Comment by sean_patel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sean_patel | Hacker News Reader

> You see in India, a general rule of the thumb defined by the society is that you complete your college, get a job in some “renowned” company, and get your life set. Though this mentality is changing in the current generation, it is still prevalent in the older ones.

That's not necessarily a bad thing IMO. My father grew up in Bombay and he too resisted this 'mentality' and pursued his arts passion - documentary photography. Despite winning awards for his war photography (Indo-Pak War and the Indo-China War) he was struggling to make ends meet.

Eventually he put himself through engineering college studying nights and weekends and made it to US into a Masters Program and that's when he had me. He used to tell me this story in my 'coming of age' years, but he never forced me to take up Engineering or Medicine. Eventually, I ended up becoming a Computer Science major rather than pursue my Sports career ambition (more on that some other day). I am still thankful to my dad for instilling that thing you call 'Indian Mentality'. I know my father would've supported me if I had gone the Arts or Sports route, but I am so glad he showed me how the real world is. :)

I'm glad OP took the road less traveled. I'm getting pretty tired of people living up to their stereotypes.

Not disputing that. Very brave. But you never hear of the 95% + stories that end in tragedy / poverty. You only see the Glory Stories.

The ones that end in complete failure are the most valuable.

How so? Please explain.

From Wikipedia:

>>Survivorship bias, or survival bias, is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways.

> 95% + stories that end in tragedy / poverty

Do they?

I agree, it's almost certainly riskier than the survivorship bias suggests. But by how much?

Depends on how you answer that question: Do we have so many people working in corporations (often in Dilbert jobs) as a result of people being smart or people being stupid?

Note that this is not about the actual intelligence of people, but about the intelligence of the entire process that is much larger than individuals, into which the IQ of individuals goes as just one variable. The larger process has its own logic, just like the constructions of insects are system outcomes. The situation we have is the result of such a process.

Personally, I think the process has spoken - the outcome is what it is for a reason. Assuming "individual human incompetence" when looking at large-scale and long-term outcomes IMHO would be wrong. So I think we have people seeking safety in large established organisations for very good reasons - whatever they may be when you ask them.

Note that answers from people may not be useful: What would a bee or an ant be able to even see about the organization they are in, the grander outcomes? Asking individuals leaves out the big picture that they inevitably are to small to even notice. So just like in marketing talking to people only takes you so far I'd say it is the same here: Looking at individual experiences, no matter how many, IMHO is too limited. There is a larger (to us mostly invisible) system at work here.

I am very sorry if those words disrespected anyone out here, I meant no offence.

Its just that I have been dealing with this stuff for so long and also seeing my friends dealing with the same, so I decided to mention it in the post.

Sorry again, if I have hurt your feelings.

No need to apologize. That's another Indian trait I've observed. My cousins in India are always apologetic. Perhaps it has something to do with a Servitude culture (serving the white man for 240 years during the British Tyranny). You didn't hurt my feelings. I just felt the need to share my experience as the son of an Indian Immigrant, who also went through something similar to what you went through, took the road less traveled, and got burned.

I commend you for being brave and doing what felt right in your heart. I wish I was as brave as you, my life might have turned out different.

That said, I regret nothing :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com