This assumes that spending much of the day slacking off and browsing the web is the norm; that’s only true in a small sector of specifically white-collar employment, which is disproportionately represented on LW due to the userbase of, mainly, well-educated programmers. Most people work jobs like customer service, where there’s enough work to fill your time and you’re expected to keep doing it for as long as your shift lasts.
Perhaps, but doing 8 hours of customer service work in a day says nothing whatsoever about one’s ability to do any amount of the kind of work where you have to make decisions, figure things out, etc. (I worked retail for years, so I speak from experience here.)
I try to understand, but I just can’t understand this perspective which I consider to be quite elitist. This perspective that ordinary people who work ordinary jobs such as customer service, fast-food, etc are too stupid to be successful outside of the work field and shouldn’t try to start businesses as no matter how hard they work they won’t succeed.
If you are making the assumption that people do not differ at all in their capabilities, talents, aptitudes, etc., then I’m not sure what to say except “that’s very, very obviously wrong”.
If you are not making that assumption, then I can’t make sense of your comment.
In any case, even ignoring the above—as I said, I worked a retail job for some years. I know what kinds of skills that job required of me. I know what kinds of skills other jobs (e.g. writing software) have required of me. I can see that the former is not predictive of the latter, has almost no overlap with the latter, etc. These are simple observations from my own life, from which I am drawing straightforward conclusions.
Yeah lots of jobs suck and provide lifestyles which are equally bad.
The only reason people can put up with those jobs are because they’re ‘forced’ to do so, and the only reason they work a job like that is because they can’t self-motivate themselves to work hard like they do at job because their not ‘forced’ to do so. So in return they have to put up with that life.
Hence the title, “school-and-jobs-are-good-solely-because-people-are-lazy” because if they were to quit that job than likely due to their lack of self-motivation abilities they will live a even worser life. But if they had the adequate self-motivation they would certainly be able to create a successful business.
This assumes that spending much of the day slacking off and browsing the web is the norm; that’s only true in a small sector of specifically white-collar employment, which is disproportionately represented on LW due to the userbase of, mainly, well-educated programmers. Most people work jobs like customer service, where there’s enough work to fill your time and you’re expected to keep doing it for as long as your shift lasts.
Perhaps, but doing 8 hours of customer service work in a day says nothing whatsoever about one’s ability to do any amount of the kind of work where you have to make decisions, figure things out, etc. (I worked retail for years, so I speak from experience here.)
I try to understand, but I just can’t understand this perspective which I consider to be quite elitist. This perspective that ordinary people who work ordinary jobs such as customer service, fast-food, etc are too stupid to be successful outside of the work field and shouldn’t try to start businesses as no matter how hard they work they won’t succeed.
If you are making the assumption that people do not differ at all in their capabilities, talents, aptitudes, etc., then I’m not sure what to say except “that’s very, very obviously wrong”.
If you are not making that assumption, then I can’t make sense of your comment.
In any case, even ignoring the above—as I said, I worked a retail job for some years. I know what kinds of skills that job required of me. I know what kinds of skills other jobs (e.g. writing software) have required of me. I can see that the former is not predictive of the latter, has almost no overlap with the latter, etc. These are simple observations from my own life, from which I am drawing straightforward conclusions.
Yeah lots of jobs suck and provide lifestyles which are equally bad.
The only reason people can put up with those jobs are because they’re ‘forced’ to do so, and the only reason they work a job like that is because they can’t self-motivate themselves to work hard like they do at job because their not ‘forced’ to do so. So in return they have to put up with that life.
Hence the title, “school-and-jobs-are-good-solely-because-people-are-lazy” because if they were to quit that job than likely due to their lack of self-motivation abilities they will live a even worser life. But if they had the adequate self-motivation they would certainly be able to create a successful business.