Using phrases like that excuses a system that keeps people oppressed by pointing to the outliers who manage to escape them. It's the old "lift yourself up by your bootstraps" argument.

We should recognize and change the system, not point people to the outliers and say "See, you can do it too!"

Chan's memoir can be inspirational, but we can also read into it - as the article does - and recognize the oppressive system and his luck in escaping it.

Heroes have a place, precisely because they inspire.

I get what you're saying, but in any system having an aspirational role model is a benefit!

I'm deeply skeptical of this. I don't want to assume your background, so please don't take offense to this. But I can only imagine someone is able to seriously believe this if they've never had anything more challenging than their own self-actualization and ambition.

You can (and should) believe in yourself as fiercely as you'd like! But the blunt reality is that hunger, poverty, disease and a lack of familial support structure will break you down unless you're astronomically lucky. If the most difficult thing stopping you from achieving your goals is your own belief in your ability to do it, you're in an exceptionally privileged position.

I think we miss the forest for the trees on HN quite a lot. The modal commenter here is most likely to be affluent with respect to their local environment and wealthy with respect to the world. We don't often have people commenting here to share experiences of the real obstacles someone like Jackie Chan had to deal with growing up.

The manner in which they break most people down is by circumscribing ambition and self confidence.

A large part of my family goes into the hills of dirt poor mining Appalachia, so I wouldn't say I'm speaking to this from a privileged position.

When no one in your family has ever gone to college, why would you even think you could? Or have a different profession than your father? Or start a business? Or move to another town? Etc. etc.

There are certainly structural roadblocks that make things easier or harder, but I have yet to see someone succeed in something they never start. And a large reason they never start is because they don't believe they could ever succeed.

And that was my point. That heroes help us dare to believe, moreso that we otherwise would.

I think this is the crux of the difference in viewpoint between you and who you're responding to:

> I have yet to see someone succeed in something they never start

It's reasonable to say that the will/drive/impetus/etc. to succeed is _necessary_ for success.

And because it is necessary, it's good to have heroes — makes sense to me.

But the other fellow is saying that while it may be necessary, it is not _sufficient_.

If you never play the lotto, you'll never win, it's true. But just because you do play doesn't mean you'll win either. Playing is necessary, but not sufficient.

How much you think it's valuable to parade around the winners and say "this could be you!" is, I think, proportional to how much you think an individual has control over the game they're playing.

For the lottery, it's easy to show that you have zero control, so parading around the winners (or "heroes") is a bit silly. For other types of success, it's less clear. But there is certainly a decent argument to be made that liklihood of overcoming structural and institutional biases is luck-heavy. If you think it's mostly luck, then hero-worship is not so valuable.

Certainly the biggest heroes in improving the human condition are not the successful outliers like Chan, but those who believe in equality and put the work toward furthering it. There is no slavery in the US any more, and the thanks for that does not lie with outlier heroes who happened to luck out in the slavery game.

I will say there is a benefit but whether it's a net benefit is not always true as we can't ignore the downsides.

For example, if everyone believes that you can just work hard and succeed, then they may choose to ignore the great disadvantages certain people have. Indeed this isn't just a philosophical issue as this is the reality even in American politics with regard to having social programs.

I think this is actually even true of people whose stories qualify them to become "heroes". Often because they were able to do something they think it must be possible for everyone else without realizing how many things were working in their favor. There's a psychological phenomenon describing how people who went through the same experience as you are actually less likely to help you because for whatever reason, they seem to remember it was being easier than it was.

The issue I had, and why I originally commented, is it seemed people were being intellectually dishonest in denying any benefits of aspirational heroes, because they felt doing so would lend approval to an unjust system.

Which seemed... incomplete and unfair. Both to the heroes (Chan deserves better than to have some New Republic writer denying Chan's opinion of his own life's work) and to the people whose life might be changed by having a hero.

In reality, we can work towards both greater equality of opportunity AND highlight aspirational heroes.

I don't want to ascribe motivation, but I wonder how many people casting stones have ever been so down and out that they can't even imagine any success in their lives. Because I feel that's the reality for a lot of people in truly bad situations. And when you've given up trying to improve your life...?

If you or I went over to Hong Kong, and told them to work hard and they'll succeed, then get in my private jet and fly back to the US, they'd just roll their eyes. But Jackie Chan is one of them. He understands the culture and the challenges. All famous people do for their audiences.

I think we agree with you regarding the inspiration that Chan brings to his people.

There is more than inspiration, sweat, tears, and blood that plays the part of viral success as Chan has achieved. Luck and opportunity are the missing pieces.

The phrase "if Chan can do it then anyone can" is victim to survivorship bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)

To conclude: Chan achieved awesome things, he's an inspiration, it's good for others to strive for success, success is not determined on hard work alone.

Yes, you need luck and opportunity to become Jackie Chan. But there's more ways to be successful than becoming Jackie Chan. He can inspire them to be themselves and not let their situations get them down.

That's what is meant by "anyone can do it." Not anyone can be Jackie Chan. But anybody can use the same inner tools that Chan did that got him famous, and chart the course of their own life. That's what's inspirational.

What inner tools were those? From the article, it seems that it was a willingness to do extreme, mortally-dangerous stunts? Is that the lesson people should take away–forget about being successful unless you're willing to constantly put your life on the line?

Something like that. It's up to you what you want to take from it. But inspiration is such that you might not be inspired to follow the example directly, but you can use the example to find some other kind of courage to display.

For example, your company may need someone to do some really dirty task that no one wants to do. If you step up to the plate, that creates an opening for something greater to happen.

Instead you and everyone else just compare themselves to him like you deserve his success. That's what's really going on here.

Kim Kardashian is indeed inspiring to a certain generation of kids. You can't see her as inspirational for the same reason, because you don't think she deserves the success but you do.

I also find it quite funny to be psychoanalyzed on a discussion forum, although admittedly I've been doing that to an extent with Jackie Chan. In my defence I can say that he's a published author, and this kind of analysis is part and parcel of literary critiques. Your efforts to paint me as jealous of Jackie Chan and Kim Kardashian are, frankly, pretty funny. Maybe step away from Hacker News for a day or so? :-D

I suppose it is easier to write and also easier to dismiss other people doing something you simply don't want to put in the effort to do so or are too scared to do.

of course this is just my observation

Of course you do, that's called survivorship bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

You see the one person who tried to seize the opportunity and succeeded, because by succeeding they became famous. You don't see all the people who tried just as hard to seize the opportunity and failed, because by failing they remained obscure.

I would guess: no. Say we could map out every decision Chan made to get where he is. Let's also say we could quantify exactly how "hard" he worked.

To me, it follows that some of those decisions were likely pivotal in his success, even if they didn't seem like it at the time. And that some of the other decisions he could have made weren't obviously wrong decisions, or wouldn't even have decreased the quantified hardness he worked. But maybe making a different decision just one of those times (or maybe two, or three, or some manageable number) would have resulted in Chan toiling away in obscurity, despite trying so hard.

It seems reasonable to me to suggest that someone else attempting a parallel path as Chan, given similar starting conditions, might have made a few different decisions here and there, all of them involving equally hard work, but the outcome may have been nowhere near as good. So what do we call the cause of Chan's better outcome? Foresight? Better decision-making? Or just luck?

That ... I would bet money on.

So your observation is that because they seized the opportunity and did what it takes to succeed means luck wasn't involved?

Most of the times people who advocate for oppression are the people who benefits out of it. Like the caste system in India or slavery elese where