brian Chesky (son of social workers), Marc Andreesen (son of seed factory worker), or just Jeff bezos with a pretty shitty family background: At the time of Bezos' birth, his mother was a 17-year-old high school student and his father was 19 years old.[18] After completing high school despite challenging conditions, Jacklyn attended night school while bringing Bezos along as a baby.[19] After his parents divorced, his mother married Cuban immigrant Miguel "Mike" Bezos in April 1968.[20] Shortly after the wedding, Mike adopted four-year-old Bezos, whose surname was then legally changed from Jorgensen to Bezos.[21] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos We can all pick examples to fit our narratives
- fragmede 5y ago
  How does Bezos' background disprove the notion that homeless people aren't homeless because they're lazy? That if only we made life just a little more horrible for them, that they would realize being homeless sucks, stop being lazy, and just go get one of those job things, and then pull themselves up by their bootstraps. (A feat which is literally impossible, mind you)
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    I think the examples are to counter the cherry-picking of entrepreneurs who are from middle class backgrounds.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      The salient point is that certain class of people are likelier take risks because failing will not leave their children hungry. Obviously, poor people can also take risks, but the ones that fail do not get to try again and you do not hear about them again. Bezos is a ridiculous example to use anyway, as he obviously made bank working in finance before he took risks on Amazon such that he was never risking being homeless. Just the simple fact that your parents own a home where you are welcome to live can be enough for you to be able to take risks. And Zuckerberg and Gates and others were not middle class, they were at least upper middle and I would bet their parents (dentists and prominent lawyers) were already above 90th percentile in wealth. I love when people tell me examples of extremely poor people taking risks and hitting it big, and at the same time lament how people irresponsibly have children and debt they could not handle. Celebrate them when the gamble pays off, but shit on them when it does not.
      - robertlagrant 5y ago
        > I love when people tell me examples of extremely poor people taking risks and hitting it big, and at the same time lament how people irresponsibly have children and debt they could not handle. Celebrate them when the gamble pays off, but shit on them when it does not. How often does this happen? Who says those two things simultaneously?
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Maybe not simultaneously, but I grew up in an immigrant family where everyone’s parents had farmland and houses in the original country. Almost all the families and cousins are pretty successful business/real estate owners/operators, who champion themselves, while ignoring the fact that they all had houses and farmland to go back to in their original country in case they failed. But many, especially the older generations, also like to complain about people not striking it out on their own as a causal factor for why they remain poor. It is a popular trope in culture too. It makes people feel good about themselves if they can forget about the shoulders they stood on, and for those who do not have shoulders to stand on, it gives them hope.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  We can indeed. You left out this part: After Mike had received his degree from the University of New Mexico, the family moved to Houston, Texas, so that he could begin working as an engineer for Exxon.[22] Jeff Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade.[23] Bezos' maternal grandfather was Lawrence Preston Gise, a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in Albuquerque.[24] Gise retired early to his family's ranch near Cotulla, Texas, where Bezos would spend many summers in his youth.[25] [...] He accepted an estimated $300,000 from his parents and invested in Amazon.[47][51][52] He warned many early investors that there was a 70% chance that Amazon would fail or go bankrupt. The one thing many CEOs have in common is early access to resources and tinkering opportunities which aren't available to most of the population. Which is the exact opposite of your point.
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zpeti 5y ago

How about Brian Chesky (son of social workers), Marc Andreesen (son of seed factory worker), or just Jeff bezos with a pretty shitty family background: At the time of Bezos' birth, his mother was a 17-year-old high school student and his father was 19 years old.[18] After completing high school despite challenging conditions, Jacklyn attended night school while bringing Bezos along as a baby.[19] After his parents divorced, his mother married Cuban immigrant Miguel "Mike" Bezos in April 1968.[20] Shortly after the wedding, Mike adopted four-year-old Bezos, whose surname was then legally changed from Jorgensen to Bezos.[21] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos We can all pick examples to fit our narratives

fragmede 5y ago
How does Bezos' background disprove the notion that homeless people aren't homeless because they're lazy? That if only we made life just a little more horrible for them, that they would realize being homeless sucks, stop being lazy, and just go get one of those job things, and then pull themselves up by their bootstraps. (A feat which is literally impossible, mind you)
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  I think the examples are to counter the cherry-picking of entrepreneurs who are from middle class backgrounds.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The salient point is that certain class of people are likelier take risks because failing will not leave their children hungry. Obviously, poor people can also take risks, but the ones that fail do not get to try again and you do not hear about them again. Bezos is a ridiculous example to use anyway, as he obviously made bank working in finance before he took risks on Amazon such that he was never risking being homeless. Just the simple fact that your parents own a home where you are welcome to live can be enough for you to be able to take risks. And Zuckerberg and Gates and others were not middle class, they were at least upper middle and I would bet their parents (dentists and prominent lawyers) were already above 90th percentile in wealth. I love when people tell me examples of extremely poor people taking risks and hitting it big, and at the same time lament how people irresponsibly have children and debt they could not handle. Celebrate them when the gamble pays off, but shit on them when it does not.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      > I love when people tell me examples of extremely poor people taking risks and hitting it big, and at the same time lament how people irresponsibly have children and debt they could not handle. Celebrate them when the gamble pays off, but shit on them when it does not. How often does this happen? Who says those two things simultaneously?
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Maybe not simultaneously, but I grew up in an immigrant family where everyone’s parents had farmland and houses in the original country. Almost all the families and cousins are pretty successful business/real estate owners/operators, who champion themselves, while ignoring the fact that they all had houses and farmland to go back to in their original country in case they failed. But many, especially the older generations, also like to complain about people not striking it out on their own as a causal factor for why they remain poor. It is a popular trope in culture too. It makes people feel good about themselves if they can forget about the shoulders they stood on, and for those who do not have shoulders to stand on, it gives them hope.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
We can indeed. You left out this part: After Mike had received his degree from the University of New Mexico, the family moved to Houston, Texas, so that he could begin working as an engineer for Exxon.[22] Jeff Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade.[23] Bezos' maternal grandfather was Lawrence Preston Gise, a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in Albuquerque.[24] Gise retired early to his family's ranch near Cotulla, Texas, where Bezos would spend many summers in his youth.[25] [...] He accepted an estimated $300,000 from his parents and invested in Amazon.[47][51][52] He warned many early investors that there was a 70% chance that Amazon would fail or go bankrupt. The one thing many CEOs have in common is early access to resources and tinkering opportunities which aren't available to most of the population. Which is the exact opposite of your point.
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