The Guilt of the Video-Game Millionaires
newyorker.com
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A) We live in a meritocracy
B) Meritocracies are fair
Most people accept that A is false. We all know a fucktard that managed to get rich by being manipulative and destroying value. The problem is that people then fail to realize that B is also false.
Meritocracies are not fair. Allocating wealth to the people that provide a large amount of entertainment, seems fair, but it is not fair in a broad sense of the word. Meritocracies reward those with good health, good luck, good parents who are encouraging, and the lucky gamete club who have high intelligence or exceptional physical skills.
Meritocracies are like democracy: "the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Working hard on a startup doesn't really earn you anything. The best you can hope for is that hard work increases your luck surface area. Keep in mind, that there are people that came from better sperm and eggs who will work just as hard but have a much higher chance of success.
The world is not fair. You can either spend your time griping, or you can spend your time living.
I sense a lot of 'daddy' models of wealth swimming in peoples heads.
http://paulgraham.com/gap.html
If you didn't win the birth lottery it's not a death sentence. You can still win. Measure your progress against your own expectations, not against the lottery winners.
While its possible to end up being rich if you didn't win the birth lottery, its pretty obvious Paul Graham did win it, and you'd have to be numerically or statistically illiterate to not realize that where you start the game is basically the most powerful predictor of both riches and poverty...
Frankly, i wish we could just get over this nonsense of equating extremes of wealth and merit, since there seems to be such little empirical evidence of how to equate the two, or agreement on what merit even is...
One thing that does seem empirically obvious though. Rich people aren't "individually responsible" for wealth themselves. No one has walked out of the amazon forest in a loin cloth and already been a billionaire because of how much wealth they were able to create while there by themselves...
/no offense intended to Paul Graham, he was just used in the example, but from reading his essays I'm guessing he's not terribly insecure :P
pg is a Pom, "is an English programmer," cf: ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_%28computer_program...
Going to decent universities, building a successful startup company in the web space is definitively NOT a 'black swan'. It's something that many people plan, prepare and work very hard at executing for. This concept that pg won some sort of birth lottery and had his path paved with luck is preposterous based on the autobiographical story that I have read.
The whole point of Y Combinator is to remove a lot of the luck component by providing guidance that detaches the need to made lucky decisions, and gets down to being able to execute on an idea making something people want. The whole thing is as merit based as it can get.
While lots of people want to say 'but what about a poor man in Africa' as some sort of reductio ad absurdum to prove a point - realistically what we are talking about here is someone born in a western democratic liberal country and the chance at a decent education. You also don't have to be a billionaire to achieve what most people would like to achieve. Drawing out the extremes of the argument makes the discussion useless for the audience of this site.
What I take umbrage at is a lot of people say 'waah it's not fair someone got lucky' and then spending the rest of their lives in this refrain, pointing out the inequities of the world and refusing to achieve. All this tiresome '1% unfair inequitable boo hoo not fair' whining is unproductive and self indulgent.
If you want wealth or success get out and try and achieve it. The percentages of succeeding are low. The percentages of succeeding are 0 unless you try.
I have not been as successful as Paul Graham. I certainly don't cry about it and moan about some priveledge he got and I didn't, as though that gives me an excuse and a moral hammer to bludgeon people with. My starting hand wasn't as good as many, so I have to play a better game. Whether I ultimately achieve a higher success is entirely within my set of choices, and I don't blame anyone in the world for that. It's my responsibility.
The most convincing argument that pg won any birth lottery that I can think of is that his parents were able to instill a desire into him at a young age to attend an elite university. My parents often spoke of the benefits, but they weren't able to get through to me about the reasons why it's important.
(HN auto-kills secret.ly submissions, but I'm willing to bet this will be a top story next week when verifiable details emerge.)
On the other hand, this is the most beautiful sex discrimination lawsuit I've ever seen waiting to happen. I really hope she has the ability, guts and staying power to move through with it.
I would be absolutely livid in this situation. This is truly a shame, hope they get something out of this when it becomes big news. Thanks for sharing.
But yeah, I'm not a fan of how acquihires work at all - if you own 20% of the company's stock, you should get 20% of the payout upon acquisition. Otherwise, those employment and investment terms are significantly less meaningful.
Oh, and also: nobody wins. Some just take longer to lose.
In the games which everyone MUST play - healthcare, food, shelter - there should be a minimum safety net for ALL. This can be achieved using Basic Income.
But fairness? What exactly does that mean? At the end of the day those who do better in the game will get a better reward and maybe do better in the future etc. Is this because they had more "talent"? Or got more lucky? What is fairness here?
