hard work 99% leads to more work when you work for somebody else
Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
441–450 of 715 posts
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> 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.
It is not. In a meritocratic system, children wouldn't inherit resources, access to education would be conditioned purely by merit, and so would access to jobs, finance opportunities etc.
The nepotism rampant (edit: was "inherent") in corporations, government, the finance industry etc. are exactly the things that keep the rich rich and the poor poor.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#443Earlier 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…
>That is the normal social mobility we should expect in a democratic society That might be what we expect from a perfectly egalitarian society, but expecting any free, democratic society to come even close to perfect egalitarianism is completely delusional.
That is not egalitarianism (which would mean something closer to everyone owning the exact same amounts), it is the standard definition of "equality of opportunity".
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#444You had the post-WW2 boom, which then wound down in the 80s/90s but there was a small resurgence of "everyone is getting rich" in the late-90s Dotcom bubble and then finally the run up into the housing bubble. Since we have fallen back to a more historically traditional model - hard work can advance your life, but you are capped within certain bands by where you start, by and large. Where you start is regional, famil…
More like it was the collapse of USSR in the 80's and diminished threat of Communism in west that caused oligarchs to be bolder and grab more share of national wealth. Specially in the last year or two when only select few got extremely rich by loading debt on the rest of society. I wonder if Amazon's working conditions would be possible in the 60-70s with strong labour unions back then.
It's also some of the Russian oligarch money that came in to western institutions (via shell companies etc - some revealed in the Panama papers) and started influencing the discourse here. Especially in the last 20 years. They finance a lot of the disinformation campaigns, the social division, etc.
In the times of the USSR there were surely influence campaigns, but people were more on the look out for it and there was a common external target, so it was easier to unite the country.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#445I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth: a Dad who was a physics professor at Berkeley and a stay at home Mom - lucky!
In order of most important first, what makes people successful: empathy, being grateful and appreciative, intelligence, luck, hard work.
I think that young people get a lot of bad advice, like follow your bliss (I love Joseph Campbell, but he got that one wrong). People should figure out what they are good at, get very good at whatever this is, be kind and helpful to other people, and most importantly be grateful for what you have.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could probably add in some luck element as well
Is it materially different from "opportunity"? If it's luck that isn't associated with starting conditions, I feel that it tends to zero over the course of a lifetime. Good luck and bad luck tend to negate each other, on average.
Sort of. I have always defined luck as presentation of opportunity. But opportunity is something you are actually capable of taking advantage of. Opportunity is also spotting of 'luck' or making it yourself through work. I see many friends who have incredible opportunities to make their lives better but they never take them as they are blind to the luck they have as they do not understand it. In sales many times they will just cold call people to 'make luck'. It is akin to spam (the spam/scam guys just turned the model up to 11). Just throw as much against the wall and if something sticks it may or may not be an opportunity. Sometimes an opportunity is home run. Many times it is a dud. With 'bad luck' you are given something you do not want but you with the correct actions mitigate the outcomes. That takes work too.
If you do not try at all you are guaranteed an outcome where nothing happens. In fact if you factor in 'bad luck' you are worse off doing nothing as you have not taken action to mitigate negative outcomes.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 t…
If you are far better off than the average American household you could definitely consider yourself wealthy.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#448Every 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…
We should also notice that in the US, garbage collectors are routinely in the top 10 most dangerous jobs. It is extremely hazardous. I imagine the overall health impact from this occupation is large as well, considering the weird stuff that ends up in the bin, biological factors, as well as exposure to transportation related pollutants (Carbon Monoxide, NOX, brake dust, all quite poisonous) Consider these other facto…
Damn straight. Every now and then, one of them gets crushed by their own truck. I suspect that the overall health deterioration is awful.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#449Earlier 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…
Unfortunately public schools in poor neighborhoods are getting shittier and parents need to pay for private tutors and summer school. Guess who can afford that?
Education doesn't fall out of the sky.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Working as a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter can be quite lucrative, and they are certainly things that society needs. I hear this kind of thing, but I have to say it is less than convincing when most of the people saying it don't seem to be sending their kids to trade school.
The caveat there is definitely whether the person then has the entrepreneurial drive to get the trade qualifications and start their own business with it. You're not going to be wealthy by any means of the definition by either becoming a plumber or an electrician working for another company. No way in hell, I know many of these people, as well as many carpenters both working their own business, or working for another company. I know one neighbor carpenter who owns his own carpentry/cabinetry business doing just well enough for himself, while another neighbor frames really nice houses and doesn't make nearly as much but does much harder work.
Then, I have a couple good examples of some guys with absolutely no education whatsoever who decided to start their own cleaning services by powerwashing restaurant kitchens, doing deep cleaning. These guys doing this cleaning gig the past few years are raking in $1k cash per night, 6-7 nights a week and making more cash hand over fist than a doctor makes. It's obvious to see what is the real underlying factor in all cases. Drive, motivation, and a go-getter attitude is what it takes. Plenty of people with degrees work at coffee shops and retail positions because after schooling, they expected a job to just drop in their laps but they have no go get it attitude from the start.