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wordpad 2 days ago

Given only like 1% of people hold PhDs i feel like you're massively underestimating your own effort in your success.

xenadu02 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Success is almost always a combination of both. No one is self-made but that tends to irk people who believe they are because they've spent years doing a lot of hard work. Without that hard work they'd have failed! Yet hard work alone is not sufficient.

Where you grow up, what schools you attend, who your childhood friend group is, luckily not getting hit by a bus and put in the hospital, etc. A whole host of factors conspire to grant or deny you opportunities.

However once the opportunity arises you have to seize it. Many people have lots of opportunity yet accomplish nothing because they lack the skills, will, or both to do so. Conversely many people with the drive and skills never hit the right opportunity and end up nowhere.

For whatever reason the broader culture seems to bounce back and forth between both extremes. The whole "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "get a job you lazy bum" crowd acting as if you can get rich purely with hard work. Then on the other side there seems to be this well-intentioned idea on the left that if we simply give every under-privileged kid opportunity they'll be successful.

Real humans and real lives are far more complex than such simple notions.

atmavatar 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Then on the other side there seems to be this well-intentioned idea on the left that if we simply give every under-privileged kid opportunity they'll be successful.

I'd be surprised if more than a tiny minority of people actually believe that. It has more to do with believing that ideally, everyone should have access to the same opportunities.

It seems rather straightforward and non-controversial that providing more people opportunities to succeed will inevitably lead to more people succeeding, even if only a small minority of people are capable of seizing upon the opportunities they are provided.

qzw a day ago | parent | next [-]

In addition, it really matters when and for how long one has access to opportunities. If you wait until a poor child is an adult and then suddenly say, here’s an amazing opportunity, well, it’s not going to do much good. But if you start when the poor child is in preschool and consistently provide opportunities for learning and growth, then suddenly the likelihood of success goes way up.

rTX5CMRXIfFG a day ago | parent | prev [-]

There’s no difference between what you’re saying and what the guy before you is saying. Not sure why you’re drawing lines

pseudalopex a day ago | parent [-]

More is not every. Small minority is not every.

rTX5CMRXIfFG a day ago | parent [-]

Consequentially there's no difference, you just debated the words

throwaway_7274 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

All well said.

I would add that, while “giving every under-privileged kid opportunity” wouldn’t make them all successful, for just the reasons you said, I’m not sure that’s even the bottleneck! It’s like… how do you “give someone opportunity?” It’s a very subtle problem. It’s not easy. I doubt there’s any straightforward intervention where you can give everyone 10 units of opportunity, use them wisely please. School funding and clean streets and EBT and whatnot are sort of proxies for this, but it’s just really not that simple.

(This isn’t a disagreement with anything, by the way.)

rTX5CMRXIfFG a day ago | parent [-]

It’s not that simple but let’s see you lobby for the whole thing and get it done in a short time

a day ago | parent | next [-]
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throwaway_7274 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Couldn't agree more!

throwaway_7274 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’m correctly estimating my own effort in my success. I know just how hard I worked. Making the right childhood best friend causally set me on the path to do it.

n0rand0 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

PhDs are valued by idiot politicians, low bar

Here's Daniel Lemire dunking on PhDs: https://x.com/lemire/status/2082851447499088173

Lemire in part claims:

"For social reasons, it is highly uncommon for people to fail the oral defense of their thesis. Some people are just terrible at it, naturally. They cannot think well on their feet. They get confused and answer the wrong question."

The fraction of your 1% with the credentials to be on the panel just hands them out regardless as a consolation prize.

Who is gonna be able to challenge them. Except on the whole being 1 of billions like everyone else.

It's social status moat chasing.

wordpad 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

PhDs takes YEARS with late hours and low pay.

Every one deserves recognition for having completed that journey, if not for having meaningfully contributed to their field of research.

throwaway_7274 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

ok