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Comment by suyash | Hacker News Reader

That is why they call America the Land of Opportunity. If you work hard enough, you dreams will come true here.

Except for most musicians, actors, actors turned prostitutes, lawyers who are waiters, near-homeless programmers who read HN, startup employees who got screwed by finance people, etc.

;) I'm just saying there might be other factors: like the industry you work in, your interests, govt subsidization of your industry, saturation/supply/demand, etc. Someone interested in makeup is going to have a different life than someone interested in nuclear physics. There are some poor physics graduates who worked for 10 years in research VS. upper-middle class make-up artists.

> near-homeless programmers who read HN

You have to screw up pretty hard to be near-homeless as a programmer in this environment.

It is surprisingly easy to end up like that, no matter what your qualifications. Go to a homeless person and ask them to tell you their story for some food and coffee, prepare to have your worldview shattered.

It's very easy to become homeless when you get the 1-2 punches of illness and divorce. A friend of mine went from riches to rags within a year that way.

Well I guess I screwed up royally

Hang in there. I hope you will have better days.

>>That is why they call America the Land of Opportunity. If you work hard enough, you dreams will come true here.

What?

This woman is from India, and trust me India of 2013 is nothing unlike the India of 1980s or early 1990's. Long gone are those days where one had to leave India and go to somewhere in the west to have a worth while life. You can pretty much be anything you want to be in modern day India.

And by the way if you work hard 'enough', your dreams will come true anywhere!

> And by the way if you work hard 'enough', your dreams will come true anywhere!

Why do people keep repeating this? What is the empirical evidence for this statement outside of some anecdotes? I have seen so many counter-examples in my life...

People repeat it because it makes them feel better. You don't have to confront the fact that life is inherently unfair.

Yeah but this girl got two lucky breaks , She found an old lady willing to give her 30,000 dollars to go to Harvard , and there she ended up meeting Linus Pauling .

She was also willing to do the grunt work -- clean petri dishes. How many people here would be willing to join a start-up as a janitor? She would have been -- because she knew any in is an in. And in is always damn better than out.

If any of these are true.

Depends on the dream, for many people's dream it's very unlikely.

I always thought Land of Opportunity just meant if you work hard enough you'll land a mediocre job that pays well and will be able to provide a decent level of support for your family.(although unfortunately that is not always the case)

Well that's not true. Hard work alone is usually never enough and certainly not in the 21st century US. If I was dirt poor and looking to emmigrate I would probably try to get somewhere where they take better care of less fortunate and where they offer equal opportunity regarding education, health care and so on to everyone. If I was looking for the American dream I wouldn't go to America.

The opportunity is the same in most Western countries. Nothing special about America in this respect.

I think it's easier to go from nothing to absurdly successful in the US than almost anywhere else. It's probably harder to go from nothing to the middle class in the US than it is in Europe or other developed countries. It's also getting harder to remain in the middle class in the US than in e.g. Germany. It may be easier to go from middle class to 300-500k/yr in the US than in most other places, too (still difficult, but easier here).

The big area where the US is failing people is at the low end. Multi-generational poverty, as well as people who had 1-2 generations of moderate success dropping back to poverty.

To be honest I've never heard anyone calling America that, other than in Hollywood movies or sarcastic comments.

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