This is a good meme to use to keep direct reports quiet at work. Show them this and tell them that if they continue working in the ditch all will be well in the end!
Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
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Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#42Many, many more people work at things other people think are silly and insignificant only to discover that thing is silly and insignificant and then they give up. Occasionally the opposite happens and the person succeeds. If you only look at the successes it probably looks like a willingness to be low-status is a marker for success, but it really isn't. It tells you nothing of the future outcome. The only thing it pr…
There's probably also the matter of competition. If something is considered significant and important, there won't be much low hanging fruit. If something is considered silly or insignificant, there are fewer people working on the same thing and an increased likelihood you'll be able to contribute something substantial.
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's probably necessary but not sufficient. If you can't deal with being low status you won't get through the grind and the suck. But there are a million grinds that don't go anywhere. Look at what it takes to level up a character.
The necessary condition seems to be invalidated by the “family-tradition” narrative where someone goes directly from son of a 4* general to becoming a 2* general as long as they don’t mess up too badly. For them, their default amount of status can lead to success as long as they don’t put too many chips on the wrong games. I’m not actually sure how true that is in practice, but the stickiness of income bracket and le…
I think underlying that there is actually a similar root in both cases: the old adage "It's not what you know, but who you know" (or perhaps more precisely, who knows you).
In the son-of-a-general instance, the son is born into those connections. But if you are able to associate yourself with high-level decision makers in a relevant low-status role, that can pay off.
I've done this twice, once as a marketing intern at a news startup where our CEO connected me with some decision-makers in the journalism industry (though I decided I didn't like the journalism industry), and again when I got my foot in the door as a customer support rep at a tech company to leverage my software development skills into a dev job with no relevant professional experience or education.
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
The necessary condition seems to be invalidated by the “family-tradition” narrative where someone goes directly from son of a 4* general to becoming a 2* general as long as they don’t mess up too badly. For them, their default amount of status can lead to success as long as they don’t put too many chips on the wrong games. I’m not actually sure how true that is in practice, but the stickiness of income bracket and le…
Income brackets are not as sticky as you might think[1]. If you are in the second or third quintile, you are more likely to move income quintiles than stay where you are over ten years. If you are in the bottom quintile, you only have a 64% chance of staying there. That's not incredible, but it does make you question the "inescapable poverty" narrative when a full 1/3 of impoverished people escape it every decade. Ac…
Perhaps. But the trends are not encouraging.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar...
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#45I'm struggling to see the link between status and working on something obscure. Working on something you like (or even having a choice of things to work on at all), even if it's something others find trivial or pointless, still seems like a privilege.
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#46This is nothing more than a month old tweet from some random person with generic advice and zero empirical evidence to back it up. Why is this even on Hacker News?
Hackernews seems to like two kinds of posts. Interesting posts that get into the weeds of a specific topic.
And the kind of pseudo-inspirational posts you see on Linkedin
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#47The more-correct observation is that any well-understood or easy path to becoming high status will be shut down. Most people are not high status, and want to be. It follows that the path has to be either risky, or difficult to comprehend. If hard work were enough, we'd all be in charge. Lots of hard workers out there.
I agree with this. Since any path to becoming high status attracts heavy gate keeping quickly (essentially clearing that path for people who have high status to begin with) it seems reasonable that people try to "hide" in low status niches where there are way fewer predators. I think success here is somewhat incidental. No doubt the vast majority of niche workers are pursuing non-viable careers, a minority can just a…
Tech is nice because it's tedious and can be difficult and for rich high status people, an easier quicker way to more guaranteed status is Medicine or Law.
Your summary is both a good point and a little chilling.
I've always wondered in Capitalism how this concept of a JOB for people to have a living wage is sustainable in modern times. Much less for people to innovate and thrive.
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love perpetual motion machines. Absolutely fascinated by them. I am quick to dump on flat earthers and antivaxxers and understand the science against perpetual motion just as well. That said, given a strong UBI or a grant of a billion dollars I would GLEEFULLY spend the rest of my life working on trying to build a perpetual motion machine. Sometimes we just have to remember that if we are honest with ourselves we a…
No one I know who could qualify for a UBI has any desire to spend their life on a lark. They all experience an urgency that seems like it would be foreign to you.
I responded on topic to the OP with a single data point supporting their position. I expressed my willingness to toil away as a low status person (perpetual motion chaser) that has zero expectation of success amongst rational people.
I don’t understand why you decided that needed to be followed up with a personal attack.
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#49Many, many more people work at things other people think are silly and insignificant only to discover that thing is silly and insignificant and then they give up. Occasionally the opposite happens and the person succeeds. If you only look at the successes it probably looks like a willingness to be low-status is a marker for success, but it really isn't. It tells you nothing of the future outcome. The only thing it pr…
I think there's a special talent into feeling insignificant activities and to quickly enough turn them into 'added value'. Otherwise yeah you can pack burgers every day and stay at that level if you want. But some will make more, find more customers, more venues, new ideas. The growth spirit maybe ? I don't know.
That's trying to elevate a task to significance. That seems more an unwillingness to let the insignificant remain insignificant.
Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love perpetual motion machines. Absolutely fascinated by them. I am quick to dump on flat earthers and antivaxxers and understand the science against perpetual motion just as well. That said, given a strong UBI or a grant of a billion dollars I would GLEEFULLY spend the rest of my life working on trying to build a perpetual motion machine. Sometimes we just have to remember that if we are honest with ourselves we a…
Aren't you actually asking for a grant to be an installation artist working in the field of pretty moving machines. I don't think society should fund research into the flatness of the earth or perpetual motion, but I do think there is plenty of scope for making beautiful things. Especially if you explain it gleefully when you unveil your latest :-)
I’m afraid no one would define any of my attempts so far as pretty except to call them pretty bad! That’s actually a great idea though, I could probably reduce the money sink a bit by trying to them some of my projects into art work. Thanks for sharing that idea!