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

#221

Post by fullstop » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #162

fullstop wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

On the flip side there are plenty of examples of kids being pushed into higher education who would have been much better off going to a trade school.

Working as a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter can be quite lucrative, and they are certainly things that society needs.

Being pushed into higher ed is so much different than having an internal drive to do it. I'm glad that she's doing well and hopefully they can resolve their differences.

I have a number of friends who are teachers, and part of their job is to call the parents if the student is failing, falling behind, or not doing their work. The vast majority of the time the response on the other end of the line is "that's their problem, not mine." If the parents don't care, the students don't care, and life goes on as it always has for them.

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

#222

Post by ARandumGuy » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

I feel this through personal experience. My first job was working at a pizza place over the summer. It wasn't a bad job. It was part time, my boss was good, and I always knew what I needed to do. Despite that, it was the most work I've ever had, and for only minimum wage.

Every tech job I've had has been much easier, and less stressful. And even during my internships, I was making more then I ever could at the pizza place.

How much you get paid is completely irrelevant to how much hard work you're doing. I think a lot of people are seeing that these days, and are becoming disillusioned with the working world as a result.

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

#223

Post by s5300 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #43

I 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…

We (U.S.) do NOT have a safety net for the disabled. Not even slightly

I will come back and expand on this later. Jeez does the fact people think that make my blood boil.

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

#224

Post by apercu » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

datapls wrote: post #128

52-6F-62 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re not counting, and what most people miss, is that not only are you at a disadvantage due to lack of resources, but there are many people in positions of authority, power, or just plain tenure who believe that accumulated wealth is a reflection of the wealth of soul. If you are below them in birth, and didn’t chance yourself to some higher strata by the time they grace your presence, they tend to believe yo…

Show me the data that supports this claim. Big claim, zero citations. As an American I've never met anyone who thinks wealth reflects "wealth of the soul." In my experience people here are Christian, in which case there's that verse about heaven and wealth and the eye of the needle (Google it) or they're atheist and don't believe in souls.

Did you and I grow up in the same country? The entire puritan work effort is based on this premise in some way or another.

The more religious you are the more you appear to believe your wealth is a god-given right and that everyone else is a lazy no-gooder trying to steal the fruits of your hard work.

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

#225

Post by Frost1x » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

paul_f wrote: post #167

faitswulff wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The more interesting information on that page to me is that the living space per capita has increased. I was suspect that while square footage may be increasing, that could easily be offset by the number of people living in those houses but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The key information missing here though is a more generalized cost of living space per person, beyond housing. This data can still be biased, in general, because it may be the case that fewer people own homes, say more successful wealthy people, while the majority are renting these properties. I have a bucket of anecdotal examples of friends who still don't own homes in their 30s and are still renting.

This data would exclude all of those people painting a picture that people are doing well while some unknown population is renting, paying more per square foot than owning, and rates could be increasing per person per square foot over time. That population could be smaller or larger than those who own homes. I'd be interested to see those distributions of renting/owning and a similar cost comparison for renter square foot costs per capita.

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

#226

Post by Jotra7 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #206

I have noticed an increase in negative attitudes toward work, hard work, and generally the idea that one should sacrifice time/pleasure/etc. to reach a goal. I blame it on finance, crypto, and social media. When you can see millions of people casually get rich simply by holding an asset, the narrative of “working hard pays off” gets buried.

Because hard work does not pay off. You'd have to be a fool to believe it.

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

#227

Post by Guthur » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #69

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…

How much social mobility we talking? Statistically nobody goes from trailer park to billionare by working hard. You have very, very, good odds of doing better than your parents if you manage to get to age 25 without incurring a felony record, addiction to something that will likely kill you or too many child support payments. edit: I'm only talking about the US

Statistically next to nobody goes from anywhere to billionaire.

There are 2,755 billionaires in the world and 7.6 billion individuals, thats around 2.7 million to one. Not great odds for anyone to be frank.

Also is it any wonder people believe that they can't get anywhere when they are constantly told, they can't get anywhere. Seems a little self fullfilling to be frank.

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

#228

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

mkoryak wrote: post #194

h2odragon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is a good tip amount? If they make decent money, would they be offended by a low tip?

Our collectors are a team of two: a driver, and a helper. The driver also usually gets out and grabs cans.

I will wait to start my walk until they get to my house, and hand them an envelope with two $50 bills.

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

#229

Post by ep103 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #63

ep103 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> sufficiently progressive taxation and societal reinvestment can do this as well. Can we get an example of this?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074DVRW88/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

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

#230

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #193

simiones wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have very, very, good odds of doing better than your parents if you manage to get to age 25 without incurring a felony record, addiction to something that will likely kill you or too many child support payments. That is a laughably low bar, and it is unlikely for the trend you are describing to continue past the move from poor to lower middle class. In a fair society, with equality of opportunity, it should be…

>>In a fair society, with equality of opportunity, it should be equally likely for a child born in a trailer park to become high income earner as it is for Bill Gate's child. That is the normal social mobility we should expect in a democratic society with no class structure. We are so laughably far off from this everywhere in the world... Every time I make this argument on HN I'm met with two responses 1) I worked my…

> Yeah he acknowledged that some people have it much harder than others, but it doesn't matter because at the end of the day anyone can get rich so everything else is irrelevant.

I mean, isn't that applicable everywhere? Even the most totalitarian country really only requires a military coup or revolution and, if you've worked really hard, you too could be King Dictator God Emperor for life.