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> ....and your chances of being able to do those things (without severe risk of poverty and homelessness) are increased dramatically by having been lucky enough

• Sebb767 4y ago
  I don't know why this is getting downvoted. Yes, inequality exists and it sucks, but you still need to make the best out of what you have. Also, a lot of people seem to far overestimate the work and risk involved. This doesn't help really poor people, obviously, but the amount of people with sufficient money, backing and time that complained they'd start a company if they "only also had $20 million backing from their parents" is staggering.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    People don't want to admit it involves hard work and luck - they'd rather think that Bill Gates got to where he is because of his parents (even though there are thousands/millions with similar parents and backgrounds who didn't get even close). Because one line of thought leads to: "I couldn't do anything, the game was rigged from the start" and the other leads to "I didn't do as much as I could have done."
    • Swizec 4y ago
      > People don't want to admit it involves hard work and luck My favorite realization from actually playing cards. We used to play a lot of rummy on vacations as a family. Like a lot. I kept losing. Hard. Absolutely destroyed. If only I could get this one card to complete my hand, I’d win every time. But it just wouldn’t come! I had terrible luck. Someone else always ended up winning before I got the one card I needed to make the high score and beat everyone else into submission. It was infuriating. After a while I changed tactics. No waiting. Make a play on every play. Something, anything, with whatever cards you’ve got. Find a way to make the card you just picked up work. Suddenly I was winning almost every game. Everyone complained how much it sucks to play cards with me. How does this kid always get exactly the perfect card!? Now I’m banned from playing cards with family. Last time I played rummy was with my girlfriend’s family over Christmas a few years ago. They banned me immediately. Cards never come up again in conversation lol. It really isn’t about the cards. They’re just the ingredient.
      • bombcar 4y ago
        This is really visible in bridge; the hands are all random but how you play them is entirely skill. Anyone can win with a perfect hand; the skill comes in dealing with the imperfect hands. True in life, too. Bridge is nice that you can compensate for skill somewhat by handicapping, and the less-skilled players can still get a great hand and win sometimes. I always say "bridge is a fun game to lose" - and that's a really important part of a game you want to play.
        • mcguire 4y ago
          Bridge is a weird game in that the actual play of the hand is almost unimportant. You can lose the game by playing the hand badly, but you can only win consistently in the bidding. Which is why abstract and complicated bidding systems dominate the game, which gives it that lovely, steep initial learning curve.
      • vangelis 4y ago
        now imagine each bad play had a cost and you had a budget before too many knocked you out of the game
        • Swizec 4y ago
          now imagine doing nothing had a cost and you decided to sit there and pout because others have better cards
          • mcguire 4y ago
            This is really not a helpful reply. To make rummy a good metaphor for this discussion, you need to modify the normal $1/point rummy gambling rules; say making gin gives you $1000 bonus from the house or something. (There's a resemblance to quiddich here, I think.) Anyway, now you have the two extreme strategies: knock if you can, which gets you a few dollars each time, or try exclusively for gin, which usually costs you money on each hand but sometimes pays off. If you're skint, the gin strategy won't work since you can't stay in the game long enough. If you're flush, the knock strategy is uninteresting because a few dollars doesn't make a difference. Now make that bonus $10,000,000,000 and you're making some unicorns, Harry!
    • danaris 4y ago
      But the true answer lies between the two. The game is rigged. But that merely makes it less likely that someone who's on the wrong side can succeed, not impossible. You do have to do as much as you can, with what you're given, regardless of what it is. The real key, though, is that this tells us what we, as a society, need to change. If we genuinely value entrepreneurship and innovation, we need to create a universal safety net that lets people take risks, try things, and fail, again and again, without ending up destitute, because we know that is what leads to eventually creating a successful business.
      • bumby 4y ago
        Isn’t this what limited liability corporations help ensure? People need a way to limit downsides, not have zero downside. It’s like giving a student a service chance at a test to help ensure they learn the material. But giving them unlimited attempts with no risk doesn’t create the same environment.
