4 ms·

If you don't have enough experience in an area to see the opportunities in an area, get the expertise. Otherwise find them in your area. If they don't exist go

If you don't have enough experience in an area to see the opportunities in an area, get the expertise. Otherwise find them in your area. If they don't exist go elsewhere. You are ALWAYS the problem.

mandmandam 3y ago
> You are ALWAYS the problem. Would you say the same to children born during a (human-caused) famine, or born with defects cause by politically useful wars fifty years ago? Would you say the same to children raised in traumatic households, with chronic self-regulation disorders as a result? Your take isn't just narrow, and wrong, but also incredibly callous. We live in a world where some people have megayachts while 785 million people lack access to basic drinking water services. In the US, the wealthy have world-class healthcare but 530,000 families file for bankruptcy due to medical issues each year (pre-pandemic!). The amount of luck involved in becoming wealthy is immense, and ignoring this most basic fact is both dim and cruel. Perhaps this is a lot of effort to respond to a fourteen-day old account... Still, this demented view on self-determination is bizarrely common even among the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" set, and has been for hundreds or even thousands of years. I don't know if that's because it's so convenient for the already wealthy, or it's some kind of innate fairness bias, but it's embarrassing (and harmful) for the species that people actually fall for it.
eigenket 3y ago
This is so obviously incorrect that I don't understand how someone can write it. Why did Bill Gates found Microsoft and not someone of the same age from somewhere in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Obviously the kid from the Congo was the problem, and not that the environment that Gates found himself in was dramatically more condusive to success than growing up in a village in Africa. Perhaps if the guy from the Congo had pulled himself up by his bootstraps harder he would be the billionaire by now?
- mufti_menk 3y ago
  Doesn't need to be a billionaire in USD, if he grinded he could have a penthouse in the Congo. Wealth is relative to your surroundings.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    Fine “being a billionaire”can be made relative. But that doesn’t eliminate great disparities within any context. One person will be miserably poor, neglected and abused by their parents, face social challenges due to appearance and speech issues, get cancer, then during remission be shot to death by a local criminal. Another person has a stable childhood in a supportive, healthy and ethical environment. Effortlessly accumulates useful friends and acquaintances in part due to family reputation, height, mesmerizing speech qualities and physical attractiveness. And happens to discover the useful and novel work they love and are meant to do while still in high school. And everything in between. Also, we all think differently in ways we can’t undo. I don’t mean facts or beliefs or learned skill. Nature and early childhood experiences, that none of us were in control of, wired each of us very differently. The kinds of things each of us can do well vary greatly in quantity, quality and variety, and in usefulness within our context. Two randomly selected people in any society are not going to have the same probability of success with the same amount of work. The variance is tremendous. Turning every problem into another version of “work harder”, “do what it takes, “learn what it takes”, might be a good attitude. It might be helpful. But it won’t eliminate the disparity in results regardless of commitment. Life is full of unfairness, accident, important epiphanies that come too late, etc. Stoicism and objectivity about that isn’t defeatism. The ways things happen in the exterior world, and our internal worlds, are inherently chaotic. Small seeming things can lead us to serendipity or ruin in ways we will never be aware of. We are more likely to create greater fairness and opportunity for ourselves and others by recognizing reality, and responding with a will to improve things despite the uncertain returns. Ironically, the very point of Y-Combinator is the recognition that context matters. A lot.

If you don't have enough experience in an area to see the opportunities in an area, get the expertise. Otherwise find them in your area. If they don't exist go elsewhere. You are ALWAYS the problem.

mandmandam 3y ago

> You are ALWAYS the problem. Would you say the same to children born during a (human-caused) famine, or born with defects cause by politically useful wars fifty years ago? Would you say the same to children raised in traumatic households, with chronic self-regulation disorders as a result? Your take isn't just narrow, and wrong, but also incredibly callous. We live in a world where some people have megayachts while 785 million people lack access to basic drinking water services. In the US, the wealthy have world-class healthcare but 530,000 families file for bankruptcy due to medical issues each year (pre-pandemic!). The amount of luck involved in becoming wealthy is immense, and ignoring this most basic fact is both dim and cruel. Perhaps this is a lot of effort to respond to a fourteen-day old account... Still, this demented view on self-determination is bizarrely common even among the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" set, and has been for hundreds or even thousands of years. I don't know if that's because it's so convenient for the already wealthy, or it's some kind of innate fairness bias, but it's embarrassing (and harmful) for the species that people actually fall for it.

eigenket 3y ago

This is so obviously incorrect that I don't understand how someone can write it. Why did Bill Gates found Microsoft and not someone of the same age from somewhere in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Obviously the kid from the Congo was the problem, and not that the environment that Gates found himself in was dramatically more condusive to success than growing up in a village in Africa. Perhaps if the guy from the Congo had pulled himself up by his bootstraps harder he would be the billionaire by now?

mufti_menk 3y ago
Doesn't need to be a billionaire in USD, if he grinded he could have a penthouse in the Congo. Wealth is relative to your surroundings.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  Fine “being a billionaire”can be made relative. But that doesn’t eliminate great disparities within any context. One person will be miserably poor, neglected and abused by their parents, face social challenges due to appearance and speech issues, get cancer, then during remission be shot to death by a local criminal. Another person has a stable childhood in a supportive, healthy and ethical environment. Effortlessly accumulates useful friends and acquaintances in part due to family reputation, height, mesmerizing speech qualities and physical attractiveness. And happens to discover the useful and novel work they love and are meant to do while still in high school. And everything in between. Also, we all think differently in ways we can’t undo. I don’t mean facts or beliefs or learned skill. Nature and early childhood experiences, that none of us were in control of, wired each of us very differently. The kinds of things each of us can do well vary greatly in quantity, quality and variety, and in usefulness within our context. Two randomly selected people in any society are not going to have the same probability of success with the same amount of work. The variance is tremendous. Turning every problem into another version of “work harder”, “do what it takes, “learn what it takes”, might be a good attitude. It might be helpful. But it won’t eliminate the disparity in results regardless of commitment. Life is full of unfairness, accident, important epiphanies that come too late, etc. Stoicism and objectivity about that isn’t defeatism. The ways things happen in the exterior world, and our internal worlds, are inherently chaotic. Small seeming things can lead us to serendipity or ruin in ways we will never be aware of. We are more likely to create greater fairness and opportunity for ourselves and others by recognizing reality, and responding with a will to improve things despite the uncertain returns. Ironically, the very point of Y-Combinator is the recognition that context matters. A lot.