At the end of the day, people want to be happy and healthy.
B) Yes, meritocracies are not equal by definition, but again, I think it is more fair than not. Fair does not mean equal, it means being "thought to be right" so it will depend on each person's morality. I for one, certainly do not want to live in a world where good health has no advantages over bad health, even if I was unhealthy.
In another example, there's another person born with access to wealth, connections, and high-quality education. This one can reach the peak much more easily because he started higher on the mountain, but in both examples, the same amount of 'distance' was covered.
The second example could easily find a job as middle management and just coast through life. That's not really impressive given his starting conditions. He hasn't really moved much on the mountain if he decides to do this (maybe even going backwards).
In a meritocracy, the praise for this absolute progress is lost because the goal posts on the mountain are more-or-less sticky, slowly pushed higher as technology and social advances moves us towards bigger accomplishments. Also, the slope of the mountain is steeper when it's closer to the earth, which is often shaped by the powerful.
No one will likely give you a higher salary despite that you struggled through awful jobs, tight budgets, and many other inconveniences of not having wealth. They don't care how you acquired the 'skills' you have, as long as you have them.
This is fairly obvious stuff, but a meritocracy that ignores this other dimension of merit really irks me. America in particular (only because I live here) is a society that really doesn't reward this other dimension of effort but continues to use the feel-good narrative of hard work and long hours for whatever purposes.
Of course I'd have a completely different view on American meritocracy if we were in a real post-scarcity world.
Depends on your utility function. Capital can certainly prove very useful for whoever is wilding it, but the near-edge of this sword can easily cut us when the wielder happens to be a sadistic psychopath. Or when the power of money corrupts the wielder. Or when the costs of building that capital (externalities such as pollution, rip-offs, lay-offs…) outweigh any later benefit…
> Fair […] [depends] on each person's morality.
Luckily, we humans appear to have a fairly stable morality across individuals. (There are psychological experiments on moral dilemmas, and as far as I know, they indicate we agree on most of the important things. Though there are some "off-switches" in our moral systems —religion, "following orders"…)
> * I for one, certainly do not want to live in a world where good health has no advantages over bad health, even if I was unhealthy.*
There are two aspects you need to keep track of. On the one hand, the absolute advantage, and on the other, the comparative advantage.
Height for instance is a comparative advantage. We tend to look up to taller people, merely because they are taller. So they're more followed, they "get all the girls", better jobs, and so on. But if everyone was taller, it wouldn't change a thing. That's a purely comparative advantage.
Health on the other hand has an absolute component. If we were suddenly immune to all diseases, the world would be a significantly better place.
In other words, you wouldn't care if everyone was taller, but you would like everyone to be healthy.
I'm afraid the USA is much less meritocratic than Europe. In the USA, the class into which you are born is a more important factor in where you will end up than it is in Europe (which I realise is the opposite to most people's belief).
For certain definitions of "merit", it is obvious and plain for everybody to see that class has a great impact on "merit". From conception, the children of upper class parents have an advantage that ends up being visible in fairly objective measures of e.g. intelligence.
This is not what the debate is about, though. Actually, anatari already pointed this out; I quote: " Also depends on what you define as merit. [...]"
Sweden, Britain, China, almost identical. Note, China, communism, cultural revolution and all didn't have any lasting effect on social mobility.
Those with less potential exceeding beyond there potential is nonsensical. If that happens, it only means that you incorrectly estimated their potential in the first place.
Alternatively if we limit success such that those with the most potential can never realize the full extent of their potential, how is that fair? Those people only get one life, you should not deprive them of their ability to live it to their fullest.
I've been such a fool, Vassili. Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love.
I wonder what's the good luck doing in the middle of your argument... but it's plain not true. I know a ton of smart people who didn't end up becoming widely successful nor rich once they entered the job market (or tried to create something on their own). If at all, who YOU KNOW and relate to is more important than your own skills, that's why even dumbasses from university were able to get great jobs, because they were great at socializing and making the network work for them, while their own skills at doing anything were actually very poor.
And that's fair. Even people who are not highly intelligent can make it to the top of society (look at politicians, hehe). Look at all the immigrants from different countries who actually ended up being successful after starting lower than anyone else in society.
And I'm not sure what is your definition of fair. There are some people who assume stuff is not fair when they don't get their share of the cake at every party. That's not what fair means in a broad sense.
Why should we be rewarding "unlucky" gametes?
Please note that I don't consider the likely answer "because they have something useful to contribute to society" as a good one because it assumes that one individual mind (with all its hopes and biases) can comprehend what is really good for society in the long run (think thousands or tens of thousands of years).
