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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

#151

Post by KittenInABox »

codegeek wrote: post #136
makeitdouble wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The quote is...

"If you just take the attitude that, however bad it is in anyway, it’s always your fault and you just fix it as best you can – the so-called ‘iron prescription’ – I think that really works."

...does not work for e.g. victims of child abuse. Child abuse is never the fault of the child.

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

#152

Post by nullindividual »

mmaunder wrote: post #123
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…

Until you’ve actually failed hard for a very long time - over a decade - and then get a solid kick in the teeth for your efforts, and power through that shit with an optimistic attitude to succeed beyond your own expectations, it’s hard to buy into what Charlie is saying, but I can assure you it’s the absolute truth. You can’t change the hand your dealt or what life continues to deal you, but you can keep working sma…

> You can’t change the hand your dealt or what life continues to deal you, but you can keep working smart and hard to solve it and that’s going to give you a pretty damn good shot.

This reads like "pick yourself up by your bootstraps": an impossible task. Could you parrot this line in front of a Walmart checkout clerk?

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

#153

Post by bcrosby95 »

shrubble wrote: post #104
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 dri…

No person in need needs anything in particular, but even dirt poor Charlie Bucket got a Wonka chocolate bar on his birthday.

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

#154

Post by wharvle »

nickpp wrote: post #134
wharvle wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My very first, naive attempt at DDG’ing this revealed a bunch, yeah. Quantified weight gain in immigrants, studies of gain then loss again once moving back to the original country, all kinds of angles of approaching it.

A second search with a slightly more specific topic of “weight gain in us immigrants” on DDG was mostly studies (or pages collecting multiple studies) on page 1 of the results.

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

#155

Post by KittenInABox »

zozbot234 wrote: post #78
tech_ken wrote: post #61

> He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well, every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something, and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. Feeling like a victim is not the same as wallowing in self-pity. Recognizing that you have been victimized in some way could easily be the first step towards taking owne…

> it's probably not healthy in the long-term to pretend like it's "your fault" ... Tak[e] a clear view of the causes of your current circumstances There's always things in your control and things out of your control, but the notion of "victim" does zilch to clarify which is which. It's a pointless distraction, a snare for the mind.

Heavily disagree. It is very clear when you are a victim of child abuse that no part of your abuse was in your control, because you were a child. It's also super fucked up to say the notion of, say, a rape victim is a pointless distraction. I think a "what was in your control about you being raped" is just about the least productive way to go about the scenario of being victimized.

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

#156

Post by anonuser123456 »

bmitc wrote: post #2

[flagged]

>See Munger's dorm buildings that he pushed upon universities that make prisons look like hotels.

Do you mean the highest rated campus housing on University of Michigans campus? Yeah. He sure victimized students there.

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

#157

Post by happytiger »

nullindividual wrote: post #102
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.

Billions. It is literally most of us. Wealth concentration is unintuitive in the extreme.

But let’s debate the merits of yet another billionaire lecturing everyone about the merits of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and not being a victim.

Hard work doesn’t make billionaires. Systems that accelerate privileged positions and concentrate wealth to the top do. And that’s not necessarily bad. But it’s generally bad when it’s this extreme.

That said I wish his family well and am sorry for his passing. He was always a gentleman and kind to the core.

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

#158

Post by profsummergig »

dexwiz wrote: post #65
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").

He sponsored what essentially was a prison style dorm. He might have great advice, but it will probably make you a worse human. https://www.fastcompany.com/90740511/heres-what-its-like-liv...

I had read about this dorm plan, and thought it was very brutal.

Then I found myself in a windowless room for a day (voluntarily) with a PC and no internet. Literally staring at a wall.

The most productive day I've had in a couple of decades.

And I started to have second thoughts about his dorm plan. Maybe he was on to something.

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

#159

Post by shrubble »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #153
shrubble wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dri…

No person in need needs anything in particular, but even dirt poor Charlie Bucket got a Wonka chocolate bar on his birthday.

How many times a year do you estimate, that poor Charlie Bucket has a birthday?

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

#160

Post by codegeek »

KittenInABox wrote: post #151
codegeek wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The quote is... "If you just take the attitude that, however bad it is in anyway, it’s always your fault and you just fix it as best you can – the so-called ‘iron prescription’ – I think that really works." ...does not work for e.g. victims of child abuse. Child abuse is never the fault of the child.

Of course, any abuse inflicted on you is not your fault. I wouldn't take that phrase "always your fault" literally. It is about how you react to it afterwards and what you do to get back up. As he also said "you just fix it as best you can". I would focus on that phrase more.
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