The self-made man • Hacker News Board

Re: The self-made man

#11

Post by seren » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:03 PM UTC

300bps wrote: post #8

lukifer wrote: post #7

Humans have a problem with complexity and compound causality in general; any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones (even if indirectly), regardless of what the proportions happen to be (if one could even measure such a thing). Thinking that success must derive exclusively from either society or the individual is sheer absurdity, driven by a ne…

Yet there are some people that work 60 hours per week and some that choose to not work at all. The people in the first camp are typically more successful than people in the second camp. Articles like the OP discount their efforts and accomplishments completely.

I certainly does not work as hard as the cleaning lady getting up at 5 am to clean my desk. I just sit there typing lightly on my ergonomic keyboard, in my air-conditioned office and in the end, I will probably end better off, even though she might have crossed a deadly desert to come here and won't see her relatives for a long time. I just have the chance of being born around.

Hard work == success, is probably a variation of the just world bias [0]. It provides a reassuring and motivating narrative, but in the end, it is quite simplistic. I am not saying that hard work is not a necessary condition, but it is far from being sufficient.

Another example : with all the discussions about European debt, it has been reported multiple times that on average Greeks were working much longer that Germans. It does not do them much good.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Re: The self-made man

#12

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:23 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #2

I'm pretty skeptical of the study on which this essay bases its premise that economic mobility in the U.S. is limited compared to, say, France. The most detailed information I can find online is the executive summary[1], which has to handwave that it found Italy with a strongly negative correlation between parents' and children's economic outcomes! That suggests to me that their methodology is not particularly robust…

The same results have been reported by many other studies. The facts are clear - for the poor the US is a land of economic handicap, not a land of opportunity.

There will always be individual exceptions to this, but they'll be single data points. Put crudely, for every heart-warming success you see interviewed in Forbes, there will be millions of failures no one hears about.

The most useful picture is broad-based and statistical, and studies like this one:

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/

show that mobility depends as much on where you were born as to whom you were born.

Broadly, inequality has exploded since the 1980s and in areas with limited social capital - including good free education - it's now more difficult than ever to work your way up from the bottom.

But this is balanced by increased opportunities in other areas - mostly affluent, mostly urban - which have created a halo effect for the poorer communities around them.

So average mobility has remained approximately constant, but only because bad areas have been balanced by good areas.

Meanwhile average mobility in the US continues to be worse than mobility in other countries.

Re: The self-made man

#13

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:35 PM UTC

jmclean wrote: post #9

300bps wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet there are some people that work 60 hours per week and some that choose to not work at all. The people in the first camp are typically more successful than people in the second camp. Articles like the OP discount their efforts and accomplishments completely.

I think part of the reason this conversation is valuable, though, is that the inverse omission is far more dominant in the cultural conversation right now. It's certainly mostly true that hard work plays an important part in fantastic success. But it's equally true that even in those cases, the majority enjoyed advantages that are often invisible even to them. So to be sure, the opposite extreme is just as ridiculous…

The work ethic narrative is immensely useful to employers, but in too many situations it's almost totally disconnected from real opportunity and reward.

Ultimately it's a political problem - but not necessarily in the obvious sense.

The most successful and fun cultures reward inventiveness and positive social contributions, and include some element of challenge and competition.

But using money and markets to make decisions about the kinds of activities that are rewarded turns out to be an inefficient, short-sighted and often surreal way to manage what does and doesn't get valued.

Re: The self-made man

#14

Post by rayiner » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:47 PM UTC

seren wrote: post #11

300bps wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet there are some people that work 60 hours per week and some that choose to not work at all. The people in the first camp are typically more successful than people in the second camp. Articles like the OP discount their efforts and accomplishments completely.

I certainly does not work as hard as the cleaning lady getting up at 5 am to clean my desk. I just sit there typing lightly on my ergonomic keyboard, in my air-conditioned office and in the end, I will probably end better off, even though she might have crossed a deadly desert to come here and won't see her relatives for a long time. I just have the chance of being born around. Hard work == success, is probably a var…

> I certainly does not work as hard as the cleaning lady getting up at 5 am to clean my desk

No kidding. I was in the office at 10 pm the other night, and the cleaning guy came around to empty the trash cans. He's like "man, still here at 10?" And I'm thinking "well so are you."

Re: The self-made man

#15

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:49 PM UTC

300bps wrote: post #8

lukifer wrote: post #7

Humans have a problem with complexity and compound causality in general; any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones (even if indirectly), regardless of what the proportions happen to be (if one could even measure such a thing). Thinking that success must derive exclusively from either society or the individual is sheer absurdity, driven by a ne…

Yet there are some people that work 60 hours per week and some that choose to not work at all. The people in the first camp are typically more successful than people in the second camp. Articles like the OP discount their efforts and accomplishments completely.

