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

#381

Post by qmmmur » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #250

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…

It is hard. But working physically at a reasonable pace, without having a boss that tries to break your back is also very satisfying. You’re tired in a healthy, calming way when you’re done. The conditions really matter though. One of the most important lessons I learned is to never rush. You have to push yourself but if you rush, then mistakes and injuries happen, and you‘ll be mentally exhausted and stressed. What…

It breaks your body down till your about 50 and you start to develop chronic issues which can impinge your enjoyment as you age. Dont romanticise get a workout on.

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

#382

Post by adkadskhj » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

ewmiller wrote: post #338

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…

> valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Picture a first-generation immigrant family in America where the parents are older, don't speak English very well, and spend almost all their time working multiple jobs to pay bills and provide food and shelter for their kids. They then push their kids to do well in school because they know it's practically too late for themselves, but…

I think there's also other cases where kids grew up without education (like myself) - but could have, but if i were to have kids now i'd value education immensely. Ie i'm not an immigrant, my lack of early education is a result of my family being poor and making poor decisions.

However now my values have shifted drastically. Ironically i would consider myself very lucky. Not wealthy by any means, but far better off than the average American household. Which then perhaps would put my children (which i'm not having, lol) in the position of being "children of well-off families".. maybe.

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

#383

Post by randomdata » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

paulluuk wrote: post #98

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

> And yet today, I hear so many stories about 30 year olds with masters degrees who are still living with their parents

Stands to reason. Dedicating five or more years away from the workforce at least partially, if not in full, is an enormous setback financially. As money compounds, your earnings when you are young are dramatically more important to your financial stability than those when you are older. It would be surprising to learn that such a person is on equal footing with a janitor of the same age who started working at the age of 14.

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

#384

Post by jonathankoren » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #239

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…

> It has to be extremely difficult to focus on school and education when you don't know when your next meal is going to be This is true, but which is the bigger factor in America: parent(s) who are uneducated themselves and do not take an active role in their childrens' education OR food insecurity? I would argue the former. I remember a recent story about Baltimore single mom Tiffany France being shocked that her ki…

You do realize that obesity among the poor isn’t due to eating too much, as much as eating cheap high fat, low nutrition foods, right? In fact having only access to high processed, low nutrition foods is also considered food insecurity.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19320248.2010.5...

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

#385

Post by JKCalhoun » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

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…

I don't think so.

I know I'm going to leap back decades but maybe there's still a thing worth considering here: old recordings of Groucho Marx's "Your Bet Your Life" have been oozing into my YouTube feed lately.

(Fascinating all that is out there that can innocently scroll past your gaze. Click on it just once! and expect a tidal wave of the same.)

At first I was drawn in by the truly off-color sexual innuendo of the host — something I was not expecting from television of the 1950's. (I fully expected the 1950's sexism on parade however.)

But what started to fascinate me more and more were the ordinary occupations and the lives of many of the guests on "Your Bet Your Life". To be sure there were wanna-B-film stars and other minor celebrities, but Groucho appears to have also had plenty of men (and women) "off the street".

What menial working class work they performed in the suburbs of Los Angeles County. One guy's job is to milk cows (with an electric milker). Another woman's husband drives a fertilizer truck. A guy sells vacuum cleaners door to door.... Like sitting in the DMV, you saw a strange cross section of working class America from the 1950's.

But the men had wives, children, homes. I'm not so sure the there was a lot of upward mobility for these (primarily) men bread winners. But when home, car, family were within reach of a modest, blue-collar existence, maybe they didn't care as much.

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

#386

Post by f6v » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:32 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…

I think a big part of me starting PhD at 30 is that I wanted to get off my parent’s back as soon as possible. So I got my bachelor’s at 21 and started working. I enrolled in Master’s at 28, only when I could pay for it myself.

Other factors include the quality of my BS degree. I wish I was surrounded by professors who liked what they doing.

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

#387

Post by api » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #329

api wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery engenders a culture of self-righteous laziness and entitlement in the slave owners and cynicism and internalized oppression (a “chip on their shoulder”) in the slaves. Both of these persist for many generations post slavery. We are still dealing with them in the form of everything from police violence to far right and far left performative extremist ideologies re-enacting the drama. I disagree with the people…

The industrial revolution started a century before 'end' of slavery. I mean, cotton was pretty much the basis of most early industry. Where do you think it came from.

The industrial revolution mostly happened in England. American industrialization came later and was mostly imported at first via the same kind of industrial espionage plus protectionism that China is using today. (The USA was the China of the 19th century.)

Slavery dwindled away in England around the same time and was abolished in 1833 right before the industrial revolution really went white hot.

I should have mentioned the connection was a hypothesis. It's also possible that causation goes the other way and industrialization led to abolition by reducing demand for slaves. It's easier to make moral progress when it doesn't cost very much, which is why in our current society you see a whole lot of very inexpensive "corporate woke" virtue signaling but massive pushback if someone mentions the word "union" or "increasing the minimum wage."

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

#388

Post by Zababa » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:33 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…

> It was someone else's hard work that was the real source of abundance and hence upward mobility.

I can't help but feel like it's what we're doing today, but using processors instead of slaves, which is why tech pays so well.

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

#389

Post by tiborsaas » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #93

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…

Do you honestly believe this? What would you tell this to someone who wasn't born into wealth or opportunity? You're pretty much screwed, don't bother? What impact do you think teaching nihilism has on children? I don't believe its true, but even if it were, it's not a useful model for life.

I would tell them the truth that they are more likely to get stuck close to where they are. That could be more motivating than selling them a fairy tale and watch them screw up their 1 or 2 shots that they might afford.

If you say upfront that the odds are against you, then I think it can spark more conscious decisions.

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

#390

Post by everdrive » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #202

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…

> n 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. Maybe aspirational, but it's not reasonable to expect this. More educated parents both earn more money and educate their children more (and not p…

This is absolutely correct. Suspect you started with a Tabula Rasa society where everyone began with the same resources. You would still see differentiation after n generations: wealth and influence can compound over time and groups of people would gain influence, power, and money. And this is the expected outcome of a perfectly meritocratic system.