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I guess what we learn from this is that not everyone is as enterprising as you? While on some level I’d say that, of course you can do it if you want to. There’

by Aeolun 3y ago

I guess what we learn from this is that not everyone is as enterprising as you? While on some level I’d say that, of course you can do it if you want to. There’s many people for whom that is just too much of a leap, and it feels unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it.

kryogen1c 3y ago
> unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it. You and I have very different ideas about what's fair.
- komali2 3y ago
  Really? Do you think it's fair that some kids will be able to command historic levels of political and capital power by being born and never need to work, most kids will need to work at this point it seems until death, some kids will achieve "needing to work until death" status by working harder than anyone else while being hungry and housing insecure, and many kids will simply live and die in squalor whether they work or not? Considering we seem to be discussing the USA, the richest nation in human history, this seems very unfair to me. It seems to me at minimum we should easily be able to remove squalor conditions no matter how little someone works.
  - BobbyJo 3y ago
    well... that's a completely different point than the one they were disagreeing with, no?
    - komali2 3y ago
      I don't know, I'm asking lol. It seemed to me they were arguing in favor of Spartan meritocracy hence my comment.
petesergeant 3y ago
> it feels unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it While I’d agree, you’ve read the OP’s comment in a significantly darker light than I did, or than I can get the text to support
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Ah, I wasn’t necessarily trying to imply anything about OP’s post. Just that what worked for him might not work for many others. I’m still happy to hear he did ;)
  - noisy_boy 3y ago
    I think I agree on your take. Mental strength in people in adverse conditions is not the rule, it is the exception. Most won't have enough of it to overcome the difficulties and will instead fall prey to easy traps like drugs etc. It is easy for most of us, who have managed well enough to be commenting here which probably implies a baseline amount of mental strength, to take the shining examples and think that these examples are universal tools of motivation. To a person that is dealing with the deep-seated problems we are talking about, that could be, indeed, motivation but also could feel like we are mocking them or trivializing their struggles. Only you can feel your toothache, me saying other people experience it and get over it, doesn't lower your pain (obviously this is a scale and this analogy isn't universal).
    - komali2 3y ago
      A lot of cozy people underestimate the willpower challenge of poverty. I meet so many tech bros that victim blame. "the mom working two jobs has at least an hour at night. She can use that time to take free coding classes, teach herself to code, upskill and get a high paying programming job. It's not easy but it's possible." Some variation of that said to me so many times. "my family grew up poor and I figured it out! My dad came to this country with five dollars in his pocket etc etc." I think one or two were telling the truth from all angles. Most were telling the truth as they knew it, but didn't realize that the fact that their parents were able to afford a house in the good school district already gave them a significant leg up, or other random privileges they have over others. But what everyone seems to overestimate is their own willpower when they aren't just working many hours - which many of us on this forum are used to from startup life - but working for those hours for 7$ or less per hour, while facing humiliation and depredation every day at however many jobs being worked (by customers, by managers), looking to the future and seeing nothing but this 7$ an hour, watching your meagre savings always get nuked at just the right moment by a blown head gasket or the landlord raising rent or the kid needing unexpected school supplies because they forgot their backpack at the bus stop or whatever else. The psychological burden of a hopeless situation is enormous. I wish I could help more people understand that and empathize with people in these situations. In the richest country on earth I don't understand why we tolerate people having to live like that, out of some cultish dedication to nonexistent meritocracy.
slily 3y ago
[flagged]
- johnfn 3y ago
  It's as if you're responding to a different comment than the OP. GP talks about dealing with many years of hardship, no food, losing their house and car, and so on. Tolerating that and coming out stronger doesn't seem like doing "the bare minimum" to me.
- chrischen 3y ago
  The whole point of this study is to show that a well off person can do the bare minimum and a disadvantaged person could be doing way more than minimum, and the disadvantaged person will end up being disparaged as must have been doing the bare minimum.
harryp_peng 3y ago
yeah, I mean, I made it (what was it?) I think I became conscious and awake at 16, and with a computer did anything imaginable. We have all became 10x with the internet, and will probably be 100x with AI.

