Hard work is one of multiple preconditions for success - not a guarantee. Working smartly, remaining focused and simply being at the right place at the right time are just as important.
Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
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Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#42The most alarming thing to me in this report[1] is that a clear majority (> 60%) distrust technology and/or the government's ability to understand and manage it for our safety. That sort of sentiment is what can power through a destructive clamp down on big tech in the U.S. from ill-informed legislators. [1] https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2020-0...
I think the people that distrust it are often the people that know the most about it as well not just back water hicks. How many folks here trust Facebook? Anyone?
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#43I can’t think of any way to improve your lot in life without working hard. Unless you inherit money or win the lottery, no one is going to hand you a better life.
We have a safety net for the disabled. If you are able-bodied and refuse to work hard yet still complain that life gave you a raw deal, I don’t have any sympathy for you.
Everyone I know who is very successful (outside of FAANG employees who seemingly coast towards upper-middle-class riches) has worked very hard. This attitude of learned helplessness is self-defeating.
Immigrants literally abandon their children and force them over the border for a chance at a life in the USA. Immigrants know they are going to have to work hard to make it here.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#44There was a short window of time (anthropological scale) in the western world where this was seemingly true. The American conservative propaganda latched onto it and tricked people into thinking it was true. The fact is whenever quick upward mobility has been possible anywhere for a large number of people, it has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour. It was someone else's hard work that w…
This has been true whenever a society has injected large amounts of capital into the bottom classes of its society. Slavery, colonialism, and cheap imported labor are ways that lower mercantile classes can see significant wealth (generated from slavery, the colonies, or cheap labor) injected into their class at very little expense. However, they are not the only ways. Expansion into new territory, gold rushes, new te…
> democratic capitalistic states tend to have better overall growth
For their own people for some definition of own. The problem now though is that the basic way you live (in capitalism) is by exchanging something you have for something else. The average person doesn't have much of value to offer, less and less so each day due to technology. How can they have better lives if they don't have anything left to trade?
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour. I think it was actually true in the USA around the time of the oil age. I think this because back then, it seems, you'd poke a hole in the ground and oil would spill out. Oil so good that it has all been extracted already; and such an oil is as close as we've gotten to free energy.
Pretty sure there was/is a TON of exploitation in the crude oil industry
Don't the technicians that maintain remote oil-rigs make $200k+/yr though?
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#46There was a short window of time (anthropological scale) in the western world where this was seemingly true. The American conservative propaganda latched onto it and tricked people into thinking it was true. The fact is whenever quick upward mobility has been possible anywhere for a large number of people, it has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour. It was someone else's hard work that w…
> has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour
As far as I understand, this is actually a myth - at least the first two. It's a common cynical refrain that the current level of abundance would be impossible without slavery.
There are many many places where there has been slavery throughout the years, and they have not ended up richer for it. The American South, where slavery was more prevalent, is poorer than the North. Brazil, who imported double the amount of slaves as the US, is poorer. Northern Europe, not known for their abundance of slaves, is wealthier.
Similarly with colonialism - that's something that is only possible once your society is already rich and powerful enough to go around and dominate others. Colonialism was not a huge success for England when you look at how much it cost. It was great for national pride and as a symbol of their "greatness" however.
Cheap imported labor can definitely help parts of an economy - but remember that many people lose their jobs when labor like that is imported - not necessarily granting them upward mobility, and the ones from whom the labor has been imported are more likely to be better off than they were.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#47[deleted]
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#48> While 65 per cent of the worldwide informed public (aged 25-65, university-educated, in the top 25 per cent of household income) said they trust their institutions, only 51 per cent of the mass public (everyone else, representing 83 per cent of the total global population) said the same.
As someone who has gone from a "mass public" background to an "informed public" one, this rings true. I have definitely kept my mistrust of institutions. And it definitely rubs people from the "informed public" background the wrong way.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#49People are becoming more rational about labor. That’s a good thing.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#50It's a questionnaire from 2019, so before corona [0]. It actually has quite a large number of respondents. I was originally skeptical (no significance levels in the paper), but I reckon they knew what they were doing?
I found the following actually the more notable result than the one in the title. A majority agree with this statement in 22 of 28 markets: "Capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world"
[0] https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2020-0...