Take your philosophical angle: do you think society is better off in the long run for having had Socrates, Plato, Aristotle?
How many unlucky Aristotles are we wasting in poverty in Africa?
I can't directly address your question, because it doesn't seem well formed to me. Which "one individual mind" is comprehending, and what is it doing with this comprehension (is it a judge)? Why is tens of thousands of years important - is that because you explicitly want to discount intelligence and knowledge, and only look at the biological ramifications? By that metric, humans might be better off if we wiped out all mammals and devolved into flowers - you haven't established what good even means (it cannot be survival, since that fails Hume's is/ought rule).
Let me see if I can take a stab at re-wording it. Why should someone who provides little value to society be rewarded the same as people that provide more value to society?
First, I agree that humans should probably not "devolve" into flowers (although "devolve" is a funny word -- technically, evolution, like entropy, is a one-way process, where even parasites can be said to evolve in their own way).
Second, I agree that exceptional individuals like the Greek scholars you mentioned contributed enormously to the human progress in the past two thousand years.
Third, I agree that average human condition in Africa is currently deplorable compared to average human condition on all other Earth's continents.
Where we seem to disagree is in the way we frame our questions and our solutions. Assuming I am an individual of significant wealth with altruistic motives, I would like to produce as many Aristotles, Platos, and Socrates in as short of a time frame as possible. Africa seems like a terrible, terrible place to invest my money with that goal in mind. First, as an individual investor, I can only invest during a timeframe of no more than approximately 20-30 years. Second, even if I open a foundation in my name that would continue doing my work after my death for centuries, Africa still looks bad (the worst in fact) because what happens if, for example, the country I invest in is taken over by a dictator or a warlord some fifty years from now (of which there is an extremely high risk throughout the entire continent of Africa) who brings the country back to the Middle Age or worse, while taking advantage of the invested results. Dictators have a common tendency of "cutting the tall poppies" when they come to power, which means that the African Aristotle I invested into will most likely be imprisoned or dead before he even becomes anything close to Aristotle.
I (as well as my foundation) would get a much better return on investment in a country like Romania that is "almost there" in terms of development and whose political situation is kept secure by a strong supranational organization like EU or NATO.
Finally, let me explain what I mean by the difference between individual and supra-individual. If you look at humanity's history over the past 3000 years, you will see that our attitude to things concerning politics was very different throughout. We had had pluralistic societies like Ancient Greece which simultaneously condoned slavery. Aristotle, for example, believed that certain individuals are superior "by natural right", and that others were better off serving their superiors, i.e. he was anti-egalitarian. I consider myself more egalitarian than Aristotle was, however I do not believe that our current fashion of rather extreme egalitarianism represents some final development; to me it appears as more of a "moral fashion" that always occurs at a certain phase of an outward wave of what I call "literatization" (as opposed to "civilization").
So to an individual mind in the early 21st century some truths (such as that societies have to be structured in one way and not another) may seem to be self-evident, but that's because an individual is always anchored to his or her historical epoch. Moreover, the desire to structure the society in a particular way seems to follow one's biological idiosyncrasies. For example, the primary driver of intellectual activities of a tall person may be an internalized wish to arrange the society in such a way that tall people are not discriminated against. Similarly, the primary driver of intellectual activities of a department of economics of a country X might be a motivation that the elite of that country stays in power.
For that reason, I tend not to trust neither egalitarians nor anti-egalitarians when it comes to evaluating whether a particular society is good or bad. Unfortunately, the only truly useful measure of a society's success (its ability to spread itself while maximizing the number of potential paths of realization of its individuals) is somewhat beyond of what can be measured over one's lifetime. So I tend to prefer to stay close to natural laws, and assume that if a particular gamete is "lucky", it is perhaps lucky for some reason that is unknowable to me.
It's also arguable that breakthroughs (philosophical, technological, or whatever) often take place in less-than-ideal contexts, because adversity is often synonymous with necessity. In a society where the majority of the population has it pretty good, there's opportunity for many flowers to flourish but it's hard to say whether any of them are very tenacious since the soil and growing conditions are ideal. If you're on the lookout for a rare flower, you're not likely to discover it in a greenhouse.
As an aside - Socrates and Jesus seem to have many things in common. Socrates never wrote anything himself, his teachings challenged the status quo, he was accused of "corrupting the youth" and executed for blasphemy by the religious ruling group from his own people...