        • danaris 4y ago
          LLCs let you avoid having personal liability for accidents, corporate malfeasance, etc. They don't let you avoid having to invest your own money into the company to try to make it go, because no one else cares enough about your idea to do so, then lose it all if it fails. Having something like universal basic income absolutely does not reduce the risk to zero. What it does is it reduces the penalty for failure—failure which is often largely out of your hands. Rather than such failures meaning you lose your life savings, have no job, and are months/weeks/days from homelessness, they would mean you are making only the minimum needed to sustain housing, food, and clothing. For most people, particularly those of the type to try starting their own business, that still won't be enough to be happy. The threat of death by exposure and starvation should not be what drives us to do better. We, as a society, should have moved past that already.
          • bumby 4y ago
            LLCs do provide limitations towards losing your life savings or home. They create a buffer between personal and corporate assets. I think a key difference is the benefits are targeted towards those who are trying to create value, whereas UBI is much less targeted. At least from an economic sense, LLCs seem like a much more efficient mechanism.
• paskozdilar 4y ago
  It might not be helpful to the individual, but it provides a useful guideline for society - everyone is capable of doing great stuff, as long as the means for doing so are provided. I'd bet my life on this - if every homeless person was given a place to live, recovery from addiction (if needed), mental health counceling, education and a job, a significant percentage of them would become productive members of society.
  • Swizec 4y ago
    > a significant percentage of them would become productive members of society The average homeless experience lasts about 2 years. So yes, you are right. https://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html https://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html
    • paskozdilar 4y ago
      I'd argue the same point even if we took only chronically homeless into consideration instead of an average homeless.
• jjj123 4y ago
  You’re right it’s not helpful towards the goal of becoming an entrepreneur or whatever, but I disagree that it’s not helpful at the macro level. We should all have this basic understanding of how our society works, and how our plutocrats got to be in the position they are in. We’re fed myths that they all started from the bottom and worked hard enough and smart enough to get where they are, and you can do it too! And if you can’t, you’re just not as smart or hard working as they are. These myths serve the people in power by preserving the status quo. I believe it is helpful to remind people that we should change the status quo instead of adopting a “grindset” to get yours within it.
  • throwaway98797 4y ago
    > We’re fed myths that they all started from the bottom and worked hard enough and smart enough to get where they are, and you can do it too! i know this may be rhetoric but i’ve never heard someone say that. a lot of folks in power say “I got lucky but also worked hard” it’s counter productive to claim the elite is this super disconnected group of people. because they are not and it weakens the case for reform. let’s be honest many successful people work hard, yet most unsuccessful people don’t. there’s a number of lazy successful people there’s also a bunch unsuccessful hard working people nuance is better than hyperbole
    • PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      The elite are a super disconnected group of people. My understanding is that their children don't even have the same capacity for empathy as children from other classes. Money literally changes how humans think, such that humans with significant wealth have a different psychology. There is of course nuance but let's not pretend like moneyed people, new or old, are normal.
      • jdmoreira 4y ago
        > My understanding is that their children don't even have the same capacity for empathy as children from other classes I don't know. It seems like you are dehumanizing rich kids which I don't really think it's a great idea. Sure, entitlement is a thing but it's not like rich kids don't have their own struggles
• jrochkind1 4y ago
  In theory, hypothetically, it could be helpful in identifying when you don't have the proper situation to make success sufficiently likely -- perhaps you want to find another path where your situation is more advantageous. OR to identify what you, unique to your circumstances, might need to do to be in circumstances to maximize your luck, that other people woudln't -- like, in this case, cultivate a relational network of wealthy people that others might have out of the box. Or find a founder partner with a different balance of advantages/disadvantages, maybe you need a partner with those networks you don't have, while you bring other things to the table. I'm reluctant to talk about this case specifically because it is so... fraught. People get mad, in both directions. But in theory, there is no reason identifying the challenges in your starting situation that others might not have wouldn't be helpful. Isn't all information helpful?
  • Swizec 4y ago
    Identifying challenges to overcome is extremely helpful. Necessary even! Giving up before you even start just because it’s harder for you than someone else, that part doesn’t help. The thing here can be anything. Losing weight, running a marathon, starting a business, climbing out of poverty into the middle class. You can’t get there unless you start.
