[cxr]

Heads up: this is a common pattern of expression that makes you come off as really obnoxious to people who will never tell you that that's what's happening. If you can't understand why people have a problem with this, here's the explanation: there are almost certainly smarter people than you who happened to be more unlucky than you.

You were lucky-but-stupid before, so you stopped being so stupid, and now your messages carry the undertone that anyone else is some variation of the person you were back in the stage before you wised up. It's a view that doesn't provide any space for people who were wise from the beginning. When you say things like what you said above, you're not highlighting how smart you are or getting down to how dumb other people are; you're just highlighting how lucky you were to even have the circumstances where you were allowed to be that stupid in the beginning.

[fnord77]

Do you do social skills coaching? Plenty of tone deaf people (myself included) who would gladly pay for this.

[ambicapter]

Seriously, what an amazing comment. Imagine if we had someone like this in every discussion on the internet.

[oAlbe]

This is one of the best comments I've ever read on HN, bar none. Thank you for that.

[war1025]

I would guess he is actually getting downvoted because he is pointing out an uncomfortable truth.

The majority of the people that frequent this site are above the median income. Being in the tech field gives you a huge leg up economically.

You can either squander that, or you can use it to stay out of debt and build wealth.

Having someone point out that you maybe don't actually make the best financial decisions is uncomfortable and makes people defensive.

Doesn't make the statement any less true. Most people on a tech salary (even outside the unicorn tech hubs) have the means to be debt free and live quite comfortably besides.

[cxr]

Alternatively, maybe someone really does have a "royal flush" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV8XhzG_rAg> (or anal fissures, cf The Office episode "Health Care", season 1, episode 3).

[abfan1127]

At the risk of more down votes, I'll disagree with you. There are certainly smarter people than me who are less lucky than me. However, its a much smaller subset than many would believe. Many claim unlucky when in reality their luck is a consequence of their past choices. They've taken risks and those risks didn't work out.

[cxr]

I once read some advice that I'll try to repeat, but without knowing whether I can do a great job capturing it, but here it goes. The general idea was that if you're on a date with someone, then you should avoid asking or saying things that subtly insist that something is true if you don't know it to be true. An example is that if you don't know whether your date was molested by their father as a child, you should tread carefully with any questions or comments that carry the presumption that they weren't.

Here's some more sage wisdom: the average human has approximately one testicle. Except not, right? Because that's not how numbers work. So, it doesn't matter if, say, only 4% of the people you interact with are unlucky and 96% aren't. This is not an engineering problem. If you do meet someone who is (or was) unlucky, and you have an interaction with them like this, then even though they're in the 4%, their circumstances are still 100% at odds with your assumption.

[abfan1127]

interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing!

[war1025]

You can only get downvoted on a post to -4, fyi. I stopped caring nearly as much about being agreeable once I learned that.

For what it's worth, congrats on what you did. I'm in a similar position and I completely agree that for the majority of people here it wouldn't take anything beyond stopping making bad choices.

[dkersten]

> I stopped caring nearly as much about being agreeable once I learned that.

The score is just some meaningless internet dick measuring, so why care at all?

[war1025]

Psychological junk, you know.

[imtringued]

If staying in my home country is a bad decision then nothing will change my mind.

[war1025]

I think it's important to make a distinction here that I didn't think to make initially:

I am not saying "everyone can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year if they stop being dumb."

What I am trying to say is "Most people can avoid being massively in debt by making better spending decisions."