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Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

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

#131

Post by graeme »

hotsauceror wrote: post #49
JohnMakin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predators take advantage of this quality to gaslight/scam people, FYI.

Yeah. "He wouldn't have hit me if I had just kept my mouth shut, I know how angry it makes him when I ask about money." I want to say this position is despicable, but that's not a very charitable reading. But I fail to see how 'making everything your own fault' is in any way a healthy mechanism for dealing with others. Other people DO make mistakes. Other people have loads that they ARE expected to carry. Other peopl…

I would read it as "My choices have caused me to be here, and I must rely on my choices not to keep me here"

That obviously has limits; anything taken literally to an extreme does. For instance, Munger lost a nine year old son to cancer; I doubt he thought "This is my fault, I did this, if only I had acted differently".

The central point of the quote is to believe you have agency. That if you are in a situation you do not like, you can act to get out of it. There are times when this isn't true, but if you act as if it is you'll be more likely to get out of such situations.

And then you have to use human common sense to know when something is literally impossible.

So, back to the example of someone abusive, you might think "it is my fault I am dealing with this person/situation" and consider what actions can get you out. I would distinguish this from victim blaming: First, you are doing it, not an outsider. Second, the point is not to feel shame for yourself, but consider positive actions.

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

#132

Post by faeriechangling »

I’ve never been fond of this line of reasoning because some people actually are victims and deluding yourself rarely has great outcomes. I think a truthful and accurate self-perception is loads better than just insisting you are never a victim.

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

#133

Post by nostrademons »

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…

"My entire childhood I watched both my parents, who both had 2 jobs, work themselves non-stop to try to provide for us. They didn't drink or do drugs or consider themselves victims, and it didn't help one bit."

You're here, are you not? Ironically it's Charlie Munger who is not. The game of life is played to stay in the game. If you're writing this comment, it seems like they succeeded, at least in the main storyline. They may have failed or chose not to start a bunch of the side quests, but it looks like they won the primary game.

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

#134

Post by nickpp »

wharvle wrote: post #114
oh_sigh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? For the most part, people are overweight by choice, not by some unavoidable draw of Coke. Not to mention that they have a ton of zero or low calorie coke options that people could choose.

The phenomenon of people from skinnier (but developed) countries spending some time in the US and complaining that they gain a lot of weight suggests a pretty damn strong environmental component. Strong to the point of overwhelming most other factors, to my eye, at least.

Is there some study about this “phenomenon” this or is it all anecdotes?

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

#136

Post by codegeek »

makeitdouble wrote: post #108
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.

Munger didn't say that you should deny being a victim. You should just not use that situation as an excuse for your future actions. Anyone can be victim of anything. But what you choose to do after that experience is the key.

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

#137

Post by JohnFen »

negamax wrote: post #116
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…

Sorry, I have to counter you. Because someone close to me has always been about countering survivorship bias. And they have absolutely ruined their life. It's an easy out that people who are sharing their successes with you and the world have a survivorship bias. This is a fairly recent idea and quite a poison in itself. What it actually preaches is don't look and emulate the successful people in your environment and…

It's not all luck at all, but luck is critical.

Skill and hard work are what buy you the lottery ticket. Luck is what determines if the ticket pays or not. That's why almost all successful people have a string of failures behind them, and why the truism "you've only really failed when you stop trying" exists.

However, you can have skill and put in hard work and still never have the success you're seeking. It happens all the time.

Although much of this depends on how you define "success". I'm assuming here that it means monetary gain, but most people don't have "get rich" as their measure of success. In reality, success is being able to live a life that provides satisfaction and happiness. That's an easier thing to achieve.

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

#138

Post by haswell »

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.

I think this highlights the culturally ingrained measures of success that most of us default to reflexively.

In a world where most of the circumstances around us are out of our control, finding a way to live without falling into victimhood is success by some measures.

Here’s how I think about this: falling into a victim mindset is a good way to stay stuck. Finding a way to avoid this mindset doesn’t guarantee someone will get unstuck, but it increases the odds. And if they stay stuck, they’re only dealing with the circumstance they’re in instead of also dealing with the added layer of psychological distress of victimhood.

I think it’s also critical to still call out fallacious ideas, e.g. being underpaid is a real issue that needs to be solved.

The thing about victimhood is that it primarily impacts the person who engages in the thought patterns and doesn’t actually change the situation for the better. In terms of pure utility, it’s not worth the brain cycles.

This does not mean that the circumstances that lead to the mindset are not serious issues that need to be solved.

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

#139

Post by anonuser123456 »

mnkv wrote: post #45
jjoonathan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordable housing where all I have to give up is a shitty view? Sign me up!

You give up a shitty view and any chance of fire escape. Such a savings!

Buildings like this have sprinklers, automated firewalls, multiple exit routes, redundant alarm systems etc.

Lots of off campus student housing is still knob and tube wiring in shoddy timber construction.

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

#140

Post by toss1 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #112

Personally, thinking "it's always your fault" is as not nearly as important as thinking "I am the only one who can do anything (or cares) to make this better." Misfortune isn't always our fault. How we respond to it is.

Yup. I heard once a great way of putting it:

It may or may not be your fault, but it is now your problem to fix.

Whether it's a problem you made so can fix by adjusting your attitude/behavior/skills/etc., or a problem that someone else made, or the universe made, and requires some other fix, focusing not on how things got worse, and actually focusing on how to make things better, is the only way to make things better.

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