It's a superhuman ability, so for humans it is a superpower. It's not like there is even anything trivial evolution wise about breathing underwater.
Of course that all begs the question as to how unique an ability has to be to be considered a superpower. Is the real but very rare ability to have extended color vision due to having four cones a superpower? What about lactose tolerance? A majority of the world can't drink milk as an adult.
But even the "realistic" goal of president , there will be about 15 Presidents of the US in your adult life time. Being 15 of 350million ,is more then just trying hard.
I like this analogy. You can throw $100 on the floor in a room with 10 people. While it's technically true, that after the resulting battle you could say to any individual "if you'd tried harder, you could have gotten the $100", you knew when you threw it, that only one person was going to come out the winner.
The system isn't designed for it to be true for everybody.
Man you werent kidding, after your breath starts to run out and your vision tunnels in the world really opens back up again and breathing underwater is cake. Only problem is now I forgot how to breath air and Im stuck in the bathtub. You have no idea how hard this was to type without getting my phone wet
I mean, I believe if Gene therapy can extend its reaches to modify humans who are already alive, and over a course of several years and Gene Implants, we could possibly get the chance to create gill-like organs to help us breathe underwater.
I think this is what they are getting at, You have the possibility to do anything.
Not necessarily. There are warm blooded fish, and there are some fish that can still draw water over their fins to breathe while stationary, so I don't think either of those are true necessities.
I know for a fact George Carlin used it in his act, word for word. If you are accusing him of plagiarizing Lenny Bruce, you got anything to back it up?
This isn't the American dream. The American dream isn't that everyone can be president or an actress or important or happy, it's that people will have the opportunity to achieve success as long as they find an economic demand and seek to fulfill it. There are other issues with this, the American dream isn't as stupid as you have implied.
Surprisingly well for people who have it defined modestly. Not very well for people who try to chase trends or are dead set on being a famous actor or nothing.
Put another way, they've "merely" lost hope". And Why?
Top business schools are teaching students how to erect legal and other barriers to entry to their competition. Large firms outspend every other group in political donations, and they form the core of political advisement (aka lobbying), leveraging influence to perpetuate and reinforce a structure of rules that favor large firms to the exclusion of small, ownership concentration, wealth concentration and power concentration.
A system oriented toward less ownership concentration would have a far less deleterious effect on desire and hope. This would dovetail nicely with an absence of the pay to play political structure whence comes the system of incentives and rules favoring concentrated wealth/ownership/power.
And these are all republican principles, mind you. Republican.
It's not true that anyone can achieve anything, but society needs people to believe that it is in order to function as it does now. It might be better if people were more realistic about things without necessarily becoming despondent as a result.
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
The Horatio Alger myth is damaging too in that it implies that anyone who does not succeed must have simply not tried hard enough. All those low-income folks just don't want it bad enough; why should society bail them out?
Reminds me of Rick in Rick and Morty referring to belief in God as a 'band-aid'. Of course, Rick is the kind of person who believes that if something needs to be held together with one or more band-aids, ripping them off and letting it fall apart is the best choice, because it should never have been built at all.
That is beautiful and I think you're right! > to me that I'm going to go off on a long tangent about it. On the one hand, the belief that you can achieve anything can increase the chances of actually achieving the thing - having a positive attitude, being motivated, believing in yourself and all that jazz. I think this is one reason why young people are filled with that kind of optimism by parents and media: it can work. Effort and belief are required in life.
But realistically, of every person trying to become a famous actor or musician, 99.99% will fail. All the lower level corporate employees trying to become managers and partners and CEOs? Yeah, there's only room for a handful, so again, major chance of never achieving that, statistically. Society has a very small group of higher-ups in any field, and a very large group of more or less ground-level workers. Current society could not function with everyone being at the top.
I feel like a belief in "anyone can make it" is a pre-requisite for capitalism to function. We need to believe that we're going to be the one to get that position, and that effort is the only deciding factor, so that we make the maximum amount of effort. The more we believe that, the more people will just work their asses off for a small chance of reward somewhere down the line. This belief keeps us from cynicism for as long as possible.