by Aeolun 3y ago

kryogen1c 3y ago

> unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it. You and I have very different ideas about what's fair.

komali2 3y ago
Really? Do you think it's fair that some kids will be able to command historic levels of political and capital power by being born and never need to work, most kids will need to work at this point it seems until death, some kids will achieve "needing to work until death" status by working harder than anyone else while being hungry and housing insecure, and many kids will simply live and die in squalor whether they work or not? Considering we seem to be discussing the USA, the richest nation in human history, this seems very unfair to me. It seems to me at minimum we should easily be able to remove squalor conditions no matter how little someone works.
- BobbyJo 3y ago
  well... that's a completely different point than the one they were disagreeing with, no?
  - komali2 3y ago
    I don't know, I'm asking lol. It seemed to me they were arguing in favor of Spartan meritocracy hence my comment.

petesergeant 3y ago

> it feels unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it While I’d agree, you’ve read the OP’s comment in a significantly darker light than I did, or than I can get the text to support

Aeolun 3y ago
Ah, I wasn’t necessarily trying to imply anything about OP’s post. Just that what worked for him might not work for many others. I’m still happy to hear he did ;)
- noisy_boy 3y ago
  I think I agree on your take. Mental strength in people in adverse conditions is not the rule, it is the exception. Most won't have enough of it to overcome the difficulties and will instead fall prey to easy traps like drugs etc. It is easy for most of us, who have managed well enough to be commenting here which probably implies a baseline amount of mental strength, to take the shining examples and think that these examples are universal tools of motivation. To a person that is dealing with the deep-seated problems we are talking about, that could be, indeed, motivation but also could feel like we are mocking them or trivializing their struggles. Only you can feel your toothache, me saying other people experience it and get over it, doesn't lower your pain (obviously this is a scale and this analogy isn't universal).
  - komali2 3y ago
    A lot of cozy people underestimate the willpower challenge of poverty. I meet so many tech bros that victim blame. "the mom working two jobs has at least an hour at night. She can use that time to take free coding classes, teach herself to code, upskill and get a high paying programming job. It's not easy but it's possible." Some variation of that said to me so many times. "my family grew up poor and I figured it out! My dad came to this country with five dollars in his pocket etc etc." I think one or two were telling the truth from all angles. Most were telling the truth as they knew it, but didn't realize that the fact that their parents were able to afford a house in the good school district already gave them a significant leg up, or other random privileges they have over others. But what everyone seems to overestimate is their own willpower when they aren't just working many hours - which many of us on this forum are used to from startup life - but working for those hours for 7$ or less per hour, while facing humiliation and depredation every day at however many jobs being worked (by customers, by managers), looking to the future and seeing nothing but this 7$ an hour, watching your meagre savings always get nuked at just the right moment by a blown head gasket or the landlord raising rent or the kid needing unexpected school supplies because they forgot their backpack at the bus stop or whatever else. The psychological burden of a hopeless situation is enormous. I wish I could help more people understand that and empathize with people in these situations. In the richest country on earth I don't understand why we tolerate people having to live like that, out of some cultish dedication to nonexistent meritocracy.

slily 3y ago

[flagged]

johnfn 3y ago
It's as if you're responding to a different comment than the OP. GP talks about dealing with many years of hardship, no food, losing their house and car, and so on. Tolerating that and coming out stronger doesn't seem like doing "the bare minimum" to me.
chrischen 3y ago
The whole point of this study is to show that a well off person can do the bare minimum and a disadvantaged person could be doing way more than minimum, and the disadvantaged person will end up being disparaged as must have been doing the bare minimum.

harryp_peng 3y ago

yeah, I mean, I made it (what was it?) I think I became conscious and awake at 16, and with a computer did anything imaginable. We have all became 10x with the internet, and will probably be 100x with AI.