What you have concluded in you comment can be summed up in one word - short-sightedness. The only way to defend that position (which, in fact, you use) is to say that most people are and historically have been short-sighted, hence it is 'natural' ergo correct. You further imply that this... process... is out of our control.
This is disingenuous, and I will tell you why. You question egalitarianism because historically societies can be seen as contrarian among themselves. But you whitewash over the fact that we ARE in fact much much better-off than most people who have ever lived. We are better off than Aristotle himself and a large part of it can be attributed to the fact that he existed. He obviously didn't foresee the future and how he is going to literally effect it, but he did contribute to it because he was egalitarian.
But you already agree that you want more Aristotles, Platos and Socrates. What is disagreeable that you want them in a short of time frame at the cost of everything else because of 'particular gamete being lucky' or some other factor you don't know. In short, you are looking for profit and explaining away the lack of moral imperatives by invoking Darwinism. But:
1. There is no immediate pressure on us to produce Aristotles et. al. because they are not going to bring immediate benefit. We CAN plan for a long term future, though, and that means we can improve our chances of survival.
2. Darwinism requires diversity. Hence it is simply better to invest in disadvantaged, if you were egalitarian.
Let us be honest - the truth is that you are coming from a position of an individual with significant wealth who is looking for next Aristotle to increase his personal wealth by taking his, and you don't really care about Aristotle or his effect on anyone else. All the arguments are simply dressings to make that short-sightedness and greed look good.
No. My conclusion was predicated on a belief that it is better that we have our Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle in the next 100-200 years rather than in the next 1000-2000. If you have budget of several tens of billions and you want to be judicious where you invest, it is unrealistic to expect to create magic in Africa over 100-200 years. In that situation the best you could hope to achieve for that continent is to invest in medicine aka what Bill Gates is doing, and hope that it will help turn the continent from 3rd world to something like Mexico (which is still far from great). And then what hope do you have that once all the work is done that people there won't elect someone like Chavez and start beating up students at local universities with baseball bats?
> you whitewash over the fact that we ARE in fact much much better-off than most people who have ever lived
Perhaps yes, but not if you listen to egalitarian vanguard. Just talk to OWS participants if you don't believe me. Though if we are indeed better off, how much of that is a function of technology rather than egalitarianism?
> you are looking for profit
What do you mean by "looking for profit"? As I said, my (hypothetical) motives are purely altruistic. I have fifty billion dollars and I am willing to spend them all to the last penny. All I want in return is the next Plato/Aristotle/Socrates within the next 100-200 years. Is that too much to ask? How do you interpret this motivation as "profit"? Who profits?
> There is no immediate pressure on us to produce Aristotles et. al. because they are not going to bring immediate benefit
First of all, it could be argued that someone like Plato has made a huge contribution to Greek and Roman civilizations. Aristotle was the personal tutor of Alexander the Great for God's sake. These individuals contributed tremendously, both within their lifetimes and in the millennia after. Second, even if you discount the influence these people had in the Ancient world, and assume that the majority of it is felt 1000 years after their death, then still it is better to have them sooner rather than later. For that means waiting 1000 years for the next step in our civilization rather than 2000 years.
> Darwinism requires diversity. Hence it is simply better to invest in disadvantaged
Why not invest in diverse but advantaged then? How is it that you jump from one proposition to the other (i.e. that diversity equals disadvantaged)?
> the truth is that you are coming from a position of an individual with significant wealth who is looking for next Aristotle to increase his personal wealth by taking his
No. We both agree that the next Aristotle probably wouldn't be the next billionaire. He will probably not be a poor man, but it is highly unlikely that he will turn my fifty billion into fifty trillion.
> All the arguments are simply dressings to make that short-sightedness and greed look good.
There! Just add that I'm a Zionist homosexual free-masonic Illuminati overlord. Perhaps you are that OWS supporter I mentioned above? In which case, I don't even have to invoke one as a literary device!
I wasn't being personal, instead I was referring to 'Assuming I am an individual of significant wealth with altruistic motives' part of your comment. But since you have taken it personally so it is better we stop here. I will clarify one thing, though: I am not from USA so I don't know anything about OWS. I don't even know you or what pushes all the wrong buttons in USA. I saw a bent towards the ugly side of Nietzsche in your comment which is why I felt compelled to reply.
Ah! A personal attack... what a wonderful way to dilute an otherwise decent argument.
Assuming the goal of any system of government (e.g., democracy) or marketplace (e.g., meritocracy for society, opportunity etc.) is the advancement/ progress, a meritocracy fails where the value it attaches to certain events/ attributes is flawed. It rewards something more than it contributes to progress, and insufficiently rewards something that brings greater value.