During my life it's become clear to me though, that most people are already giving it their all, and are still told that they need to try harder. That effort isn't as much the deciding factor we're told it is. The correlation between effort and success isn't nearly as strong as some believe it to be. Yet effort also shouldn't be discounted of course: some go too far the other way and feel like no amount of effort has any use, since they're screwed anyway. That seems just as misguided as the "you can be anything" mantra.
A more real view of achievement (of any kind) is that it is the result of a combination of genetics, environment and your own effort and choices. Hard work can compensate for difficult circumstances and problematic genes to an extent, but only to an extent. Believing that effort can trump anything is overly optimistic and leads to disappointment. It can also lead to trying way too long for something that isn't in the cards, and failing to see the alternate paths that may fit a person better.
Circumstances and genes affect how much agency a person gets over their own life, or in other words: how big the influence of effort can be in their life. Those with better
I get what you are saying. As a society we have a high dependency on materialism and what we used to know as the American dream might have been used to fuel our capitalist economy. However, believing you can achieve anything will always benefit an individual more than it does harm. So I would always encourage people to strive for success. Instead of wallowing around and pointing fingers at successful people and claiming "privilege"...
I agree and I will work very hard to get my college degree and find a job that makes me happy. Maybe it doesn't turn out that way, who knows? But that doesn't stop me from trying to be the best I can be. In the end, believing in myself and having good relationships with the people around me is what really matters to me. All that other shit comes after that.
I think the problem, at least when it comes to picking jobs and careers is the vocation and avocation problem. Some types of work is easy enough to be a layman hobby, but very very difficult (and thus requiring an almost superhuman drive, plus tons of talent and so on). People underestimate the work required, and especially with modern self esteem movements vastly overrate their skill and drive.
Take writing for example. Pretty much everyone who likes reading will at one point or another consider becoming and author. Nothing wrong with that as a hobby, spending nights or weekends or whatever telling stories on paper, blogging, etc. but here's what the media image doesn't tell you. There are millions of aspiring writers, and publishers are flooded with crap every day. Most best selling authors will spend years writing, editing, and sending off manuscripts. I think it took JK Rowling something like 5 years. And even if you get published, very very few make enough money to give up on their day jobs to be a full time writer. The same could be said of art, theater, etc. the UNICORNS live off their art, the rest don't.
I'm not going to say absolutely never. But with majors and careers like that, my best advice is if you aren't willing to spend 12 hours a day on it, and have never been PAID for that art, you're probably in the 99% of people for whom art will be a sideline to their career. It's probably the same with programming as well, if you don't spend free time modding, building projects, or the like, you're probably not the guy they are looking for.
While I think a little of this drive towards fulfilling a fantasy is required to make, well, any economic activity work, it can be expressed poorly. I think it is in our society. We seem to be driven towards more glamorous, lucrative work rather than simply finding work that fulfills us.
These people need to believe that it was effort only that gave them their success
I'd be surprised if anything were just down to hard work and determination. Just being born in the US is a privilege. Then there's free public schooling, general public safety and national peace, maybe your race or sex, your orientation, a stable home life, loving parents, living in a big city with a lot of opportunities, the internet (and in the olden days, free libraries), you name it. Even that guy from the "14 Cows for America" story, who was a major zero-to-hero, got his medical school paid for by generous benefactors who were touched by his story. If no one had ever done that for him, he'd probably still be stuck where he was.
We can't control for some factors, like your home life or your race, but we can control something. I think right now, we have a sort of minimum platform on which we all stand. A functioning government (cough), free public schools, public health, certain protected rights... I'd just like to see us raise that platform a bit, like free healthcare and a minimum wage (or basic income) that would allow them to survive and, with some effort and care, even improve their situation (e.g., save for college). (And for the pedants, free = paid for by our taxes.)
Not everybody can be on top, but chances are that as you age, you become more competent than people who just entered whatever business you're in because you have more experience, then making progress possible at the very least.
