For example, I've always found the argument that certain voters (commonly poor white working-class) who vote for small-government are voting against their own economic interests to be rather interesting from a psych perspective. I'm a libertarian so I don't put much faith in the idea, but I think that issue could be traced back to the concept of locus of control. Voting for larger social spending might benefit them financially, but it also means accepting the belief that control over their life is externalized.
The alternative--that control is internalized or even just the perception that it's internalized--is likely more palatable psychologically as a core self-evaluation, with a more beneficial influence on other CSEs (neuroticism, generalized self-efficacy, and self-esteem). That leads to better life satisfaction, and can contribute to later economic success according to the research.
Reality is a lot more nuanced than that, but perception is absolutely fundamental in terms of how it can affect personality.
But tech is not a meritocracy. [1] [2]
Accepting that you have less control over your life may change some of your outcomes, but I doubt it would completely crush one's spirit.
I've accepted that I'll never flap my arms unaided and fly like a bird. I'm not depressed because of that realization. It's a known limitation of my life, and I can live with it, and I won't spend my weekends practicing my flapping and running skills. It actually helps me focus on areas I can affect change... such as building a jetpack.
Knowing which things are outside of your control should help you realize what is and is not within your ability to change, and then you can figure out how to make the most success given which variables are mutable or immutable.
You mention research about one's perception can affect later economic success; I'd be very interested in a reference.
[1] http://istechameritocracy.com [2] http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/272...
But it should be, and the issues laid out in your links detail failures to reach that ideal.
We can do better. That does not mean we stop trying or abandon the ideal that you should be known for your works above all else.
But just like any other institutional problem (racism, sexism, etc), it does no good to simply ignore it while it negatively impacts you. Instead, acknowledging your current situation, and working to make it better, is key.
Some people say it is, others say it isn't. Neither use a lot of data in their arguments.
Then you add questions of if who is chosen for promotion is sane, if what products a company chooses to focus on is sane, if what products the market chooses to make popular is sane. None of those are optimal in the sense that the "best" thing wins out. Marketing (of a product or self-promotion) and being in the right place at the right time dominate each of those steps.
So how on earth would you take that and get a meritocracy out the other end?
The second part of your comment is less relevant, as I think most "tech" people would say that e.g. promotions (management), product development (marketing) and the general market dynamics are highly "non-tech". But in many of these areas, people do try to choose the best - at least as far as marketing is concerned, companies dislike wasting money and choose to promote those people/products that they expect will produce the most profit. Companies' "profit", of course, doesn't correspond to a person's "merit" ("profitcracy"?), but the basic mechanism is the same.
2. Being good at self-promotion is a merit. Some have it and some not. You could not define merit as just technical skills.
Not many here would agree with you, on both sides of the table. Whiteboarding skills often do not translate into ability at a job.
> Being good at self-promotion is a merit. Some have it and some not. You could not define merit as just technical skills
Sure, but you're starting to beg the question. All systems are meritocracies if merit is defined at being successful within that system.
While Europeans seem to have come to the opposite balance of concerns on independence.
- providing the illusion of locus of control
- disassociating people/society from nature
- homesteader mauled by a bear = heroics!
- getting mugged in the city = decadence
I hope that I am able to pass a sizable estate to my children and grandchildren, so that they will not be dependent on banks, universities, and employers that will charge them outrageous fees in time and money just so that they may have a hope at a normal middle-class lifestyle. True independence for ourselves and our posterity should be the goal for all of us. For most of human history, it has been; these days, we are confused and pretend that being enslaved to usurers is the ideal.
No. Having an in-demand skill is a tool to obtain and keep independence. It's not independence itself. There are many people out there with high-demand skills who still find themselves unhappily slaving away in a job where they must do someone else's bidding for 40%+ of their waking day. Once they have the property and assets to make that an optional activity that they can leave at any time, they are independent. Having the ability to go find a new master if you get fed up enough with your current one is good, but it's not really independence. Independence is the freedom to control how you spend your days, and unless you're debt-free, own your living space outright, and have a consistent, sustainable source of food, you don't have the option to not work.
> If they don't have skills that contribute to society, they are irrelevant.
Define "contribute to society". I think you're being way too exclusive here. There are ways to contribute to society without being part of the industrial workforce. Just ask the big bosses, who, incidentally, are the ones pushing this narrative that life is meaningless without their patronage. You don't have to be a professional to make a meaningful contribution. In fact, I would argue that being a good parent has a far greater positive social effect than being a good professional.
>And guess what, if your children decide not to use those banks and universities, and don't get jobs then they may be "independent, but they are also dead weights.
A bank provides people with very little actual value, so I'm not sure why you included it. I will be immensely pleased if my children can go their whole adult lives without having to pay a cent of usury. It's a massive hidden tax on the middle class, making every major purchase cost about 2-3x its sticker price.
If you think about it, you'll see that much of our industrial culture is based on guaranteeing this effortless income to usurers, and I want to break that cycle for my children. This is also a large part of why the media wants to promote negative images of independent wealth; they're trying to protect their dirty income streams and reinforce their position as a hidden cost that people just accept as an implicit requirement.
