[netsharc]

Too many people buy the American dream of "If you just work hard enough, you'll be successful.". If you believe this, then you'd have to believe the opposite: "If you're poor and unsucessful, that means you didn't work hard enough, you must be lazy.".

And too many trust-fund kids or kids from rich parents who could afford to send them to expensive schools (or rich enough to live in a district with a well-funded school) dismiss their luck and believe "I'm successful, that must mean I've been a diligent and smart worker.".

Also, beware of survival bias, most of people in here will have similar paths (born with smarts, good education, high-paying IT job, great success) and probably have similar beliefs about hard work and luck...

This 2+ hour documentary partly talks about it, in particular from ~28m: https://youtu.be/t1MqJPHxy6g?t=1584

[dotnet00]

I think an aspect of a lot of those luckier kids is that they think being told they were lucky invalidates the hard work they feel they did, turning it into a nonsensical contest of comparing apples to oranges.

My siblings have a similar complaint when my Dad essentially implies that they were lucky in having the successes they have had. They do still somewhat understand what he means, but they dislike it because they think he's dismissing the hard work they put in. Of course, they don't see that he applies the same to those experiencing extreme poverty.

[netsharc]

This makes me wonder if being told I was a smart kid (instead of "Good job kid!") wasn't such a bad thing after all. (Educators say tell kids "Good job!" instead of "You're so smart!", because the kids will fear losing that status and then not dare try hard problems).

I always think I'm lucky I was born with a pretty good brain.

[wredcoll]

This definitely comes up a lot and I've never found a satisfactory way to get through to these people that you can both work hard and be lucky.

The ultimate point is to get people to empathize with others, it's easy, especially in the general american culture, to treat being poor as a moral failure.

[antonymoose]

The problem is the world isn’t clean, statistics aren’t clean, it’s all mosaic. You can have noble, moral poors and rich. You can have absolute dirt bags both rich and poor.

I grew up in a take of two households, with parents divorced at a young age. Father grows up in a picture perfect well-to-do family and ends up a classic party-hard drug addled dirt bag. He died last year living alone, homeless in a tent off an interstate motel town. Mother grows up in a stereotypical “dad went out for milk” family that descended into (and rose above) poverty.

While my father just kind of floated around and lived life, my mother remembered the poverty she experienced growing up, worked her ass off in university, and worked two jobs (one professional, one as a weekend cahsier) until she retired.

Nothing any of us can write here on a forum from on high will counter lived reality.

All this is to say, I agree about empathy being needed on society, poverty can still be moral failure. Pretending it can’t is just as in constructive as any other moral argument in this topic.

[dotnet00]

Of course it's possible for poverty to be a moral failure, but I think the point is to not be so quick to pass judgement on people you barely know.

[bluGill]

Having seen the above I would be cautious about believing it.

In divorce courts will often emotionally and monetarily abuse men. (divorce itself if you love the other party is emotional abuse, though I don't know what to do about this. Abusive men do love their wives despite the abuse). As such die of a drug overdose while living in a homeless tent is probably the only option seen left.

I'm not saying there are not lazy losers in the real world. However the picture is often more complex and few people will admit that.

[fajitaforce5]

My MAGA dad grew up dirt poor in a house with literal dirt floors in some rooms. Four kids. No dad. Government support. He got a job as a cop and raised me and thinks anyone can get out of poverty if they work hard. He’s a corner case but he’ll never see it tha way because he literally bootstrapped himself. How do I tell him he didn’t and just got lucky? He kinda has a point.

[mrmlz]

Way to dismiss his life achievement as "being lucky"

[qaq]

Well if you work hard enough silently lives out the important part: in a high demand area like say construction. But this applies to even high paying fields like IT. If you work really hard on things none cares about in IT you are not gonna make much ...

[pixl97]

>If you're poor and unsucessful, that means you didn't work hard enough, you must be lazy.".

Calvinism. Your poor because you're bad. Interestingly enough Calvinism serves as a lot of the basis for what became Capitalism.

[netsharc]

Yeah... and the basis of how to Make America Great Again: make the poor's lives miserable and they'll be forced to work hard. They'll be successful, problem solved! If they stay poor, that must mean they're still lazy, let them rot!

[Brendinooo]

I dunno. People put too much stock in Max Weber, who cherry-picked his evidence: he literally used Benjamin Franklin, a deist who'd abandoned Christian doctrine, as his model "Protestant." He created a compelling just-so story that is now picked up by people who never check the actual sources.

I mean, here are actual Calvin quotes:

> Nothing is more dangerous, than to be blinded by prosperity.

> Men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success.

> A man will be justified by faith when, excluded from righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it, appears in the sight of God not as a sinner—but as righteous.

> Hence the Prophet reminds us, that though God would bountifully feed his Church, supply his people with food, and testify by external tokens his paternal love, and though also he would pour out his Spirit, (a token far more remarkable,) yet the faithful would continue to be distressed with many troubles; for God designs not to deal too delicately with his Church on earth; but when he gives tokens of his kindness he at the same time mingles some exercises for patience, lest the faithful should become self-indulgent or sleep on earthly blessings, but that they may ever seek higher things."

Anyways, it's probably good to let Actual Calvinists weigh on the matter:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-real-protestant-eth...

If you want to argue that this work ethic is a real phenomenon...sure. But I think you have to start with recognizing that the supposed exemplar was a person who generally unmoored from orthodox Protestantism, so "Protestant work ethic" is really a misnomer.

[peterspath]

where can I read more about it? I don't see the connection, but I could be wrong, so interested in some reading on this topic.

[pixl97]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_Christianity

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Calvinism

[raldu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...

It's one of the classic subjects in sociology,

https://oyc.yale.edu/sociology/socy-151/lecture-16

[peterspath]

I knew what Calvinism was... this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic is an interesting read, will explore the topic more. Thank you :)

[pavel_lishin]

I assume they're talking about this, which was mentioned elsewhere on HN yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...

[raffael_de]

Homeless people are famously just temporarily inconvenienced millionaires.

[janalsncm]

The most sinister part of it is that today many Americans are not doing well, but because they believe that meritocracy exists, they believe they must have no merit. Cue the graph of deaths of despair.