[dinobones]

The stories and opportunity this generation of people have are amazing to me. Lax immigration, cheap tuition, jobs are easy to come by. But they didn’t have the internet.

Today the author probably wouldn’t be able to afford California’s community college out of state tuition. They probably wouldn’t be accepted to Stanford with a 3.8. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would be impossible to convert from their B1 to an F1 without requiring an expensive return flight home and re-ingress into the US.

There are so many more barriers to everything, in lots of annoying little legal and political ways, but mostly due to the higher cost of everything.

Today we have an abundance of technology, connectedness, and information, but paradoxically the barrier to do anything substantial seems much higher. Sure 2 day shipping and the gig economy is abundant, but I mean the ability to do something to truly benefit and improve yourself.

What would the modern day equivalent of this tale be? Where/when are these kinds of opportunities available now?

[ip26]

I idly wonder whether having easier access to information about “how to truly benefit and improve yourself” is the cause. The more it becomes common knowledge, the more people will be competing to do that thing.

In this view, everything has become closer to an ideal free market, and the stories of olde about getting in to Stanford with a 3.8 were a lucky guy stumbling upon an undervalued asset.

[coolThingsFirst]

All the information that's public and accessible is worthless. No one will share inside scoop on how things really work and how to take advantage of them. The garbage floats to the surface because it has no value.

Like someone was going to share with others how to become rich in 6 months if they knew it.

[skulk]

I'm struggling to understand how the vast archive of freely available lectures from university professors is "worthless." Are those videos and accompanying homework exercises part of the garbage that's floated to the top?

[coolThingsFirst]

It’s really not a struggle.

What will an Indian rickshaw driver accomplish if he learns Lin Alg? Will they offer him a n interview at OpenAi because of it?

Im talking about hidden knowledge that will change your life not about how to learn what torque is.

[emmet]

Ah but fruit and vegetables were hard to get out of season. And smartphones exist! Checkmate, Millennials.

[klyrs]

But in season, they were delicious. I haven't had a ripe store-bought stone fruit in more than a decade. Now, they're either rock hard or mealy, with nothing in between.

[aiquestions]

I think it’s really easy to underestimate how the cards fell just right for you. It often feels like one’s own experience is common enough that successes are all our own. It leads to folks misunderstanding things like institutional racism, or the way increasing housing and education costs have fundamentally changed the experience of American dream.

I really appreciate the simple examples you give that show how the author’s timing (1965) was a great “hand” to have been dealt, and had all things been the same 50 years later the game may have played out differently.