Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

butwhatfor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 245 posts

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#101

Post by sethammons »

bmitc wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I grew up poor. Something I realized early on is I had a lot of victim-mentality people around me. The world happened to them. I decided at an early age (like, under 10) that everyone is 100% responsible for everything that happens to them, including by chance. You get hit by a car? You were standing there. In this world view, you can have more than 100% responsibility because the driver that hit you is also 100% responsible.

Armed with that, instead of accepting and complaining about my situation, I worked my ass off to change it. And I did. By a lot. When I had kids, I tried to teach them the same thing. '"She made me sooooo mad" -- no, you are mad because you. Yes, your sister should not have pushed you. Yes, it is also on you to control your emotions. Let's go talk with your sister about pushing you.'

I expect there will be people who downvote this. Keep looking for others to blame and see how that works out. Take responsibility. Fix a thing.

This also leads to another of my early discoveries (also, under 10): if you can't do something about a situation, don't -- and don't worry. If you can, do -- and don't worry.

These have served me well, even if "wrong."

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#102

Post by nullindividual »

ihumanable wrote: post #83

Somewhat the height of survivorship bias. There are a many number of people that don't adopt a victim mentality, work hard, and try to get ahead and just don't. For every Charlie Munger there are tons of working poor that get up everyday, work hard for minimum wage, then go off to their second job. My entire childhood I watched both my parents, who both had 2 jobs, work themselves non-stop to try to provide for us. T…

> For every Charlie Munger there are tons of working poor that get up everyday

Not tons. Millions. If not hundreds of millions.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#103

Post by solarkraft »

vannevar wrote: post #51
jstarfish wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I will never get over the hypocrisy of owning a quarter of Coca Cola and constantly criticizing Americans for being overweight. That's not hypocrisy, that's savvy. Hypocrisy is an American drinking Coke while complaining about their weight.

Hypocrisy is spending billions of dollars to convince people to buy sugar water and then complaining about their weight. I guess you could call it savvy, but I think predatory is a more apt description.

There's a way to avoid (conscious) hypocrisy here: Convincing oneself that marketing (propaganda?) isn't effective and you're just giving the people what they would want anyway.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#104

Post by shrubble »

profsummergig wrote: post #23

Charlie Munger had great advice in general. And I've learned a lot of good from him. But I will never get over the hypocrisy of owning a quarter of Coca Cola and constantly criticizing Americans for being overweight (he used words like "sloth").

If Buffett and Munger wanted,they could certainly point out that Coca-Cola and Pepsi both benefit from being on EBT/SNAP lists as acceptable foods to purchase, and ask that soft drinks as a class of foods be removed.

Last I looked, about 9.5% of total EBT/SNAP money for food (that is, money from taxpayers that are supposed to help feed those in need properly) is spent on soft drinks. No person in need, needs soft drinks, especially when we have high rates of diabetes and obesity among the poor.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#105

Post by zozbot234 »

jjoonathan wrote: post #34

This is true. It is also true that dispensing this particular advice is self-serving for people in power. In a revolution, things get worse before they get better if they get better. Revolutions come at huge negative expected value. However, appeasing powerful forces can also have hugely negative expected value. Sometimes the calculus makes sense, and when it does, you should hope that people are appropriately discou…

> It is also true that dispensing this particular advice is self-serving for people in power.

Most people in power will go out of power via something other than violent revolution. In fact, the whole notion of "elite overproduction" is basically about pointing out the fact that a lot more people aspire to be in power than are actually in power at any given moment. It's an endless game of musical chairs, and if you can avoid playing that particular game you'll be a lot better off on average.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#108

Post by makeitdouble »

lordnacho wrote: post #22

He passed away earlier today, which is I guess why this is here. He's got a point, too. To be a victim is to be helpless, and if you can choose to not see yourself that way, you can at least have some power back.

Trying to convince yourself you're not a victim also leads to weird mental twists, like concluding you're where you are by choice and reframe your situation as some success to not look like a loser.

Accepting you're being fucked is the first step to get out of it.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#109

Post by adventured »

bre1010 wrote: post #57
nwoli wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enjoying the occasional Coca Cola but not overindulging is perfectly consistent correct behaviour within those constraints

but not if Coca Cola's continuing growth depends on their ensuring that many many people are drinking it to excess

Munger wasn't responsible for Coca Cola's continued growth (and it's worth noting that Berkshire has never owned 25% of Coca Cola as another comment here claimed, they own 9.25% at present).

And there's no reason Coca Cola couldn't diversify away from sugary drinks in the pursuit of growth, exactly as they have been doing for decades. Sugary soda drinks have been a dead-end in terms of growth for a while now. The growth has gone to eg Monster and RedBull et al.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#110

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ihumanable wrote: post #83

Somewhat the height of survivorship bias. There are a many number of people that don't adopt a victim mentality, work hard, and try to get ahead and just don't. For every Charlie Munger there are tons of working poor that get up everyday, work hard for minimum wage, then go off to their second job. My entire childhood I watched both my parents, who both had 2 jobs, work themselves non-stop to try to provide for us. T…

> They didn't drink or do drugs or consider themselves victims, and it didn't help one bit.

Not doing those things didn't enable them to get ahead far enough to not have to both work two jobs. But drinking or doing drugs would have hurt compared to not doing them. So would feeling like a victim.

Post reply on HN