4 ms·

I agree entirely with you. That whole self-made-man concept is something that we really should try to get rid of. I am where I am because my parents built me up

I agree entirely with you. That whole self-made-man concept is something that we really should try to get rid of. I am where I am because my parents built me up as a person, they taught me most of the important stuff I ever needed and when I needed a hand they bailed me out (I do need to clarify that we are not rich by any means). I wil be eternally grateful for their help and plan to do the same for my children in hopes that their children will have a bigger safety net than I did. Yes, making it all by yourself makes for a great story, but I plan to help my children as much as I can and there's nothing wrong with it

Case81 5y ago
But just because you had a bad education and childhood doesn’t mean your life is over. I had the worst of everything, the poorest work ethic of all time and I succeeded. And I kinda give it all to my adrenaline junkie personality which finds coding the biggest possible thrill…well, excluding my gf
wyclif 5y ago
I would be OK with the concept remaining if we could just get rid of the fiction that these people are self-made.
boxed 5y ago
That is also ignoring the bigger picture! Your parents did alnost nothing compared to the general infrastructure or society: vaccines, roads, factories, modern farming, animal and plant breeding, etc, etc. THIS is what we are truly basing all our success on. If we were dropped in some random part of the world 100 thousand years ago every modern human would be able to do basically nothing.
- leobg 5y ago
  From a 1946 JFK speech (I just happened to read it a few minutes ago, and it’s exactly the point you’re making): “Some men even feel a faint nostalgia for army life,” for the comradeship, for the feeling of mutual interdependence. And, he went on, there was nobility in this longing, for after all, “we are dependent on other people nearly every minute of our lives—for our food, for help when we are sick. Even when we drive a car we are depending on the skill and judgment of the other people on the road. In a larger sense, each one of us is dependent on all the people of this country—on their obedience to our laws, for their rejection of the siren calls of ambitious demagogues. In fact, if we only realized it, we are in time of peace as interdependent as soldiers were in the time of war. I think it is high time that we recognize this truth. If we did, how much easier would be our time ahead!”
  - boxed 5y ago
    Well it's similar, but less. When driving a car you are not only depending on the skill of other drivers, but on the fact that the car exists at all!

Case81 5y ago

But just because you had a bad education and childhood doesn’t mean your life is over. I had the worst of everything, the poorest work ethic of all time and I succeeded. And I kinda give it all to my adrenaline junkie personality which finds coding the biggest possible thrill…well, excluding my gf

wyclif 5y ago

I would be OK with the concept remaining if we could just get rid of the fiction that these people are self-made.

boxed 5y ago

That is also ignoring the bigger picture! Your parents did alnost nothing compared to the general infrastructure or society: vaccines, roads, factories, modern farming, animal and plant breeding, etc, etc. THIS is what we are truly basing all our success on. If we were dropped in some random part of the world 100 thousand years ago every modern human would be able to do basically nothing.

leobg 5y ago
From a 1946 JFK speech (I just happened to read it a few minutes ago, and it’s exactly the point you’re making): “Some men even feel a faint nostalgia for army life,” for the comradeship, for the feeling of mutual interdependence. And, he went on, there was nobility in this longing, for after all, “we are dependent on other people nearly every minute of our lives—for our food, for help when we are sick. Even when we drive a car we are depending on the skill and judgment of the other people on the road. In a larger sense, each one of us is dependent on all the people of this country—on their obedience to our laws, for their rejection of the siren calls of ambitious demagogues. In fact, if we only realized it, we are in time of peace as interdependent as soldiers were in the time of war. I think it is high time that we recognize this truth. If we did, how much easier would be our time ahead!”
- boxed 5y ago
  Well it's similar, but less. When driving a car you are not only depending on the skill of other drivers, but on the fact that the car exists at all!