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Comment by clintonbush | Hacker News Reader

This is pure garbage. Please suggest an alternative to "The Myth." I see two immediate problems with any alternative that far out-weigh its purported benefits. (1) Any solution you propose involves a government imposing its will on the people, 'reallocating' their wealth, and using that loot to pick and choose the winners. (2) Any alternative to "The Myth" necessarily deprives people of ownership of their future -- you create more victims. When people believe they have no control over their destiny, they fall prey to nihilism. Thanks to rhetoric like yours coming from BLM, Antifa, and the rest of the progressive ilk, you only need to look at the news to see how well a nihilistic society works.

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A false belief that we we have control over our destinies and ignoring the vast amount of luck is how we end up with increasing suicide rates. It also leads to poor outcomes because we can blame simply blame the poor performers rather than examine the systems. Why adjust the system when we can blame it on personal failure for free.

You can turn that right around though- Why improve yourself when you can just blame the system? Nature, nurture, free will, and pure luck all have a role to play. Sometimes a system is dysfunctional, sometimes a person within that system is dysfunctional- no matter what there's always a tendency to avoid personal responsibility when things don't go well (for all parties involved, the system included)

People improve themselves for reasons beyond monetary gain, therefore money is not the sole motivating force.

Your belief that "there's always a tendency to avoid personal responsibility when things don't go well' is your personal opinion and says more about your personal view of the world. If this is true, why the increase in suicide, depression, anxiety. Why are American's the most stressed out population?

Ignoring the affects of American's economic system and the role it plays in our growing mental health issues is itself not mentally healthy. Blaming each of the millions of individuals for not thriving for personal failings in a system we control is sociopathic.

> Your belief that "there's always a tendency to avoid personal responsibility when things don't go well' is your personal opinion and says more about your personal view of the world. If this is true, why the increase in suicide, depression, anxiety. Why are American's the most stressed out population?

Not wanting to take responsibility for problems is human nature, and I'd say your denial of it 'says more about your personal view of the world'. Its comforting to blame others when things go wrong so we often do, whether its justified or not. I don't see whats so controversial about that observation.

As for stress in America, there are as many reasons for it as there are Americans. Just because there is an increase in 'suicide, depression, anxiety' doesn't mean you should uncritically ascribe it all to whatever your pet political issue happens to be

> Ignoring the affects of American's economic system and the role it plays in our growing mental health issues is itself not mentally healthy. Blaming each of the millions of individuals for not thriving for personal failings in a system we control is sociopathic.

I never implied I was ignoring the issues with American economics, I'm just trying not to deal in absolutes and blame it all on either the system or the individuals within it- a reasonable take would be to blame the system for its shortcomings and the individuals for theirs, not to maginify or ignore one or the other.

One could easily argue that your mindset is just as mentally debilitating as the one you criticize- IE. the removal of personal agency by blaming the system encourages feelings of helplessness- 'There's no point in trying to improve my lot in life because the system will always keep me down', causing people to miss out on opportunities they'd otherwise take advantage of, keeping them down and increasing their feelings of 'depression and anxiety'

There are ultimately a lot of assumptions here that amount to you really, really sitting on the fence super hard.

You assume that blaming the system encourages helplessness, I argue blaming the system encourages people to try and change the system. For example, the medical system in America is the reason why my family was poor. Therefore, I firmly believe the medical system should be torn down and replaced with something better. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that there is a problem.

You say fence-sitting, I say moderate. Anyways, you're absolutely right that 'The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that there is a problem.' My argument is that principle applies for both the system and the individual, not just one or the other. Blaming the system encourages systemic change, but blaming the individual can encourage personal change. It depends on the situation. Often both are at fault to different degrees and just blame each other, never acknowledging their own faults.

To your point, sometimes the system really is a rotten edifice of garbage that needs to be eradicated and rebuilt. I have my own experiences with the american medical system and I'm with you there completely. I don't think any amount of personal merit is going to help you navigate that particular system, its fundamentally broken. So yes the blame there is justified, and hopefully that blame does encourage it to change.

On the other hand, to give a topical example- Let's say Jimmy weighs 600 lbs and never exercised a day in his life, and now he's facing an absurd medical bill for his heart surgery. There's plenty of blame to go around there, there are certainly some systemic factors at play (not the least of which being the medical system taking advantage of him), but to completely absolve Jimmy of personal responsibility for his poor choices and just blame the system is unhealthy, and does encourage a sense of individual helplessness. Yes the system should be blamed and changed for all the things it did wrong, but so should Jimmy

The point is that blame should be assigned where its deserved in the degree that it's deserved, but often the individualists will just blame the individual and the collectivists will blame the system, with no nuance in between

> A false belief that we we have control over our destinies and ignoring the vast amount of luck is how we end up with increasing suicide rates.

This seems kind of counterintuitive. If anything, a belief in agency gives people a hope for something better

> the vast amount of luck

Intelligence and who your parents are, are certainly the luck of the draw. But, why are hard working and industrious people overrepresented amongst the “lucky”? There’s plenty of evidence that merely being lucky doesn’t make you hard working so it would seem that being hardworking and industrious tends to allow you to take advantage of the luck that comes your way.

> Please suggest an alternative to "The Myth."

Read some Zinn.

https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/peoples-history/

You're welcome.

It's not all or nothing. You can acknowledge that meritocracy is heavily exaggerated while still believing people have a significant level of control over their own lives.

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