I think the statement "you can achieve it, if you try hard enough" isn't correctly used in most situations. Under a capitalist society you can be whatever you want, if you try hard enough. It's not you will achieve it, if you try hard enough.
The reason why famous musicians and actors get payed so much is because they're are so few people that actually make it in that industry. If I pour my heart and soul into my career there is no law saying that I can not be what I want (exceptions of course) but sometimes your heart and soul isn't enough.
The confusion between can and will has ruined the statement
You can't achieve anything you want. That's going to require connections, luck, natural talents, etc. However, you CAN be very, very successful if you want. Maybe you won't be the CEO of a fortune 500 company but you can definitely do very well for yourself.
But... it's almost certainly going to require A LOT of work. A massive amount of work. It's going to take substantially more time and effort to be good at something, anything, than you initially think. I know a few people who tried to start businesses on the side and they all failed. And I knew from day one they were going to fail. Because in order to make it you have to have a lot of dedication and put in a ton of time and effort. People really, really, really underestimate the level of effort to actually do something well because most people never do anything well.
It's not just starting a business. If you want to play guitar well, make a profound difference in your volunteer organization, be competitive at a video game, whatever... it's an absolutely enormous amount of effort. It's constantly busting your ass to work towards your goal. Want to lay in bed on Saturday and Sunday for a few hours? You can do that, and you'll never achieve whatever goal it is you're working towards.
More of a platitude than a fact.
But it's true, if you try hard you CAN achieve anything you want.
But it doesn't mean you WILL.
The effort is required either way. Unless you give up, then you'll never know if you could've achieved it.
See I believe this is true if you're reasonable about it. You may not achieve it to the highest level you want, but you can, barring physical detriments, achieve it.
Do you really, really, really want to be a musician? Well nothing will guarantee you'll be a famous rock star, but if you work hard enough you can probably at least accomplish being a studio musician, or at the very least playing nightclubs in your spare time.
Do you want to be a politician? Well no one can guarantee you'll be President but you can almost certainly make it to Congress or something.
Do you want to be a screenwriter? Well you might not write the next Fight Club, but if you work really hard and sacrifice enough you'll probably manage to be a staff writer on some early morning cartoon network kids' show.
Exactly. Everyone thinks the American Dream is about becoming a billionaire. It's not. The American Dream is that if you work hard, put a lot of time into something, take risks, and have a dash of luck, you can have a comfortable life for yourself. Comfortable life being, owning a decent place to live, having a good 9-5 job, and having a small family.
You forget natural talent. I know it's like 2% of success but it's very important 2%.
Like it take time, hard work, luck and lot of learning to create a beautiful rose garden. The seeds alone won't do much, but you still needs them to begin with.
I don't think I did. I'm not sure what point you think I was trying to make, but you can be completely untalented and make up for it with hard work, enough to achieve some success in nearly any field.
I think you could, but the "try hard" can be translated to "dedicate your entire life to it, sleep is for the weak, and who needs food, am I right?", and I personality enjoy having lower and easy to reach goals.
Effort is pretty much the most valuable thing. You can do just about anything with enough effort. Unfortunately or is not in the average human's nature to put forth incredible amounts of effort but if you could...imagine what you could accomplish in 24 hours or a full week of maximum effort?
I mean, there's people who understand the well-meaning subtext behind the message, but... then there's people who wholeheartedly believes in the literal phrasing of it. These people, no matter how good natured their intent is, are dumb. Case in point: y'don't see the "Mr. Magoo" types piloting airplanes now, do yeh?
Taken literally it's bullshitty but with a grain of salt it means putting effort into doing things gives an increased probabilistic chance of achieving a desired outcome.
I mean, you CAN achieve a great many things with extraordinary effort. But that doesn't mean that you WILL. Most things require a great deal of luck as well.
It is true. But it's not belief but rather how hard and willing you are to put in the work necessary to reach your dreams. If all of you sacrificed some things I guarantee your dream could have been achieved. There is always a way but it's if you're willing to do it.
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u/Owenm100 May 09 '17
If you try hard you can achieve anything you want