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Comment by chmod600 | Hacker News Reader

Both concepts can be true. A lot of people, especially in the developed world, have way more opportunities than they realize. Those that take on some (often very modest) risk to exercise those opportunities are self-made.

It would be ridiculous to say that Picasso didn't make a painting because someone else supplied the paint. He's the one that saw the paint and the canvas and put them together in a unique way.

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Because what you are describing is literally what happens in all situations for everything, it shouldn't even factor into success. It's a given that to be successful, there are external entities involved (infrastructure, people).

I suppose if you get a PHD, you should be thanking the factory worker that was responsible for the paper in your diploma. Should you also thank Bill Gates for providing the operating system and software that allowed you to write your thesis?

Instead, it's being used as a tactic to cut down anyone that is successful (you didn't earn that success, it was the people around you).

If success were that easy, everyone would be successful..but this just isn't reality.

People hear what they want to, to be honest. Most of the time, in my experience, people aren't trying to "cut down" successful people, they are just trying to show that it wasn't all skill and good decisions. Its a response to the idea that people who are successful, and especially those with financial success, are somehow morally superior to those who are less successful. This idea is pervasive, at least in the USA, and that's the context people are usually coming from when they talk about the externalities that lead to success. And honestly, if successful people don't recognize the luck that also went into their success, they become delusional.

Financial success --> morally superior. Reminds me calvinism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

There's definitely a subset of people who have achieved nothing in their life, and instead of changing simply resent others who've done something.

Invariably, these people spend more time in online communities like Reddit and come to dominate the conversation there. They also (surprise, surprise) congregate in low skilled jobs where you can phone it in a bit.

Depending on your circles, you might not come across them much, but they are absolutely everywhere.

Most of what you've said is nonsense that capitalists feed the middle and lower classes to keep them fighting eachother. The "low skill" jobs are generally the ones you can't phone it in as much, because there's actual work to be done at all times. I say that having worked in many different environments, from gas stations to a large cap tech company. The cashiers at the gas station were at least as busy and hardworking as any devs I ever worked with, and both are much, much harder working than basically anybody with an MBA, who are generally the people most likely to talk about how they are "self-made."

I agree and would add that in my esperience people in richer countries work less than those in poorer. In the Netherlands people work less than in Italy, in Italy people work less than in Morocco. This happens because in richer countries they are relatively more efficient.

Thank the factory worker for the paper and Bill Gates for the OS sounds like a lovely idea! Marie Kondo vibes.

I agree "success is not your own" can be weaponized, but also let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. The paper - and this humanity team we are on - did help!

I was once at a conference with multiple game developers. My background is that I learned myself programming at a young age. I was also good at school so I completed a Masters degree in CS.

Another guy in the group was also a game developer, but never studied further. Someone labeled this person as a "self-made man". Which I found weird at the time, because I also put in the "self-made" work to get my Masters degree.

It's basically a concept of whatever you want to make of it. If people enjoy labeling themselves or others as "self-made", I have no problem with that. For me it holds no value at all. And for Arnold, it feels offensive because he realizes he wouldn't have the success without the support he got from the people around him.

Every success is made up of a part that you did, and a part that others did. And the part that others did will always be way bigger than your part. Shoulders of giants and all that.

My father thanked the typist who prepared the final copy of his PhD thesis.

But Picasso was also lucky enough to be born in a place and time where he had access to enough economic surplus that he could spend time painting rather than having to spend all his time working the fields just to survive. He also had the extra good fortune of being in a situation where those around him had access to enough economic surplus that they could afford to buy his paintings at a pretty substantial markup over the actual cost of production. None of these things are givens.

I don’t even know why people bother argue such things?

To not feel bad others have accomplished more?

>To not feel bad others have accomplished more?

No; I think the self-made man is dangerous because it leads people to believe 2 things:

1.) You can and should go it alone

2.) Other people shouldn't need your help.

I don't think Arnold tells his story the way he does in order to diminish his own accomplishments. It's used to highlight all the people that helped him along the way to get him to where he is. It's important to ask for help, to ask for guidance and depend on others. There's no glory in going it alone and you can be propelled immensely by relying on others to support your efforts.

Furthermore, it's important to provide a lending hand to others. Great men are built with the help of others and you have a responsibility to help others excel when you can. I think telling these stories help break the hyper-individualistic ethos of the American self-made man. Once you break this myth that so-and-so is self-made, we can make steps into re-examining how we treat our families, friends and fellow Americans (and/or countrymen). Common adages such as "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" will become more and more asinine once we understand no one is fully self-made; and I think that change in social psyche will have societal benefits.

Okay; maybe, in some cases going alone is fine, in some cases not. That's a discussion worth having.

But even if that's the argument, that's not the way OP phrased his point.

His point entirely about how the greats where just a product of their environment and not their individual greatness.

Not a discussion that seems to in anyway advance to a better progress of group or individual; but more about pettiness tbh.

There are many examples in life where I have seen people and recognized that if this person were born in a slightly different household, slightly different time, slightly different economy, etc. - this person would have made it big!

I have actually seen this in many places.

One example on top my head- my neighbor was a talented video editor. Not legendary level, but okay. He eventually set up shop for editing wedding videos and such. He got contracts, he got praises and contracts in affluent families- all of this was not enough for sustaining a middle class life for an adult. He eventually set up a convenient store with the help of his father in law. He was quite old and had to move on to earn a middle class income. He did not have access to internet until early 2010s.

Now, his nephew, who is also my neighbor is also a video editor. But he got internet since he was born. He has all the resources. He has discord servers where people guide him and share resources. He is also an online gamer, and edited his own videos and posted them online. That led him to international contracts. Last month he earned US$120 working a single night.

That's HUGE for a 19 YO in small town India. Had his uncle (now in his early 40s) had all these, he would have made it big.

Circumstances do influence heavily how much a person succeeds.

I don't hold the line that equal opportunities lead to equal outcome- that doesn't happen.

But do think about the child that was born today in slavery in Libya, and a child born to a FAANG worker parent in Bay Area.

Do you think that they have equal chances of success?

And, I will also mention that Picasso had neighbors and peers. They didn't become as famed. Talent and individuality matters, too.

It makes me feel even better looking at accomplished peoples work. Seeing the whole thing come together, everyone's contributions that lead to works of art, science, engineering, etc. It would make me feel shitty that "accomplished people" were standalone in their works, where no one along their life was ever helpful or interested or supported or bought their works. It takes a village (or a planet/solar system/galaxy/universe worth of everything going right for a single accomplishment to have happened)

Probably worth arguing about, because so many people that think they are 'self-made' also want to take away opportunities from others.

So its good to keep these concepts in the general awareness.

Picasso shares those surpluses with hundreds of millions of other people. That didn’t make him special.

Picasso was the son of an accomplished painter and art professor, who tutored him from a young age. That's not the sort of opportunity that's all around average people.

In reference to what Arnold is talk aobut, he's more so referring to the people that shaped him into the person he is today, from his parents to everyone that he has met along the way. So in regards to Picasso, it wouldn't be the paint supplies, but everyone that supported/encouraged/discouraged/nay saysers, that guided him along the way to his success.

The Picasso analogy really doesn't work, it makes no sense.

Picasso was a communist. He would have insisted that he couldn’t have used his talent without the collective production of all of society.

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