    • jrochkind1 4y ago
      > Giving up before you even start just because it’s harder for you than someone else, that part doesn’t help. Doesn't help with what? In general, when you have your choice of direction, choosing a direction that plays to your strength instead of a direction where you are starting out handicapped compared to competitors can certainly help with your chance of success. If we ignore the specifics about it being about the background you were born into, I think we'd all agree taht there are some people who exist who because of personal charecteristics or even personality are ill-suited to be startup founders, and have a poor chance of success, and maybe shoudln't do it, right? It's just when we don't ignore that we are talking about social position specifically, in America we want to believe this can't be true because of your social position, we want to believe everyone has an equal chance regardless of social position. This is an ideology though, not based on observation. An ideology that says you have to pretend it doens't matter, not even identify the challenges to overcome. So if you know you're going to have a harder time being successful than others, and that of course most startups fail anyway, and maybe you want to try it anyway after evaluating the risk and what will happen to you if you fail, but maybe you say actually, no, I don't want to do the thing that is already very risky and I have an additional handicap for... maybe instead of being a founder I'm going to look for someone else's startup to join, or maybe I'm going to try to work at a FAANG instead -- when you say it "doesn't help", what do you mean -- it doesn't help who do what? And who would it help to do what if you were to insist upon doing it even though it will be harder for you than someone else?
• Silverback_VII 4y ago
  >"While this is true, it also isn’t helpful. Play the cards you have, not the cards you wish you had." certainly not, if you have bad cards it's better to bluff - What is there to lose? btw the best book on the subject is unscripted from MJ DeMarco.
  • nemo44x 4y ago
    > if you have bad cards it's better to bluff That's playing the cards you have.
• melenaboija 4y ago
  I think it is helpful. Along with the cards analogy I would say the first step is knowing what cards you have. As an example, being upper-middle class probably gives you an advantage on networking, either family, school old mates, ex colleagues, … Which I think is quite important when starting a business. So realizing you don’t have that since the beginning will help.
• Banana699 4y ago
  I find remarks like GP useful, to put into perspective just how mind-boggingly unfair life is. This is a different frame of thinking ("headspace") than a self-improvement seeker is in, which explains the downvotes and the "boo"ing. Imagine a civil engineer walks into the office and asks a colleague about the plans for the new housing project, and the colleague replies that the concept of a "house" is a rich and socially constructed idea that both reflects and influnces the social zeitgeist in subtle ways and is intimately tied to notions of community and private property. They are not wrong, and the civil engineer would probably learn new things if they let the colleague finish instead of laughing them off or firing them, it's just that there is this implicit shared context in the workplace, that "house" is not a subtle idea and our job is to plan and build them not talk about their history or philosophy, that the colleague is violating or ignoring. This is a useful analogy to understand why a remark like GP's, very useful and very true and would drive you into despairing madness and perhaps the brink of suicide if you think about it honestly and deeply, is not welcome in a thread like this. There is an implicit context in the comment section (formed haphazardly in a distributed non-explicit way, unlike that of the analogy) that you have a bunch of latent opportunities that you can take for granted and build off them to new frontiers, and that those opportunities are more or less a "critical mass", you can make them into whatever outcome you want given a fair amount of work. This is non-trivial for a huge portion of humans, and yet the self-help context always assumes it without proof, and any pushback is interpreted as doomer nay-saying or unhelpful pedantry.
• pessimizer 4y ago
  > While this is true, it also isn’t helpful. It isn't quite helpful. The second half of the advice should be to tell working class people to do whatever they can to get near rich/upper-middle class people, to flatter them, befriend them, attend their parties, and sleep with them. The more rich people around you, the luckier you get. Some rich manchild somewhere is waiting for you to be "the brains" behind something.
  • agentwiggles 4y ago
    I'm annoyed by how true this comment has been for me. Lots of my success in life has been more about knowing the right people than about knowing the right things.
  • Silverback_VII 4y ago
    who wants to be "the brains" behind something which is not of his own? Only your own cause and goal can generate the willpower and stamina necessary to ultimately create something great. As Nietzsche said: "He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living things."
    • mcguire 4y ago
      "who wants to be "the brains" behind something which is not of his own?" Them as don't want to live in cardboard boxes but don't have some part of the resources necessary to "create something great"?
      • Silverback_VII 4y ago
        I will respond with another citation of the same author: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” The brains who you use to achieve someone else's goal instead of using it to become what you truly are is somewhat wasted. don't you think?
• MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  You do have to start somewhere. It's also important to know which goals are realistic relative to what position you're in. If you're poor, do you go for the moonshot, or do you go for being middle class and then adjust your expectations once you're comfortable that you've achieved your initial goals? Going from nothing to something is more impressive than going from something to... more something.