Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life • Hacker News Board

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#161

Post by mordae » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

hawk_ wrote: post #4

There 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…

No, people are pessimistic because their agency is being taken from them. Trust in democracy is low because polarized private media manipulate the public into thinking it is always corrupted and cannot be fixed while the rich make sure to kick off the ladder at every step with regulatory capture or simply by squishing competition as soon as they notice it.

They own you. By design.

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-me...

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#162

Post by jasonkester » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

fullstop wrote: post #91

wishigotitfree wrote: post #25

Starting conditions (where one was born, levels of wealth and opportunity there, one's parents' education and jobs) are shockingly predictive about an individual's future. Hard work leading to social mobility has always been the exception, not the rule. Most will not beat the odds since if they did, those wouldn't BE the odds. A lot of us are just so deluded by survivorship bias borne of listening only to success sto…

Starting conditions help tremendously, and I'm not doubting that in the least. One other thing which helps, significantly, is how much the parents value education. Most of the people I know who grew up very poor but now have money had parents that valued education, and pushed their kids to learn. They didn't have shelves of books at home, but they did visit the library weekly. It has to be extremely difficult to focu…

Indeed. I have a friend whos whole extended family kept telling her that she should stop with this fancy expensive state college education and go to a trade school or something that would get her a job. Even when she was working at an engineering firm and starting to see the payoff, her family kept trying to drag her down.

Fortunately, she had a particularly strong will, so she spent just as much time telling them where they could stuff their trade school, and ended up doing quite well for herself.

I'm not sure I would have done so well had I come from a family that was that opposed to education on principal. I don't have any trouble believing this sort of thing keeps lots of people exactly where they started in life. (Lucky for me, my dad spent several years working at a paper mill out of highschool before going back to get his degree, so I got to hear first hand about what a good idea that was.)

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#163

Post by Majestic121 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

frockington1 wrote: post #123

paulluuk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really know the stats, but I'm curious if this is true. Yes, GDP has been going up for a long time in many countries, and so the "average wealth" of each generation is going up. However, is the same true for purchasing power? Sometimes you hear about these mythical stories of janitors who could afford to actually buy a house, despite having two children and their partners being stay-at-home moms. And yet toda…

30 year olds with masters degrees who are still living with their parents? There must be additional information because this is just crazy. In 'flyover' country you don't see this. I'm assuming this is California or NY?

I think another component might be the major.

It's a mistake to think all masters degrees are equally 'bankable'

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#164

Post by merpnderp » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

hawk_ wrote: post #32

cousin_it wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Which of these was responsible for China's rise from poverty?

It wasn't imported in case of China only technically. The rural to urban route was "imported" labor that mostly made city dwellers rich.

So you're saying people born in poor farming communities are being taken advantage of by the massive creation of higher paying jobs in the cities?

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#165

Post by corry » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

As trite as it sounds, "Success = Hard Work + Opportunity" is still the default equation that makes the most sense to me.

And while people from all strata of life work very hard, opportunities are obviously and incredibly unequally distributed (and perhaps becoming more so?).

If you were born middle-class in US/Canada 20 - 40 years ago, your access to opportunities to improve your station were/are immense. Layer on your ethnicity, if your parents were in a stable relationship, if you grew up in relative safety, if you had a decent education... hard not to think that your opportunities were 10x or 100x someone who had none of those things.

But you also need to define "success". To this crowd, is "success" merely "leading a better life"? I'd argue most of us already have this as our default reality. I.e. the gradual reward for working hard via promotions and relative safety of career.

I remember after my startup was acquired, a few people would say to me (well-meaning obviously) "wow it's great your hard work paid off!". And I just said something like "thanks, ya, lots of people work a lot harder than me but didn't get the same outcome - so there was a lot of luck involved too!" etc. Even thinking of my own immigrant grandparents - what THEY did was HARD.

I think about those exchanges often. Tech -- at this particular moment in history -- disproportionately rewards "hard work" (which many of us find fun anyways). Or perhaps better to say that Tech provides access to the right kind of opportunities that allow for a DEFAULT "life gets better", with the possibilities of "life suddenly gets 100x better".

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#166

Post by watwut » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

tester34 wrote: post #76

wishigotitfree wrote: post #25

Starting conditions (where one was born, levels of wealth and opportunity there, one's parents' education and jobs) are shockingly predictive about an individual's future. Hard work leading to social mobility has always been the exception, not the rule. Most will not beat the odds since if they did, those wouldn't BE the odds. A lot of us are just so deluded by survivorship bias borne of listening only to success sto…

On the other hand I don't think you ever in the history had as wide opportunities as you do now You can live in some shithole where 400$/month is easily enough to live without struggle, learn hard computer stuff and then work remotely for X times more than you needed to live. How are you going to skew the odds if you aren't even trying? Internet is huge advantage, you can not only have access to good information/know…

> On the other hand I don't think you ever in the history had as wide opportunities as you do now

There were periods in history with great opportunities where many people actually really richer. Economies always went up and down, where up literally means opportunities.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#167

Post by paul_f » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #121

paulluuk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really know the stats, but I'm curious if this is true. Yes, GDP has been going up for a long time in many countries, and so the "average wealth" of each generation is going up. However, is the same true for purchasing power? Sometimes you hear about these mythical stories of janitors who could afford to actually buy a house, despite having two children and their partners being stay-at-home moms. And yet toda…

The Wall Street Journal has a great infographic here comparing how many hours of worth it would take to pay median rent today versus in 1968: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-much-does-the-federal-minim... Spoiler: it’s not pretty.

A better comparison would be the price per square foot. The median rent today buys a MUCH larger (and nicer) house than it did in 1968. The average house in the US has increased by 1,000 square feet in the last 50 years. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s...

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#168

Post by h2odragon » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #140

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #56

Every morning, I get up at 5, and go for a two-mile walk. Often, my walk coincides with the route of the garbage collection truck. Man, those dudes work hard . It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them. They are fast, energetic, efficient, and precise. Around here, they are generally Latinos, and they have quite high-paying jobs, compared to a lot of their peers. It's a dirty, dangerous job, and the benefits are…

This is the first I've heard of tipping trash collectors. Apparently it's a thing? How, logistically, does one even accomplish that?

Tape an envelope prominently to the top of your trash cans; or go out and catch them for a face to face chat.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#169

Post by apexalpha » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

gorbachev wrote: post #117

apexalpha wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries like Netherlands, France, England definitely profited form the slave trade. But there are many European nations, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, that didn't.

Scandinavian countries, however, had an underclass, who worked in near-slave-like environments for the benefit of land owners.

Yes, as did every other (European) nation at the time. The benefits of the slave trade in the Netherlands did not go to the bottom part of society...

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#170

Post by drstewart » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

hawk_ wrote: post #4

There 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…

So can you explain how "American conservative propaganda" leads to things like 996 culture in China?

Or is it possible that "success follows hard work" is more of a universal human belief that has existed outside of the narrow window of domestic politics that you became aware of in the last 5 years?