Bringing it back to the original post, I have often shared the opinion that currently providing entertainment, is rewarded more than it deserves in the current state of our meritocracy. One could contribute more to the advancement of society e.g., by improving energy efficiency but the person would not really be rewarded as disproportionately for doing so.
I find it sad therefore that so many smart people are driven to game development and not solve other more pressing problems. Or probably that society currently attributes so much value to entertainment.
Nobody is driven to game development, it's an individual choice. And your perspective that there are more pressing problems is an illusion. The more pressing problems are from your own point of view. From someone else's, making a living may be their top pressing problem before caring about anything else. And there are people who are genuinely good at making games, and they should keep doing it as long as they can bring good games on the market, because it benefits gamers as well. Gamers don't buy games to throw their time and money away, they do it also because they have fun with it, it stimulates them, makes them excited or relaxed, or in other words make them live in more ways than they would usually live. Not talking about flappy bird here, but there's a number of games that have depth and where you learn stuff by playing that develop your intellect as well.
Entertainment is important, because for most people, daily work is NOT entertaining nor fulfilling.
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Moot point. You already have had many more books that you could hope to read in a lifetime in the previous centuries - this is nothing new. This is even true for games - it's impossible to play all games that have been created, and this is a much more recent medium.
The reason why books/movies/games keeps getting made is because NEWNESS has usually more value than anything else. You know, every time you go to the movies, that it's very likely that the movie is NOT the best movie you'll have ever seen. Yet, you may be interested to go because it's something NEW, and newness is what drives curiosity (and sales).
So, it's actually very rational. Most readers are more likely to buy the latest ebook from whoever than to pick up Homer out of the blue.
"there are more pressing problems is an illusion" > disagree. As some on another comment pointed out that around the world enough and more people do not have access to food, shelter, healthcare, education, energy etc. You could also refer to Maslow's priority of needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs). Entertainement can't fit anywhere other than right at the top of the pyramid.
And yes, everyone has individual needs and those are the most pressing for them. I was talking more from a society perspective.
Right, but in a free society you can't impose to people what they should work on. This is a matter of individual freedom, and we should treasure it, no matter what the choices are.
Indeed. Interestingly, the term meritocracy also had a negative meaning when it was coined in the 1950s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology
That meritocracy is interpreted in a positive way is a relativly recent phenomenon.
If we are lucky enough to line up our values and the rewards we get for our actions, that might be a happy life :).
In this case, I speculate the guy wanted to build something fun, the reward came in $, so there is angst of values driving the action vs the reward of the action. It's great he is so aware of it though.
In a path dependent process like life, I feel a good way to measure yourself is % increase over your former self, along any dimension and quantification you see fit.
True, for a meritocracy to be fair implies there is a fair arbiter. In absence of a fair arbiter people use something else as a proxy, money is typical.
Or, the definition of the word changed, and 90%+ of the people still uttering it haven't got the memo. (I have few kind words for those who have.)
That sounds like Meritocracy 2.0.
"defines a society or a system ruled and dominated by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens." - sounds correct.
A-1) There is such a thing as "fair"
I think the issue that causes a lot of this emotion around money is the fact that we as a society like to think that the harder you work, the more money you make.
It's obviously not a true statement at all.
When you come into a lot of money for relatively little effort (the comparison of the kid vs. the mother), you start to feel like you don't deserve it at all.
"Why do I get $1M for a few months work when my mom gets $20K/yr for busting her ass?"
It affects people in ways they don't expect. If its sudden (like lottery winning or sudden IPO surge) it can be difficult to process. But it is an important thing to realize that one is processing an exceptional event. Like having a loved one die or a spouse suddenly divorcing you.
Not everyone feels "guilty", not everyone feels "smug." A lot of millionaires and billionaires in the Bay Area are outwardly unchanged. But the bottom line is that the emotion comes from the cognitive dissonance between values and reality. What do you value? What is reality?
One woman I knew at Google was massively conflicted when she started work at Google. She always felt that she would help the homeless folks she saw, if she had more money than she needed. Upon becoming rich (on Google stock value), now she found that she wanted to save the money she had for her future kids education and needs. Was she a bad person? Before? After? Do your kids hate you if you give away their college education to the local foodbank? Do your peers hate you because you could close the current food gap at the foodbank and you don't?
When people tell me they wish they were rich, I tell them to be careful what they wish for.
Edited for clarity.
"Buying more Ocean C'Motion lottery tickets"
So far my lottery tickets are losing money, but it is fun for the same reason buying a Powerball ticket is fun.
