Hacker News Reader

Look what happens when we stop making things "too good, too easy":

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/sunday-review/push-dont-c...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-sil...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/education/edlife/overachi...

There's a huge middle ground between "Being #2 is failure" and "no need to ever try to do anything"

Maybe there is when your Gini Index is in the 20's, or hell, even the mid-30's. When it's 46.1, closer to Brazil than to most other developed countries?

Then I'm not so sure.

I have read the second article you link to and I find it irrelevant to the point you are making.

That story is how high-schoolers in Silicon Valley are committing suicide at an alarming rate. Reading between the lines some, it tells you that Silicon Valley parents (who are probably some of the most driven people in the country) are expecting their kids to be just as driven/high achieving as them. The kids cannot cope with it and take the only way out they know of.

I think this is very different from what ronnier is suggesting when he says "life is too good, too easy, for the average american." Children in SV are not average americans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com