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How rich kids already won the career game

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Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#91
Wow does this ring true to me. I'm working at wal-mart for gas money while going to college. I had a customer call and complain and I had to go talk to management. Such a scary ordeal since I need this job. I have nothing to fall back on, with no gas money, no degree. My fate is in their hands and that is the most sickening feeling I've ever had. But this is temporary. When I'm done with college, wal-mart customers are going to get a piece of my mind since I won't be worrying about getting fired.

The guy is right, when you have everything to lose at the slightest mistake, you don't take chances.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#92
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No i am surprised that people with intelligence and vision for technology, don't think outside the box when is needed. For me there is no panacea for society. Part of my life was in Socialism, another in Democracy / Corporatocracy and believe when i say that in two cases for normal hardworking and talented individual there is no hope. The solution is to take what's good from both of them, for example public healthcar…

The public interest may not be in the public's interest. Inequality may not always be a bad thing. The focus shouldn't be on the gap between the haves and have nots, the focus should be on the dire situation of the poor without worrying about the lives of those better off.

What bothers me is that the only solution to bridge the "income inequality" is to take money from the rich and just give it to the poor.

Beyond the mentally and physically unable (which is a very low percentage), poverty is a result of poor life choices. This is what freedom gives us: the ability to succeed or fall flat on our ass due to our own choices, which is why we will always have poverty in our current system.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#93
As a citizen of both worlds, I'll say the authors story rings very true. When I first came to the US, I did totally entitled from years of being upper class in a small third world country.. it took me several years to realize that I was now a very small fish in a huge pond where opportunities didn't just materialized for you and problems easily faded away.

20 years later I find myself moved up to a pretty good on that big pond mainly because of good opportunities in the tech industry but I would strongly agree with the author that a lot of that success was achieved through the Mojo that a complete lack of fear of failure gives you.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#94

"I believe my generation will overthrow the arbitrary and brutal authority of corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism in favor of rationalistic, libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach and a concern for universal social justice." That's what my generation believed. And my parents' generation. And their parents....read some literature from 100 years ago, for example by the Fabians or other socialis…

The point of the OP was IF the rich kid works just like the regular kid, then he'll still be ahead.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#95

Yes, being rich can make you confident which can do well for your career. But there are plenty of other unfair advantages that also bring confidence, like height or good looks. And then there are really horribly unfair things like intelligence.

Well, it could be fair if we practiced natural selection based on intelligence vs. good looks.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm guessing you failed to comprehend any of the material... READ A FUCKING BOOK. If you're so much cleverer than this chap, why have you not felt it necessary to accompany your ad-hominem attacks with at least a basic level of elucidation? To the chap in question: insightful views clearly stated. I applaud your goals and I hope we can make it happen.

Insults do not ad hominem make. Not to say that it was a good comment to begin with.

The whole post basically said the author was stupid while neglecting to explicitly point out anything wrong with what he/she said. That's pretty much the definition of ad hominem, no?

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#97
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, his point was that rich kids have better attitudes, skills and perceived work ethic which is simply not true. "Middle-class kids generally fuck up their first few years of the career game in one of two ways." - really??

"His point was that rich kids have better attitudes, skills and perceived work ethic which is simply not true." I mean I can point you to any number of academic studies confirming this, e.g. Hart & Risley's Meaningful Differences book. Or just go to any elite private university and compare the kids who are there during summer session with the kids who are there during the rest of the year. The only real difference is…

You could probably say the same thing about the summer session at most universities. The kids willing to give up their summers for education have a different level of drive than the ones that attend the rest of the year.

Not that summer session is always the best course of action. An internship will go a lot further toward most careers than a few extra classes.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#98
post #63
post #59

This was an whiny and awful post about "life isn't fair". The socially outgoing and confident worker will always outperform his socially awkward counterpart of equal intelligence. It doesn't matter that he came from a wealthy family, what matters is he has MORE skills. It isn't discrimination until you start hiring the less wealthy (with less skills) because of the fact that they're less wealthy.

I think the scenario in this article works in some banks, law firms and other places that give a hoot about Ivy League connections and hire a few proles to avoid being painted as a company full of elitists.

So doing a startup is not about connections? LOL.

Having good connection is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to identifying customer pain points, finding VC money, doing sales, etc.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#99

"I believe my generation will overthrow the arbitrary and brutal authority of corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism in favor of rationalistic, libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach and a concern for universal social justice." That's what my generation believed. And my parents' generation. And their parents....read some literature from 100 years ago, for example by the Fabians or other socialis…

>That's what my generation believed. And my parents' generation. And their parents

That doesn't mean it will never happen. The world is changing rapidly, it stands to reason that even more big changes could happen.

I think "human nature" is a bit of a red herring. We don't currently have any scientific way to separate how much of how people behave is social/environment programming and how much is "human nature".

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm guessing you failed to comprehend any of the material... READ A FUCKING BOOK. If you're so much cleverer than this chap, why have you not felt it necessary to accompany your ad-hominem attacks with at least a basic level of elucidation? To the chap in question: insightful views clearly stated. I applaud your goals and I hope we can make it happen.

Insults do not ad hominem make. Not to say that it was a good comment to begin with.

if insults don't make an argument ad hominem, what does?
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