Here's another carrot problem: You see people all around you appearing to be cooler and more popular by proclaiming there's no point in working hard because th

Here's another carrot problem: You see people all around you appearing to be cooler and more popular by proclaiming there's no point in working hard because the whole system is rigged. Not working and riding to the top of HN on your cynicism sure is tempting if you can justify it. But you don't know whether the people who claim that are actually secretly successful and just trying to win points by appealing to popular discontent. And you won't find out whether studying and working could have made you successful, because now you feel it's not worth trying. Even in the slacker 90s where we were all convinced we'd never earn as much as our parents, the self-pitying cynicism wasn't this rampant.