zlacker

>>tysone+(OP)
I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father.

You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in the loss of his life. His boat had capsized after a routine trip. Turns out there were some issues with the way the boat was built, stuff that should've been caught by the owner. My father and three others died that day.

It was because of his death that my mother filed a wrongful death suit with a lawyer that was luckily working pro-bono, winning a small sum of money that she put in an account to be released on my 18th birthday, money that ended up being the only reason why I was able to go to college and become a software engineer.

So why do I bring this up? It's not for sympathy, but rather to illustrate that my parents were some of the hardest workers I've ever known. They were rewarded for their efforts with little savings, broken bodies and a life of poverty. For a lot of people it doesn't mean a single goddamn thing how hard you work or how hard you try. I bring up personal stories like this because I've talked with coworkers and friends who think that grit and hard work is all you need to make it. That jobs will elevate people out of poverty by virtue of existing.

>>fzeror+6S
Your story seems to indicate that studying hard and focusing on the future are necessary but not sufficient conditions to enter the middle class.

I think the formula is that you need all three:

-Relatively consistent work ethic

-Decent decision-making

-Some minimal opportunity

Often the argument seems to swing between these absurd positions that it's all about just one of these and the others don't matter. Of course they're all necessary, and different people lack different components. There's no shortage people poor hard-working people. There's also no shortage of people who blew a lot of money or opportunity due to laziness and terrible choices. There's terrible luck events and great luck events. It all matters.

Some smart person said: People are usually correct in what they assert, and incorrect in what they deny. (I think maybe it was Hume).

>>jlawso+kX
What I find amazing is that so few people here notice the consequences of working hard in a field that is not worth it anymore. His entire family should have slowly "pivoted" away from fishing long long time ago (the first/second year with a low ROI for the risk). The same applies to IT or any other sector. When the prospective ROI turns negative (subtract the total costs of your job(time/health/opportunity) from the total salary) you are basically as rich as someone selling their kidneys but you only find it later.

>>leavey+861
Except wouldn’t human society collapse if everyone “pivoted away” because it turns out we like eating fish, etc.?

Is it possible wages often don’t reflect the value of the work people do?

>>mch82+rc1
>>Except wouldn’t human society collapse if everyone “pivoted away”

No. The human society would not collapse if there were fewer fishermen. The fact that the fishermen are so badly paid even if they work so hard, to me is a clear indication that the human society does not value their effort and it would be probably better if they would put their efforts into something else.

>>Is it possible wages often don’t reflect the value of the work people do?

I agree, there is often little correlation between the wage and the value of the work but the rational workers should optimize for the wage not for the value of the work if they don't want to be poor.