Our not-so-logical brain jumps to strange conclusions and I think there's subconscious tension at play.
I've always disliked the American rhetoric (I'm sometimes tempted to use the word "propaganda") of being a self-made man, precisely because of this corollary.
This is a pretty bad abuse of statistics (drawing a conclusion that isn't supported).
The reason why mobility looks lower is because you're measuring it in a relative way. Wealth distribution has a larger range in the US than Europe.
If the top quintile in the US is $200K and in Europe it is $150K, that means someone in the US, who moves from $40K to $190K doesn't have the same mobility as a European who moves from $40K to $160K, even though the absolute gain is higher for the American.
Added: Jesus Christ, I just noticed that stat is referring to the likelihood of reaching the top quintile by the time your 26. Really? 26? You're what? 8 years into a career?
The top quintile is probably closer to $80,000 or something. It's not that hard to get into if you have some talent and the right education. But what chance does a poor but talented kid in your country have to get that right education?
So someone in the lowest quintile in the US could jump to $90K/yr (only the 4th quintile), while the same person in the Netherlands could just to $80K/yr (top 5th quintile), but in fact the US person saw the greatest jump in personal income.
Just doing some searching for income quintile in the Netherlands (I was unsuccessful!), I found this interesting tidbit: "Income fell most in the bottom income quintile in most Member States"
The outcome was the same in the last recession. The poorest of the poor, in both the US and the EU, saw the largest drop in income.
[1]http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....
For others nothing short of passing university with a first and jetting off to a glittering career is called success.
For this reason I never judge anyone anymore. The human condition means they are probably doing their absolute best to get by!
Well, for most people, if they don't work, they won't get much money. If they work hard, they will get more. That's still very true even today. That's why there are people who take 2 jobs to better sustain their families, for example.
Of course, if you have academic qualifications, you don't need to work very hard to get money. But then you have supposedly worked hard at some point of your life to get these qualifications in the first place. There was an investment of time and hard work in the first place.
Becoming millionaire by making games is just like making money doing music. It's random and most people will struggle all their lives to actually make a living out of it, while a few lucky ones will be extremely successful (short term at least, long term no one knows).
Yes, but the range where income is linearly proportional to work is very small, and depends on other factors. The absolute maximum you can hope to achieve in such a system is increasing income by 4.2x, by working 24/7 without sleep or food.
We've heard about music companies using software to optimize their tracks for maximum "hit appeal", and I think that's what indie games people need to learn if they're looking to get rich. If you want to make it big, imitate and mutate the other popular games, don't try to get fancy. Minecraft is a very simple concept and garnered a large following despite major usability deficits. 0x10c was based on a custom assembly language and fared not so good.
There can be a method to getting rich quick on this medium, but most game developers won't like it.
[1] John Steinbeck
The way I see it, we are approaching a time when most useful software has been written and turned into libraries (free or commercial). Those left developing will either be custom developing in areas too uncommon to to turn into commodities, advancing the state of the art through research, or just wiring together another Rails (or insert next easy framework) app out of 20 pre-written components.
Assume that within your lifetime the job market for developers is going to shrink by 75%, how will you be prepared to handle that?
I choose to keep moving, learning more and more to put me far ahead of anything a Code Camp could possibly teach. My plan is to keep learning, always positioning myself as if I was going to be the last developer left alive.
Much like how PG talks about how he could take his easy-to-change code base over "rough terrain" that other companies could not easily traverse, I intend to turn myself into such a developer. I am making myself a very fast learner, used to taking over projects that have been abandoned. I take jobs that teach me new stacks and techniques, so that I can handle any situation the job market puts out. I learn new languages and paradigms.
And I save up my money (~70%) under the assumption that these are the "good years" when money comes easily.
Why? Because assuming things will stay the same or get better is dangerous. It puts your fate even more to a random chaos outside your control. While any number of things could screw me over, at least I've accounted for a few.
I think the only measurable change would be the amount of clones would increase (like the Flappy Bird / Threes&2048 fads)
It's interesting how different people react differently with respect to wealth. My relatively modest personal success is by no means solely a product of hard work - yes, I put myself in a position where I could get lucky, but I still needed a hell of a lot of luck. I didn't always know what I was doing, and things could've just as easily gone south.
That said, I've never felt the slightest bit of guilt over anything related to money. The way I see it, undeservedly, disproportionately good things happen all the time in our society, and they have to happen to somebody. Why shouldn't that somebody be me?
It can be a real struggle to wrestle with the guilt of catching so many fortunate breaks in life. Not having a mental illness. Not growing up in a ghetto. Access to a good education. Parents who loved me.
