[rrherr]

See also:

How 'The Karate Kid' Ruined The Modern World (2010)

https://www.cracked.com/article_18544_how-the-karate-kid-rui...

"I think The Karate Kid ruined the modern world. Not just that movie, but all of the movies like it (you certainly can't let the Rocky sequels escape blame). Basically any movie with a training montage.

You know what I'm talking about; the main character is very bad at something, then there is a sequence in the middle of the film set to upbeat music that shows him practicing. When it's done, he's an expert. ...

Every adult I know--or at least the ones who are depressed--continually suffers from something like sticker shock (that is, when you go shopping for something for the first time and are shocked to find it costs way, way more than you thought). Only it's with effort. It's Effort Shock.

We have a vague idea in our head of the "price" of certain accomplishments, how difficult it should be to get a degree, or succeed at a job, or stay in shape, or raise a kid, or build a house. And that vague idea is almost always catastrophically wrong.

Accomplishing worthwhile things isn't just a little harder than people think; it's 10 or 20 times harder."

---

Effort Shock and Reward Shock (2014)

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/07/09/effort-shock-and-rewar...

"The good news is what I’ve started calling reward shock. In some (not all) domains, it is more than enough to offset effort shock.

When you overcome effort shock for a non-trivial learning project and get through it anyway, despite doubts about whether it is worth it, you can end up with very unexpected rewards that go far beyond what you initially thought you were earning. This is because so few people get through effort shock to somewhere worthwhile that when you do it, you end up in sparsely populated territory where further gains through continued application from the earned skill can be very high.

Programming, writing and math are among the skills where there you get both significant effort shock and significant reward shock."

[Isamu]

Hey thanks for pointing out this angle. I think it’s compatible with the idea that mastery of a thing is purchased at the cost of a shocking number of invested hours. This seems counter intuitive (hence the shock) and so people would rather believe in some mysterious innate talent that they can’t explain, rather than believe in innate motivation that enables one to invest the necessary hours.

[Karellen]

I'm not sure how Rocky fits the same pattern as The Karate Kid. Even at the very start of the first Rocky, Rocky is a journeyman boxer, who's been in the game a while, and goes to the gym on a... ok, on a semi-regular basis at best. Yes, he's undisciplined and doesn't have an amazing track record, but when he gets picked by Apollo to get a title shot, it's *not* like he's learning to box from scratch. He effectively has a training camp with Mickey to get him in top fighting shape and mix up his form to throw his opponent's research off - but that's how a lot of professional fighters prepare for a fight!

(I mean, it helps that his fighting style is mostly "let the other guy tire himself out by punching you in the face for 10 rounds straight, and then get some decent haymakers in when they can't lift their arms any more" which any fool with an iron chin can try to implement, but even so, the implication is that he starts off with plenty of practice at it.)

[buildsjets]

If the Karate Kid ruined the modern world by learning Karate in a training montage, what are your opinions about the scene in The Matrix where Neo simply downloads his martial art skills? "I know Kung Fu!"