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

#531

Post by ttz » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #455

treis wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, this misses the point. How the fuck can Elon/Tesla buy bitcoin, do a pump and dump, and walk away with enough money to cover 300 lifetimes of me working. Or some kid in a basement that bought GME options gets to retire and not work a day in their life. Also the guy that VC gifted 6 figures (multiple years of me working) of equity just because he wanted more money from the acquisition. Watching people get a bunc…

Elon can pump and dump because he has a massive following and can manipulate the market. Some kid in a basement can buy GME options, but for every one of those you see on Reddit, you'll not see 10 or 50 people who lost money on the bet, or it'll be a large corporation who lost out on the meme stocks, but they just use the tax system to write off the losses. It seems that mass media and culture is revealing some truth…

> far above even surgeons or lawyers or engineers, who work very hard and are just as smart as the ultra-rich

I've been seeing this assumption float around quite a bit around HN. Where is this coming from? Where is this belief that "ultra-rich" or "having interest in money" implies intelligence?

Not saying one way or the other. Just genuinely curious.

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

#532

Post by delaynomore » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

esens wrote: post #37

Working hard but doing so for someone else can often not lead to significant gains. Many services like Uber or InstaCart or even McDonalds or Amazon Warehouse or Walmart or Retail Sales or call center, you can work hard but there is no where to progress to. Your rewards are capped. You need to find a way to work hard such that your rewards are not capped artificially. Startups were you get equity. Large companies whe…

>Many services like Uber or InstaCart or even McDonalds or Amazon Warehouse or Walmart or Retail Sales or call center, you can work hard but there is no where to progress to. Your rewards are capped.

Having worked at Walmart/Retail/Call center/Franchised food service earlier on in my life and I would have to say "there is no where to progress to" is not exactly true.

Excluding food service where I worked directly for the owner, management team, at least at the store/region level, all came through the ranks. Don't get me wrong it's likely very competitive and not trivial to become a store/regional manager, and presumably some hard work/luck were needed in all cases. However, that's no different from any other careers.

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

#533

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #480

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just like it is in the norm in nature for the strong to take from the weak. This is tautological. Why? Because I'm 99% certain that the only definition you have of "the strong" and "the weak" is based on who takes from whom. Ecologies don't tend to work the way human societies do, and should probably not be used as analogies or metaphors for them.

"Ecologies don't tend to work the way human societies do" maybe you need to get your money back also. Either you don't understand the word tautology, or you don't believe an elephant seal taking breeding and hunting rights from smaller seals is something stronger taking from something weaker. Nature is completely filled with hierarchies, where those that are stronger and more fit take resources from those are who are…

You have no definition of "strong" here other than "one who takes from others, and no definition of "weak" as "one who is taken from". That's a tautology.

> Nature is completely filled with hierarchies, where those that are stronger and more fit take resources from those are who are weaker and less fit.

The sort of understanding of "evolution" and "fitness" might do well in the circles you move in. It doesn't have much to do with reality. The "heirarchies" you insist fill nature are as much a projection of 19th century naturalists' understanding of their own societies as they are a description of actual power dynamics among other creatures.

There are huge numbers of examples of both intra-species and inter-species dynamics that do not play out in the simplistic way you're describing. Sure, there are also examples that do, but it's inaccurate to suggest them as the dominant form.

Co-evolution, overlapping resource extraction, and of course the tension between the health of a group and the health of the individuals within it are just three basic ways that complicate your strong-takes/weak-taken description.

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

#534

Post by kradroy » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

esens wrote: post #491

kradroy wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a naive set of statements, even the ones without tone-deaf conditionals like "if you are able to rise" and "if you can get something better". Here's a run-on reality of your statements. "Startups were you get equity." ... that gets watered down and most of which goes to investors and founders, who will force a sale after 5-7 years when they get into a pinch and all you get is a $75k retention bonus that doesn…

I think you are a bit more cynical than I am. But I do agree you are correct that switching jobs every couple of years is an effective way of raising your salary often faster than if you stayed in the same place.

I don't feel that way, but as someone who has personally been through most of these scenarios your statements come off as blithe and without nuance. Becoming successful really isn't as easy and hand-wavey as you make it out to be.

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

#535

Post by crispyambulance » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

j_walter wrote: post #486

ewmiller wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true. Widespread, high quality public education is a must.