I'll have to try out your last statement in your post. I tend to ask myself "Why should it be me?" What a great idea to respond with the question "Why shouldn't it be me?"
I've caught the same lucky breaks that you have, more or less, but why feel guilty over them? After all, you didn't put in a special request for them. There was no one moment when you said "hey, god, why don't you give the lousy parents and schizophrenia to that other guy over there?"
I do feel guilt over things in my past, but they've all been things I've actively and consciously done.
I honestly wonder how much I can attribute to myself. I've always been interested in learning, math, logic, understanding... but why was I interested in the first place? I was born with the gift of natural curiosity... and that was one of my earliest and most profound strokes of good fortune.
When I question whether I can even take credit for my drive to succeed, it really calls into question what I can take credit for at all.
I make a distinction between the luck (or the lack of it) coming from societal structures, and the luck (or the lack of it) that comes from random events, chance meetings, the black box that is the AppStore, and so on. I was talking more about the latter, while it sounds like you're talking about the former. If you've been unlucky because of an accident of birth, rather than a random event, I wouldn't expect you to just shrug it off.
While I've been more lucky than not, when I have been unlucky (primarily with my health, this last year was a little dodgy in a life-threatening sort of way) then yes, I've been pretty blasé about it.
It's a vicious circle for the poor and a virtuous one for the rich. The latter have the time (and the means, when they need it) to maximize the mental work, while the former don't.
Yeah, but should you really be pointing the finger at her? You really feel like she's at fault for her ignorance of modern, tech-related opportunities if she grew up under completely different societal pressures of a different generation? Even despite the fact that (with a "busting your ass" mentality) she never forced her son to get off the computer and find a suitable job?
Point being-- she may have voiced her (honestly ignorant) opinion on his "computering" habits because he failed to articulate the job prospects in the tech field to her on a level she could respect. If she was not making ends meet for the family, he would surely have a job to help out.
I think hard work correlates heavily with money - the people who both work hard and work smart are the ones who make the biggest waves in history. Showing up early and staying late are part of the winning equation, for founders at least. And even if you have all the luck, smarts, and connections, hard work is going to give you a better financial outcome.
pg said, "Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast."
Working hard is like going uphill: anyone who does it is getting higher, but some people are busting their ass just to climb up a trash heap and others are getting to the top of Everest by helicopter.
Only some of us are lucky enough to be in a spot where we get good return on their work.
On the other hand, it isn't really hard to find people who ended up with a fortune or a cushy spot because they won the birth lottery or had connections.
Undeniable observations like these are what weaken the correlation of hard work with money, if we can be honest about it for just a minute or two.
Similar observations show that showing up early and staying late do not necessarily lead to a lot more things being accomplished.
Sometimes you just happen to catch lightning in a bottle and create a fart app before everyone else does and make a ton of money without doing much work at all. And sometimes you work 80 hour weeks for a few years and your company crashes and burns anyway.
Yeah, that's a stupid and harmful myth. Hard work will make you a living, but nobody ever got rich from hard work. To get rich, you always need some degree of luck. In mobile games more so than others; you need the right kind of exposure, some critical momentum.
I'd like to hear some opinions on this issue. Being a first generation born in the U.S. myself, this cognitive dissonance in terms of higher tech-job salaries compared to my parents, resonates with me deeply. This really bothers me now since my parents spent their whole lives providing to get me here. I had a highly parsimonious upbringing, which has helped me spend wisely and save money. I can totally relate to these guys feelings.
I do carry a lot of guilt that I easily make more in a week than she makes in a month, but at the same time, I know that's what she wanted for me when I was a kid. She was incredibly supportive of my hobby of programming and "computer stuff." She was super encouraging when it came to technology and learning more about it. I think she knew it would lead to a better life for me in the end, and for that, I'm incredibly grateful to her. And hey now that I'm doing well, I'm sure to return the favor whenever I'm able to (though she's rather proud so I usually have to slip it in around her birthday or Christmas ;)).
So while yeah I still carry a bit of conflict over it, I also see it's what she wanted all along and am sure to show my appreciation as much as humanly possible.
What's funny is that us (the offspring) feel guilt over the one thing that both us and our parents had been striving for (our personal success).
I am by no means successful by coloquial definition but I remember when my mother and I were living on welfare. I remember when I would help her with her janitorial job (it was embarrassing and I couldn't stand seeing her do it). But tl:dr... She and my father are comfortable now and I'm happily living paycheck to paycheck in the city I love.