Of course the children of independent people should be taught to do something useful with their time and lives. I think that by and large, they are. You don't hear about that because it doesn't please the massive indentured population to hear about it on TV, but if you look around, you'll see that it's generally true.
And in the age of welfare, you don't have to be independently wealthy to be a layabout or a loiterer. It's no longer an exclusive privilege, so providing a decent estate that will allow your posterity to have its freedom and control its own destiny is not really any more dangerous to individual productivity than not doing so.
>I agree that people should have access to enough money to realize their potential, but not more than that.
I absolutely do agree that too much money in the wrong hands is a recipe for disaster.
To respond to your point about contributing to society, I totally agree that parenting is among the most important contributions you can make to society. But I don't think that you can be a very effective parent without the wold view provided by interaction with both people and knowledge. And this interaction is very difficult to find outside of the university and workplace setting. As a parent you should absorb as much knowledge and experience as possible so that you can pass that on, and your children can build on that rather than wasting time re-learning it.
Finally, you are right that welfare allows people without money to live while making basically no contributions to anything. But is not a comfortable life. Anyway my point was less that you shouldn't give your children money because it will make them Deadbeats, and more that you should try to get as much value from each dollar as possible and I don't personally believe that giving all of your money to your children is likely to be the best way to achieve that.
I apologize for my formatting. Writing this on a phone.
True autonomy is its own discipline.
The problem with gaining power is that you now have to steer into the maelstrom of human foibles for a living. "The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor! Because I am a river to my people! " - Auda abu Tayi in "Lawrence of Arabia".
No, people pursue power for status, not for autonomy.
Big money is a different ballpark and I don't think that's what most people want. I think they just want to be comfortable in doing what they want to do.
The advantage of big money isn't just charities and companies - it's having your time back, since you're not tied to getting an income from it.
Between rent, student loan payments, health insurance, bills, and car loans, and food, I think we maybe have $500 left to throw around each month. If we were paying against a mortgage, that would basically be zero.
The most financially effective way to be a programmer is to work remotely for someone who pays SF or NYC salaries and live in a moderate COL area.
I've always seen the rental income requirement you stated phrased as "monthly income must be at least 3x monthly rent", in case the 40x thing threw anyone else off (40/12=3.33).
I've recently seen 45x monthly in Manhattan and LIC (Queens).
And, as a sibling comment stated, it depends on location. I think $80k is right for most areas of the country. If you live in NYC, SF, LA, or another place with really high cost of living, adjust accordingly (which is probably like 2.3x).
You may not be able to afford a house in the area you want, but you can certainly afford a home. Here's one with a mortgage for $89/mo.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/207-1st-Ave-W-Gackle-ND-58...
Two people can easily live on $40-50k in most areas. Eliminate all the unnecessary expenses like $150+/m in phone payments, $50+/m for cable, etc.
for the $80k number.
In case you haven't seen it, there's another paper that argues the opposite: more money does make you happier (but only if you know how to use it). http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/danielgilbert/files/if-mone...
I make more than $80k and I can certainly say that I was less stressed before I took a huge pay cut. On the other hand, I like my job more so I guess I might actually still be happier. All else being equal though, if I made more I imagine I would be much less stressed..
I think the OP wanted control over building/shipping/creating products. Not life comforts, house, food on the table, free time. His goals would not be helped by a middle-class income, but more control over the products he was building.
And even deeper down, it's a means of survival. The safety net here has pretty much disintegrated since it began to be dismantled in the '80s. A lot of people in the US haven't saved enough for retirement considering this new reality... they haven't even saved enough to get them through a few months of unemployment. There's a loss of hope in rural America now in places where it can be very tough to find decent paying work. It's starting so show up in a decrease in lifespan and in many ways it's very similar to what happened in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. The drug of choice there was/is alcohol. Here it seems to be prescription opiates (in addition to alcohol).
These situations are not even remotely comparable.
The fraction of Americans who abuse opiates is tiny compared to the percentage of Russians who abuse alcohol.
As a rough approximation, about 2.5 million Americans have an opiate abuse issue in 2016[1], out of a population of 319 million. This is about 0.8% of the population.
Statistics from the Soviet Union are hard to find due to the government's indifference to the problem, but even official news sources -- which routinely greatly underreported the true magnitude of social problems -- put alcohol abuse rates at 19% of the population.[2] Also note that the amount of drinking you have to do to be considered "abusing" alcohol is far, far greater in Russia than in the US.
[1] http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addi... [2] http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/6/824
People just don't have enough to do otherwise.
So you don't think you have this right? I believe you have the right of opportunity, but not of outcome.
I learned what this guy learned pretty early on: If you are an employee (developer or not), you will be paid to do things you are against and people less intelligent and experienced than you will be making decisions for you at some point...and you can't do anything about it.
This is the sole reason I started my own company. I was sick of being forced to go down a path of failure..after every attempt to do otherwise was ignored.
