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The Myth of Making It (2019)

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Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#11

Post by bluGill »

flax wrote: post #5

I dunno. I feel pretty confident in my measure of "making it" for myself. I will have made it when I no longer need to work to maintain my lifestyle indefinitely. Note, that doesn't mean I'll be satisfied. But I will have made it. I was struck by the author's suggestion that "making it" could mean anything less. "Being able to buy a house without going broke". How could that mean you've made it? If you still have to…

Do I have to work? I could retire now to a greatly reduced standard of living. By the most absurdly optimistic predictions I could retire to the same standard of living. How will I know when those predictions go from absurd to reasonable to pessimistic?

Part of this is I have no idea how long I will live. Family history gives me anywhere from 3 more years to 50 more, and medical science can improve the upper range.

Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#12

Post by hinkley »

Barrin92 wrote: post #7

> “If everybody else is doing better than you, it is hard to be satisfied with your life conditions, no matter how good they objectively are,” he wrote. “By not displaying, let alone exaggerating, their own happiness, Finns might help each other to make more realistic comparisons, which benefits everybody’s happiness.” Robert Sapolsky has dedicated a large chunk of his career to study the biological underpinnings for…

There's a perverse incentive for agents and producers because they typically only make money if the artist makes money, so anything you do to encourage that drive to make new projects nets you more money. If your victim blows all their money on drugs or parties or buying ridiculous things, then they are highly motivated to get back to work.

Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#13

Post by Hellbanevil »

technothrasher wrote: post #6

My life’s goals when I was a child were to get married, raise a kid, and to own the same Ferrari as Magnum PI. Done, done, and done (although the last one was mostly a bad idea). So I guess according to my standards I made it. The rest now is gravy.

No post body was provided.

Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#14

Post by cs137 »

paulpauper wrote: post #9
flax wrote: post #5

I dunno. I feel pretty confident in my measure of "making it" for myself. I will have made it when I no longer need to work to maintain my lifestyle indefinitely. Note, that doesn't mean I'll be satisfied. But I will have made it. I was struck by the author's suggestion that "making it" could mean anything less. "Being able to buy a house without going broke". How could that mean you've made it? If you still have to…

If you still have to work, you're still a wage slave. Google, Facebook, etc. employees technically still have to work (if they cannot work from home) but I think they are doing alright. Wage slave is more like retail work.

No, 'flax is right, and wage slave is the right way to put it.

Those Google and Facebook workers are one bad boss from their lives going to shit. And, whether you like to believe it's the case or not, bad references do happen sometimes and, if word (or rumor) gets out that you were fired "for cause" (which doesn't actually mean anything, but sounds bad) you are basically fucked.

"Middle class" is an illusion. The cultural armor you think you have is paper-thin in a real conflict. If you're a worker, you're on the side of the proletariat; there's no honor in persisting in delusion to the contrary.

Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#15

Post by cs137 »

hinkley wrote: post #12
Barrin92 wrote: post #7

> “If everybody else is doing better than you, it is hard to be satisfied with your life conditions, no matter how good they objectively are,” he wrote. “By not displaying, let alone exaggerating, their own happiness, Finns might help each other to make more realistic comparisons, which benefits everybody’s happiness.” Robert Sapolsky has dedicated a large chunk of his career to study the biological underpinnings for…

There's a perverse incentive for agents and producers because they typically only make money if the artist makes money, so anything you do to encourage that drive to make new projects nets you more money. If your victim blows all their money on drugs or parties or buying ridiculous things, then they are highly motivated to get back to work.

I don't think that's the issue with agents and producers. It's more complicated than that.

It's probably different in Hollywood in publishing, but the reasons agents are such a weak link in traditional publishing (to the point of nearly ruining the industry) are: (1) inaccessibility (you can't actually query agents who have any pull; you have to know someone even to get read), and (2) locus of power. To be more specific on the latter, the agent knows that connections inside the industry are her power base, whereas authors are basically interchangeable--from a humanistic standpoint, I don't agree; but commercially speaking, it's the case--so she has every incentive to put the publisher's interests ahead of those of her authors, even though her job is the opposite.

Hollywood is probably a bit different because movie stars have a lot more leverage than midlist authors. So, it may be that there's the opposite problem. Literary agents often push authors to lower their expectations and take crappy deals; a Hollywood agent's probably more inclined to push the client toward aggressive decisions while the iron is hot, so to speak.

Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#16

Post by paulpauper »

cs137 wrote: post #14
paulpauper wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you still have to work, you're still a wage slave. Google, Facebook, etc. employees technically still have to work (if they cannot work from home) but I think they are doing alright. Wage slave is more like retail work.

No, 'flax is right, and wage slave is the right way to put it. Those Google and Facebook workers are one bad boss from their lives going to shit. And, whether you like to believe it's the case or not, bad references do happen sometimes and, if word (or rumor) gets out that you were fired "for cause" (which doesn't actually mean anything, but sounds bad) you are basically fucked. "Middle class" is an illusion. The cul…

Tom Cruise and Will Smith are technically workers. I think there are degrees to proletariat status

Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#17

Post by bertr4nd »

Seems appropriate to quote Bertrand Russell here: “Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

Re: The Myth of Making It (2019)

#18

Post by swader999 »

paulpauper wrote: post #16
cs137 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 'flax is right, and wage slave is the right way to put it. Those Google and Facebook workers are one bad boss from their lives going to shit. And, whether you like to believe it's the case or not, bad references do happen sometimes and, if word (or rumor) gets out that you were fired "for cause" (which doesn't actually mean anything, but sounds bad) you are basically fucked. "Middle class" is an illusion. The cul…

Tom Cruise and Will Smith are technically workers. I think there are degrees to proletariat status

Naw, we're all pretty much done when the nukes fly.
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