Come future success or not (I hope for the former) I support my mother's dream of seeing me happy and successful as she supports my dream of building a successful company. So do yourself a favor and called your mother, tell you you love her and you're happy with the life you have and will have. She'll appreciate it.
Tl:dr:Call your damn mother and tell her you love her. Be happy with the success that you have that she set you up for the best she could.
We both collectively send enough money that she has retired and stopped working. It's not my decision to make for you of course but you should consider reducing the burden.
Like the immigrant, children of the families whose mom's earned only $20K was launched from their socio-economicsphere to another one, the millionaire and above and one citizen in the elite citizenry of one million. Like the immigrant, the children of suddenly acquired wealth still identify the values of his/her original "homeland," values such as humility and hard work instead of vanities and the weariness of those who have had a luxury to be "anxious" about self-fulfillment.
The immigrants will not find a sense of belonging, a sense of even accomplishment in the new land. Strangely, they find themselves bewildered as their families and the mantras of what they've been reciting all their lives all have touted as the "touchstone" of their journey. Now that they've arrived, they feel first elated, then slight flatlined, then keeping up the appearances and confused and then cheated and robbed.
We've been telling ourselves that starting that startup, taking that job offer, going that school will enable us to have the X: the money, the respect, the cachet, the X and only after X, we'll be whole and then we'll really do the Y, what we really want to do. Or we lock ourselves in a mental prison, disavowing what society have imposed on us regarding X and paint a black & white picture of us pursuing Y and the man forcing X on our throat.
But why do we not consider ourselves whole? That is the question we push to the back of my mind chasing the X's and Y's of the day in an attempt to make up for the feeling of incompleteness (like a snake devouring its tail).
I have experienced the phenomenon of "launching" into a higher socio-economic sphere, being a first generation born in the US. Once I realized my parents could never relate and that they provided this opportunity for me to surpass their standard of living, the money stopped mattering as much as the time I spent with my parents fleeting existence.
I would live with the lifelong regret of chasing more money over helping my parents in their last stages of their lives. That's why I chose to stay somewhat local and take care of them, a nursing home would never even begin to cross my mind.
I owe my successes in life to their hard work, and it makes me feel complete to make sure they never have to suffer through that stress of providing again. I often wonder what it's like with friends that get kicked out at 18 and have to fend for themselves. Interesting dichotomy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/04/secret-fea...
average means very little here.
I personally have never let this bother me because I know what goes into my work and I know how difficult it can be. Despite that I do believe those stigmas attached to my job from friends could creep in on me if I were in a bad place in my life, or maybe even in an excellent financial situation like many of the devs in this article.
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It is amazing how things have changed though, he wouldn't have gotten rich even 10 years ago as there would have been no outlet. That shows the importance of the new industries and how the money is somewhat actually going to creators, where before they create and come away with nothing.
Just travel around, go to SE Asia for example and look around. You'll see little 6 years old kids selling chewing gum and bottled water at the bus station. I really can't tell you how I feel seeing this day after day.
Little kids should be happy. They should be playing with their friends and going to school. Not selling lottery tickets and chewing gum at a bus stop.
When I was young, I went to school with many kids like this. Most of them drop out because their parents couldn't pay for tution and books.
While I'm not anywhere close to rich, I might as well be Bill Gates compared to these kids.
So I wonder to myself, why should I have all this while they have nothing? The guilt plays itself on many levels. When I feel like I'm slacking off, I think about my mother. I think about all those poor kids.
I've been given so much, yet I'm still not good enough to take full advantage of it.
I hope that one day if I ever become rich, I won't be so delusional as to think that that a huge part of success isn't just luck.
For some reason, the older I get, the more I keep dwelling on the fact that life is incredibly shitty and unfair to 99% of the people out there. Strange, whereas many people I know instead look at their richer peers and wonder, why shouldn't I have more?
My parents slaved away working all their lives similarly, and made a point to remind me of these children in their home country that have no chance of living a life like me. I grew up with this perspective and balance that guilt by doing community service and giving back to those less fortunate (note: not blindly donating but rather things like feeding the homeless etc).
These are the cards that life has dealt us, be humble and give back when you can but to dwell on being born into an inescapable standard of living is just mentally taxing and quite harmful after a certain point.
It can be hard to find not-for-profits that have good administrations and align with your values. Working in the industry has helped me identify them, plus I know quite a few areas of the US from having lived there. I'm happy to share any expertise I may have to help you find a public charity in your community worth supporting. Email is in my profile.
And many games have questionable moral and artistic value. Maybe even most. That makes the ones that reach past that so wonderful.