After our failure, management never wanted to look bad, so they almost always picked someone to blame. Sometimes it was me or my team, sometimes someone else. Speaking up about it meant you weren't a 'team player' and you would probably be on the chopping block during the next round of layoffs.
I was able to survive most layoffs because I learned how to play politics, but at the cost of never feeling satisfied with my job.
I've had my own company for 5 years and I don't regret a thing. It was the best decision I ever made.
"I just have to say this: So typically american"
Really? I was thinking it was typically Chinese. My wife's family is from China and they pretty much all try to one up/compare each other in terms of assets, money, or jobs.
"If you want to control your destiny, you'd better learn how to make money."
This message is pretty truthful. The more you rely on someone to support you (the government, friends, family, job), the less control you have over your life. Money gives you the ultimate power and freedom to do what you want.
Regardless of your culture, this doesn't change. If you have more more money, you will always have more options/freedom.
I do think I have this right; as an American it is the #1 thing that makes me an American. It's why we ignore the rules we don't like. It's why we lust for power and for money, lest some other person beat us to the punch and have power over us.
And while no rational person thinks they can control every factor that goes into their own outcome, we at least want to have some influence. If you're an engineer and your company goes belly-up because your marketing guy was a moron and you didn't have the power to make him listen to your ideas... that's the position many Americans strive to avoid.
> Really? I was thinking it was typically Chinese. My wife's family is from China and they pretty much all try to one up/compare each other in terms of assets, money, or jobs.
I feel that this no longer an American trait. 30 years ago, yeah, but with the whole backlash against the 1% and the hipster movement where bankers making $500k/yr dress like homeless musicians... it's not as cool to flaunt money anymore (unless you're a musician; then it's just part of the whole consumer culture thing because you're selling a life of luxury to poor people...) My household income last year was over seven figures, but I live in a house worth less than half of that and drive a 5 year old base model Subaru. Once money buys you autonomy, it's not really worth much (and that's a modern American perspective that's backed up by research).
> Regardless of your culture, this doesn't change. If you have more more money, you will always have more options/freedom.
I absolutely agree. But the single most important value that America was founded on is self-determination: the idea that each person is in control of their own destiny. Outside forces may get in your way, but it's your obligation to figure out how to get around them. American business culture is the same way: if you want to limit your chances of being fired through no fault of your own, you should probably get more power so you're higher up on the decision making chain.
I may be assuming too much, but in most don't really believe this.
For example, I'd wager you firmly believe you have the right to a safe and secure society such that you are relatively confident you will no be randomly murdered in your sleep with no consequences for the murderer.
This is exactly a right to the outcome of a minimum level of security in your person and property.
If you do hold this belief then you believe in right of outcome in society. Though you may not agree with others what outcomes we should be guaranteed.
Do you have a right to a "safe and secure society"? I'm not really sure precisely what that is or how it is achieved, but that sounds an awful lot like a privilege.
For example, you most certainly do not have the right to be guarded in your sleep by armed guards. Nor do we all possess the right to be guarded in our sleep by armed guards.
This is a right of outcome. The outcome of not having violence committed against your person or property.
Rights of outcome vs rights of opportunity are a false dichotomy. All rights are a right for some specific outcome and are considered violated when that outcome does not occur.
Building up soft power is something anyone should do if they care about their work. Building big things means collaborating, and collaborating means persuading other people when you're right and recognizing when you're wrong. Do that and you become a leader, regardless of your position on the org chart.
My guess is that this fellow felt like his having set aside his leadership position in a role should simultaneously have given him instant authority and at the same time allowed him to shrug and ignore problems he saw but wash"the directly responsible for.
Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099371/quotes)
But it's really easy to over-estimate that control and your ability to wield it. If the Peter principle is accurate, and people are promoted to their level of incompetence, then it also indicates that people assume their level of competence is higher than it actually is. And then you get project failures, screaming managers, and lots of lost money.
"Power is only given to those who are prepared to lower themselves to pick it up" - Ragnar Lodbrok, "Vikings".
... and then took nearly a century to getting around to the idea of not owning people. There are a lot of caveats to that American belief.
The attitude presented in the article is indeed typically American -- but not for the reason I think you intended.
The quintessential American quality is the belief that every person has the right to control their own destiny. Fuck, it's right there in the first sentence of the first document declaring this country's independence.
Americans are often seen as greedy relative to our European counterparts. But you have to remember that there's a different social contract over in the USA -- if you fall, you're on your own. Therefore, money is seen primarily as a means to self-determination.
Now, this all gets fucked when you throw in consumer culture on top of it, but the desire to accumulate large sums of money is not uniquely American -- but we're damn good at it because the cultural message we get sent early on is that once you're an adult, you're on your own. If you want to control your destiny, you'd better learn how to make money.
But notice that the author's main complaint wasn't about money -- it was about all the wasted opportunities where if he had more power (in the form of a management role) he could have had more influence on the outcome of situations he was involved with. The loss of self-determination is the big gripe -- and the entire reason I hit the eject button from engineering early in my career.