[deleted]

Re: The self-made man

#16

Post by rayiner » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:02 PM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #10

lukifer wrote: post #7

Humans have a problem with complexity and compound causality in general; any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones (even if indirectly), regardless of what the proportions happen to be (if one could even measure such a thing). Thinking that success must derive exclusively from either society or the individual is sheer absurdity, driven by a ne…

any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones And genetics, and the general culture, and luck, which is just a word we use for many factors we can't even name yet mixed with true randomness. And then there's a fair bit of interplay between all the factors. Why do some people work 60 hours a week when others barely crack 10? That "grit" doesn't com…

I work 60 hours a week because I was fortunate enough to be born with aptitudes that cause employers to want to pay me a lot of money for those hours. If my employers were fighting to keep me under 30 hours so they wouldn't have to pay benefits, and to pay $7.50 for each incremental hour, with zero upward mobility, my incentive to work those hours would vanish.

Moreover, you shouldn't get credit for genetics. That's not a product of your exercise of free will.

Re: The self-made man

#17

Post by twoodfin » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:12 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #12

twoodfin wrote: post #2

I'm pretty skeptical of the study on which this essay bases its premise that economic mobility in the U.S. is limited compared to, say, France. The most detailed information I can find online is the executive summary[1], which has to handwave that it found Italy with a strongly negative correlation between parents' and children's economic outcomes! That suggests to me that their methodology is not particularly robust…

The same results have been reported by many other studies. The facts are clear - for the poor the US is a land of economic handicap, not a land of opportunity. There will always be individual exceptions to this, but they'll be single data points. Put crudely, for every heart-warming success you see interviewed in Forbes, there will be millions of failures no one hears about. The most useful picture is broad-based and…

Meanwhile average mobility in the US continues to be worse than mobility in other countries.

What's the best study you can find that demonstrates this? I haven't seen any that don't appear to succumb to the flaws I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, such as measuring relative mobility instead of absolute mobility.

Re: The self-made man

#18

Post by twoodfin » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:16 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #6

twoodfin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the point. A society with almost no income inequality, where everyone makes almost exactly the same amount, would have nearly perfect "mobility" as measured by the correlation between the percentile of parent and child earnings (a few random dollars would move you a lot!). But it wouldn't be a "mobile" society in the sense we usually mean, where the poor can become rich (and vice versa) because there w…

Mobility is about moving between classes of society. So, the society you just described would be rightfully described as having high social mobility. What it probably does not have is high average wealth.

So, the society you just described would be rightfully described as having high social mobility.

But it would just be economic Brownian motion. Social mobility isn't (I hope!) valued because it shows that a society produces random outcomes, but rather that it enables people to achieve to the limit of their talents.

Re: The self-made man

#19

Post by twoodfin » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:20 PM UTC

kcorbitt wrote: post #5

twoodfin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the point. A society with almost no income inequality, where everyone makes almost exactly the same amount, would have nearly perfect "mobility" as measured by the correlation between the percentile of parent and child earnings (a few random dollars would move you a lot!). But it wouldn't be a "mobile" society in the sense we usually mean, where the poor can become rich (and vice versa) because there w…

It depends on what you're trying to measure by "economic mobility" though. I can think of valid reasons to want to know the percentile change between a person and their parents, irrespective of the absolute value difference, and reasons to be interested in the different-but-related measure of absolute change in income/quality of life. It's generally better to start with the question "what do I want to know?" and then…

I can think of valid reasons to want to know the percentile change between a person and their parents, irrespective of the absolute value difference, and reasons to be interested in the different-but-related measure of absolute change in income/quality of life.

Sure, but when comparing nation A to nation B, it's generally more interesting to look at either the absolute dollar difference or some relative quality-of-life measure (you could call the latter "class", I guess). Folks moving around within a tightly distributed income distribution don't really gain or lose much of either, relative to someone in a society with larger disparities.

Re: The self-made man

#20

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:25 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #13

jmclean wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the reason this conversation is valuable, though, is that the inverse omission is far more dominant in the cultural conversation right now. It's certainly mostly true that hard work plays an important part in fantastic success. But it's equally true that even in those cases, the majority enjoyed advantages that are often invisible even to them. So to be sure, the opposite extreme is just as ridiculous…

The work ethic narrative is immensely useful to employers, but in too many situations it's almost totally disconnected from real opportunity and reward. Ultimately it's a political problem - but not necessarily in the obvious sense. The most successful and fun cultures reward inventiveness and positive social contributions, and include some element of challenge and competition. But using money and markets to make dec…

And I'd appreciate it if downvoters justified their downvotes.

I'm quite happy with the idea that an economy where it's possible to raise $1 million in funding for an app like Yo! while the many apps that do something with longer term benefits struggle for commercial support has some issues with rational resource allocation.

Not to mention the outrageous bubbles and the epic acquisition disasters that litter the Internet ruins.

If you believe otherwise I'd like to see you argue why.