It's not necessarily that the educators aren't high quality, but that the majority of students are there as a babysitting service and take up more time being disciplined than actually getting taught. We always say inner city schools have worse education...but I suspect it's more that the kids that attend those schools are disruptors and the system won't allow them to be disciplined in the way they should be (not that…

On the surface it might look like it's just about "discipline" but in the kinds of school districts you're talking about the problems are very deep-rooted and multi-faceted. Discipline alone is not nearly enough to address what's going on.

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

#536

Post by dahart » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #515

dahart wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's two things: the people and the degree, not just the degree. Yes, true, it’s a valid point, but there’s really no debate over whether getting the degree is causal. And side note, the Fed’s data is for all Americans, not just a suggestive sample. The line between holding a degree and not is surprisingly clear. All the debate is over what the cause actually is. Specifically, to what degree the content of the ed…

> there’s really no debate over whether getting the degree is causal Is there no debate in the sense of "this is completely settled science that getting a degree causes a doubling of income on an aptitude-independent, statistically-sound, population-wide basis"? Or "it's not being debated because that debate is uncomfortable"? Or in some other sense of that phrase?

Your question is getting at the reasons for causality, and not necessarily whether there is a causality. The answer of course is complicated, in that school aptitude depends on family history of education and socio-economic status, and a wide variety of other factors. As far as I can tell, it is clear and widely agreed that just having a degree provides some degree of earnings benefits regardless of aptitude or history or social class (for reasons of selection and social signaling and other things). And there also seems to be widespread agreement that getting the degree yields skills that also translate into some degree of earnings benefits, statistically. Studies are trying to control for aptitude and measure how much education alone contributes -- and it’s not 100%. But nobody is arguing about whether having the degree puts one in the higher earnings camp.

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

#537

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #523

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd imagine ... Yes, and imagining is what is actually happening here, because you clearly do not understand plumbing (or any of the trades). The studies aspect of it are the least part overall. Good plumbers (and electricians and builders) get good primarily through a delightful combination of attitude and experience. The experience comes from apprenticing early, and accumulating lots of "stories" along the way as…

Which you can side step by doing your own plumbing, helping friends out with that while talking to people, watching videos online, etc. Good luck apprenticing as a doctor without 6 years of medical school. Or as an architect without architecture school. Let's not overdo the "blue collar jobs are hard to get".

I do my own plumbing. I'm quite good at it. I occasionally fix issues for friends.

I am about as far from being a professional plumber as the plumber who tinkers with python is from doing what I do.

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

#538

Post by Aunche » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

wishigotitfree wrote: post #178

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…

> Yes, GDP has been going up for a long time in many countries, and so the "average wealth" of each generation is going up. GDP does not correlate to "average wealth" and is itself a dubious measure for economic progress depending on what figures you pick to calculate it. Also, no matter what metric you use, the "average wealth" of the younger generations, particularly millennials, is not in fact higher than their pr…

>Also, no matter what metric you use, the "average wealth" of the younger generations, particularly millennials, is not in fact higher than their predecessors.

That's only if you look at developed nations. The average wealth in Asia has exploded. The market for labor is far more globalized now, so you have to compete with people used to lower standards of living.

>The level of their productivity is a historical high point

Who's deserves credit for the productivity? Warehouse workers didn't suddenly get twice as good as good as moving inventory by themselves, they did so because Amazon investors invested in automation

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

#539

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #536

sokoloff wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there’s really no debate over whether getting the degree is causal Is there no debate in the sense of "this is completely settled science that getting a degree causes a doubling of income on an aptitude-independent, statistically-sound, population-wide basis"? Or "it's not being debated because that debate is uncomfortable"? Or in some other sense of that phrase?

Your question is getting at the reasons for causality, and not necessarily whether there is a causality. The answer of course is complicated, in that school aptitude depends on family history of education and socio-economic status, and a wide variety of other factors. As far as I can tell, it is clear and widely agreed that just having a degree provides some degree of earnings benefits regardless of aptitude or histo…

My main point is: Observing a difference in income in the presence of a degree is evidence of correlation, but not of causation.

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

#540

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

It seems to me that nobody has figured out how to properly incentivize workers. We all accept that workers aren’t compensated based on the value of their labor. At least where I live, it’s also pretty accepted that if you are able to do 40 hours of work in 20, you won’t be able to get the same pay for half the hours, not twice the pay for the same hours. If you come up with something clever that makes your company $X, you probably won’t see even a fraction of that.

Within firms, working hard isn’t particularly incentivized. It doesnt lead to a better life. Across firms, it seems to, but the friction there is in some cases inaccessibility high (e.g. “learn to code” or “move somewhere else”).