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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

#271

Post by whoneedswork »

mc32 wrote: post #240
laurent123456 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think "starting conditions" includes the parents one has. Also what you say is not quite logic - you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? I think that's the question, and usually that's because they were born in the wrong place, at the wrong time or under the wrong regime. When their kids are born, it's a different perhaps better time, so better starti…

I think implicit in the post is that parents’ parents could have lived where education was too far away physically, took away from a pool of labor, etc. Conversely, we have kids today, who for whatever reason have the opportunity to get an education but are sidetracked by entertainment and other things that can derail their long term prospects despite more being available to them. (Contrast with kids in third world c…

[flagged]

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

#272

Post by csunbird »

simiones wrote: post #184
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. And everyone seems to think that the fact that all the billionaires came from a situation of decent familial wealth enabling them to make big bets refutes the fact that most people who don't screw up too bad end their career much better than they started and that most people's kids manage to start a rung up or so. Plumber sends his kids to community college and all that.

> Plumber sends his kids to community college and all that. This is precisely the wrong model, one which accepts that there is no guarantee of equal opportunity. You're describing a promise almost as unworkable as the promise of heaven: if you're born poor, and you do everything well in life, your grandchildren's grandchildren will have a chance to enjoy the good life! That is not what a democratic free society shoul…

That's exactly the point. For example, my parents sacrificed a lot of give me and my brother the opportunity to get a good education, and now when they want to retire, they are unable to do it safely, as they could not accrue the wealth required to retire. They literally lived just to improve my chances of having a good life, which I might not have even succeeded on that.

Is this fair to them? Definitely not.

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

#273

Post by bluGill »

randlet wrote: post #237
laurent123456 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think "starting conditions" includes the parents one has. Also what you say is not quite logic - you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? I think that's the question, and usually that's because they were born in the wrong place, at the wrong time or under the wrong regime. When their kids are born, it's a different perhaps better time, so better starti…

> you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Possibly because the parents parents didn't value education and by the time the parents came to value education they were already stuck in the cycle of poverty.

Why do you think the parents didn't succeed? Starting conditions matter, if you start from nothing and realize the right change it will still be a few generations before you can fully take advantage of it. However by making a small change now the future can be better for the future generations.

If you took the vast majority of babies and had be adopt them (this is of course kid napping which I wouldn't agree to) they would grow up to be more successful than if they remain with their parents. Of course successful is in the eye of the judge, some of their parents in 40 years would be glad for my help and some would think their baby would be better off with them.

The above applies to most of the people reading this as well. (a few of you have admitted you don't want kids because you would be a bad parent, and a few more could be good parents to your own kids but bad for adopted kids - but overall these groups are a minority)

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

#274

Post by nr2x »

B4CKlash wrote: post #251

I don't mean to be cynical - I ultimately want to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way. The original article and the surrounding comments remind me of the Tyler Durden quote from Fight club: "I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables - slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we…

Many people live paycheck to paycheck just to barely cover food and shelter for their children. I don’t think the problem is influencers, it’s actual, old fashioned, poverty.

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

#275

Post by [deleted] »

nexus_dave wrote: post #103
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…

In 2019, immigrant entrepreneurs made up 21.7 percent of all business owners in the United States, despite making up just over 13.6 percent of the population and 17.1 percent of the U.S. labor force. As an immigrant I can assure you that my starting position was not that great. It is super sad to see the west being turned into an epicurean type world.

[deleted]

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

#276

Post by mc32 »

fullstop wrote: post #221
jasonkester wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I want to second this. Ample kids go to college or uni just because that’s the normal thing to do even though they don’t have a good aptitude for studying and end up with two year liberal arts degrees which land them answering phones and lower tier office work.

They would have been better served by a trade which can pay way better than these office jobs.

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

#277

Post by elzbardico »

The counter example are the immigrant populations that value education and hard work like asians. While pampered Americans are complaining why they don't get a 250k job with their PhD on women studies, asians surely and slowly climb the social pyramid.

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

#278

Post by pydry »

etempleton wrote: post #30

One trend I have noticed is a grass is always greener hiring mentality at a lot of companies. That is, looking external for new hires versus promoting from within. This forces folks to jump around for career progression. And those that are not as willing to jump around feeling discouraged that no matter how hard they work they will likely be overlooked for someone from the outside. To this end hard work is discourage…

I feel it's become a self fulfilling prophecy.

90% of the people I've worked with who stayed in one place > 7 years were paid under market but also not great at their jobs.

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

#280

Post by tester34 »

watwut wrote: post #166
tester34 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

in US or worldwide?
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