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Comment by minikites | Hacker News Reader

>The real world doesn't work that way and using statistical outliers like Gates is disingenuous to the discussion about hard work and how it applies to normal people.

Exactly. This is the central lie that sustains capitalism. Wealthy C-level executives get rich when the rest of us work hard, which is why they harp on "working hard" so much. There's no reason to work hard when all the benefits go to the already-wealthy above you, which is why they try to obscure that fact in as many ways as possible.

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// There's no reason to work hard when all the benefits go to the already-wealthy above you, which is why they try to obscure that fact in as many ways as possible

I have always been an employee and yet I am thrilled and thankful for the financial returns.

Looking around my neighborhood, the same is true for most folks around me.

There are not guarantees in life but if you have the combination of luck, skill and hard work, you can land in a place where you and employer are mutually benefited.

I am lucky enough that this has been the case for my 18 year career so far and not uncommon.

What you are saying on the other hand is a dead end. If you don't believe good employer/employee relationship is possible, you won't do your part and it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. I feel bad for people who think like this.

Honestly it reminds me of the incel movement. Someone somewhere owes you something and you have no agency on how it shapes out. I fundamentally disagree.

"If you don't believe good employer/employee relationship is possible, you won't do your part and it will be a self fulfilling prophecy."

I agree that it can become self-fulfilling. However, there are some of us who started out believing the best and changed their minds after being repeatedly screwed over.

>> and changed their minds after being repeatedly screwed over.

I both sympathize for you and still don't think the "changing your mind" is helpful here. My personal example here is in my dating life. I only got married at 38. Before that I had probably 15 semi serious or serious relationships that ultimately didn't work out. Each one of them would have been a good reason to say "oh, well, it's not for me to find love" or "I am doomed because my parents divorce messed me up" or "everyone out there's not good enough for me" or whatever.

But while I would be "justified" in thinking that way, I'd also actually doom myself by thinking that way. Instead I kept looking for changes I can make (mainly in how I feel about and value others in this case) that eventually allowed me to meet an amazing woman and start a family together.

The paint I am making is - we have agency. Whatever shitty work situation you have, do you have some room to find a better employer? To beef up your skills so you're more valuable? To contribute more to the org and be deeply recognized? To build such a network that if something ever happened you can find another job in a matter of weeks? In my experience, almost everyone has SOME leverage they can use to improve their situation. If they continuously use it, their situation is statistically likely to iteratively improve (and give you bigger levers over time.) If you get jaded and give up, nothing will magically improve and just get worse.

So no matter how much you may justify jadedness, it's not a thing worth accepting because it will just kill you.

"it's not a thing worth accepting because it will just kill you."

That would be ok too.

OK. As long as you are open with yourself and others upfront where that goes... I guess that's your call. Not a decision I'd make.

The question isn't whether a good employer-employee relationship is possible. the question is whether a horrible employee-employer relationship, one that has significant butterfly effects, is possible. More pertinently, the question is whether it's possible for someone to be in such complex circumstances that finding a good employer, or even job opportunity, is possible for that person.

The incel community isn't the right comparison maybe? A more apt comparison might be domestic abuse worldwide.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the assumptions being made here and elsewhere that what applies to one person's life applies at large. It's not just survivorship bias, it's some kind of egocentrism (in a perceptual sense) bias.

You yourself say you consider yourself lucky. Do you really? What about the unlucky ones?

It's easy to say "well for two decades it's worked out for me and hundreds of neighbors" forgetting that there's many more decades in a life, and billions of people.

You've been downvoted and I think that's right.

The main point is - you can't control your luck. you can control what you do. For some reason, there's an attitude that "because you can't control your luck, you shouldn't control what you actually can control" which is dumb.

You can acknowledge both. But you need to maximize that which is under your control (and if you don't do that you have no room to complain about anything else.)

>I am lucky enough that this has been the case for my 18 year career so far and not uncommon.

You shouldn't need luck to get food and shelter, which is how our current economic system works and the fact that it works this way upsets me greatly.

>What you are saying on the other hand is a dead end. If you don't believe good employer/employee relationship is possible, you won't do your part and it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. I feel bad for people who think like this.

Why is change always demanded from those without power by those with power? The employers are the ones ruining the relationship and I think the employer side of the relationship needs to change. One way of changing that is through labor unions.

// You shouldn't need luck to get food and shelter

Most people in the US have both, but that's also irrelevant to the point I responded to - his claim was that you can't do well by being an employee which is untrue.

// Why is change always demanded from those without power by those with power?

I am not demanding any change. However, if you are not happy with your situation, the most actionable place for you to change it is with yourself. Start with yourself FIRST.

Jeff Bezos could bankrupt himself giving each of his current employees $200K (one time only, after 25+ years of work, not per year).

And that's by far the most extremely case.

You can argue that it's exploitative or that no one should be as rich as he is, but you can't say that working hard to do better for yourself as an employee is useless just because that small amount gets skimmed off.

>you can't say that working hard to do better for yourself as an employee is useless just because that small amount gets skimmed off.

I like this argument, but for higher taxes on the wealthy instead. Taxes benefit everybody, but my surplus labor value goes only to Jeff Bezos and his substantial money hoard.

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