People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige • Hacker News Board

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#201

Post by bumby » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

diehunde wrote: post #190

bumby wrote: post #168

From David Brooks: "I’ve been thinking about the difference between the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the ones you list on your résumé, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave,…

I prefer to focus on the virtues that bring happiness and joy to my life while I'm alive. Money is one of those things. I don't care about what people will say at my funeral because I won't be there. If being brave and honest makes you happy and brings joy to your life then go for it. If the challenges of becoming a billionaire is what makes you feel alive, then go for it.

I think Brooks would probably push back on the hedonic idea of "do whatever makes you happy" somewhat. He seems to advocate cultivating moral character over chasing "happiness".

In The Road to Character he writes,

"All human beings seek to lead lives not just of pleasure, but of purpose, righteousness, and virtue. As John Stuart Mill put it, people have a responsibility to become more moral over time. The best life is oriented around the increasing excellence of the soul and is nourished by moral joy, the quiet sense of gratitude and tranquillity that comes as a byproduct of successful moral struggle. The meaningful life is the same eternal thing, the combination of some set of ideals and some man or woman’s struggle for those ideals. Life is essentially a moral drama, not a hedonistic one."

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#202

Post by bumby » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

michalf6 wrote: post #199

bumby wrote: post #168

From David Brooks: "I’ve been thinking about the difference between the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the ones you list on your résumé, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave,…

Thing is, by the time your eulogy is written, you're already dead. I prefer to leave my kids with a tangible legacy than a beautiful story of a guy who was too kind to be a dick when he needed to. Besides, words chosen for your eulogy depend on the influence you managed to build while still living.

To each their own interpretation, but I definitely did not read that to imply people should be overly kind. To the contrary, I think someone failing to "be a dick when he needed to" is probably a moral failure. As to your last sentence, it probably falls under the quality of the relationships formed that he listed as a 'eulogy virtue'.

I would also argue that if legacy is your goal, a legacy of specific ideals can last longer than most tangible artifacts.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#203

Post by bsanr2 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

wenc wrote: post #143

nickthemagicman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates Musk and Jobs all came from rich families and were able to work on what they wanted to work on. The people going for prestigious institutions may actually need a job and and are optimizing for the best possible outcome.

Gates did. Not sure either Musk or Jobs had rich families. You may want to check that.

Doing your homework for you: Jobs had an unusually international background; was born to highly-educated parents who made sure he went to a suitable family when they put him up for adoption; grew up in a relatively wealthy, highly-educated community that was the hotbed of a nascent industry; and was able to do drugs, an experience here considered life-altering, without being arrested or sent to jail.

I know the word "privilege" is anathema here, but it applies, even if neither his biological nor adoptive parents were necessarily rolling in dough.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#204

Post by minblaster » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #168

From David Brooks: "I’ve been thinking about the difference between the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the ones you list on your résumé, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave,…

“You’ll care less what others think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#205

Post by andreilys » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #194

lordleft wrote: post #174

“People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out.” Marcus Aurelius "19. You may be unconquerable, if you enter into no combat in which it is not in your own control to conquer. When, therefore, you see anyone eminent in honors, or power, or in hig…

The Aurelius quote is a bit ironic since Aurelius is still remembered despite the passage of many generations.

On a long enough timeline the memory of Marcus Aurelius will extinguish.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#206

Post by christiansakai » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #155

astuyvenberg wrote: post #7

This post also resonated with me, especially the quote from /r/cscareerquestions > Got an awesome internship at an interesting company? Well, it wasn’t FAANG, so who cares? Got a FAANG internship? Well it wasn’t one of the good FAANGs, so if you really think about it, you really didn’t accomplish anything. Got into a “Good FAANG”? Well, the other intern works on his own startup idea when he goes home. Why aren’t you…

Fortunately, there are still some places to work without such drawbacks but shhhh - they're a secret.

Can you tell me? Asking for a friend

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#207

Post by nlh » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

endorphone wrote: post #111

I'm a little jaded from years of seeing posts like this, to the point that now they don't seem quite as much like "see, you don't need all that", but instead read more like "See, I've redefined the rules and evaluations -- I'm the winner now!"

I see your point but at the same time - why is redefining the rules a bad thing? Why should people be obligated to evaluate themselves against criteria that’s popular or set by other people? Why does that actually matter?

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#208

Post by asdfman123 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

bsanr2 wrote: post #195

asdfman123 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed something about subreddits that focus on lifestyle design and center around advice: they all start to converge on fairly narrow groupthink. /r/personalfinance is all about super frugal living and passive investing. In /r/backpacking, the general advice is to go as light as possible and spend money reducing weight. /r/cscareerquestions is about the leetcode grind and getting into FAANG. /r/malefashionadvi…

>My brother and I were from a normal middle class background but both went to fancy private schools. I find that people tend to either over or underestimate the "middle class"iness of their upbringing.

My dad worked for city government as a planner for a small suburban town and my mom worked part time as a bookkeeper. My childhood home's estimated value is like $185k.

My parents were smart and had a little extra cultural capital but yeah, we were pretty middle class. Maybe lower-upper-middle class.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#209

Post by philwelch » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #108

lm28469 wrote: post #75

> Unfortunately, after a year of purposely trying, I was still not becoming Elon Musk nor any other “successful” person. Despite reading everyday, meditating, getting up early, taking cold showers, and many more things. But what makes these guys successful anyway? Their fame? Money? Contribution to society? And wearing grey t-shirts won't make you Zuckerberg [0]. You don't become a 0.00000001%er by mimicking the most…

The part about reading, meditating, waking early, and so on sounded a bit like a cargo cult.

It just sounds like a healthy lifestyle to me.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#210

Post by bsanr2 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #191

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing the same in SFBA would probably require at least $250K. Maybe more. Why? Each child might consume, generously, an extra 5k of food and 2.5k of clothes and other inputs per year. This is an increment of $30k on top of housing. For housing, you could add one or at most two bedrooms for four children. This does substantially raise housing costs, but there are still places in Sunnyvale for $1M or just above that…

Cheap homes in the Bay Area have terrible schools. You’ll need to factor in private school if you go that route. That’s $25k per kid per year.

Or, be involved with your school board, and raise up the schools you can afford to send your kids to?

Ego seems to be at play here, a bit. No one wants to admit that they're in the same boat as the people sending their kids to "those schools," but they are. The numbers don't lie. Looking on the bright side: admissions look at class rank. An outstanding student at a mediocre school has better odds than a mediocre student at a "good" school.