[kaiwenwang]

As a young person in the United States, the main concern is that if you aren't one of the greatest at what you do, you'll be doomed to a life of increasing poverty: food derived from vegetable oils and chemically bleached wheat, apartments of grey laminate flooring and concrete, crime, people who derive their actions from social media, a 60 minute commute---as the real world: nature, people who are present, quality food, becomes increasingly out of reach.

[Aurornis]

> As a young person in the United States, the main concern is that if you aren't one of the greatest at what you do, you'll be doomed to a life of increasing poverty

In psychology there’s a concept called splitting, or dichotomous thinking, where a person only thinks of things in concepts of their extremes. Either the most extreme good outcome, or the most extreme bad outcome. They might see people or public figures as either amazing or evil. The Wikipedia page has a primer on it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology) But you don’t need a Wikipedia article or psychology concepts to realize that there are more outcomes than extreme success or increasing poverty.

I’m fascinated by how these concepts that were once relegated to psychology and therapy have started to become commonplace among young people on the internet. They’re not seen as failure modes in thinking, but rather an obvious conclusion from whatever they’ve been consuming so much of online.

The comment above is a prime example. Even the obsession over “food derived from vegetable oils and chemically bleached wheat” is a confusing conclusion for me, someone who has had no problem avoiding wheat products and eating healthy on a budget with even minimal effort. The food topic is particularly strange because it’s not that hard to learn basic cooking skills, buy cheap vegetable, and cook quick and easy meals. Yet I continue talking to young people who simultaneously fret about food quality while filling their diets with nothing but processed and fast foods, many of which are more expensive than cooking basic fast meals.

I don’t know what else to say, other than the above style of thinking is, in my experience, indicative of what happens when someone collects too much perspective from the internet and not enough from the real world. Given the context of this comment section, I can only recommend trying to reevaluate, disconnect from the internet a little more, and make an effort to reconnect with the real world

[alexslobodnik]

The binary perspective gives an excuse to give up.

The reasonable perspective does not. It demonstrates that though agency is limited it does exist.

Our life outcomes are connected to our actions. For many their circumstances make this an unpleasant thought, thus binary thinking protect their self-image. For some that's all they have left.

[zub-twin]

It is not a new outlook, soylent green—is people.

[kaiwenwang]

Sorry in advance if this seems rude. Going to context dump a lot of stuff below:

My opinion is based on the real world as I've lived it. I cook for myself. I highly recommend https://www.centurylife.org/ for anyone else learning to cook.

Have also deeply thought about types of cookware: from glass to ceramic to clay, have experimented with clay pots such as RÖMERTOPF (not worth it), dutch oven is fine to pressure cookers, or German cookware such as Fissler that has spot welded and presents a neat design compared to riveted cookware common in the US.

If you go to almost any supermarket (Costco, Publix, Kroger, Whole Foods, HMart), the majority of foods people eat are derivatives of what I said.

Whereas recipes in the past were limited by the locale, we are now limited to the cities we have transportation options to.

If you're in a suburb of one of the major metropolitan areas, this doesn't apply. In small cities of the United States, people might only have Walmart, Amazon, Dollar Generals. So people have to cram into cities as the availability of goods is limited.

There are only a few suppliers for things---there is not unlimited choice from free market competition, a wall of supermarket cereals look different but the ingredients are fundamentally the same. I can't get good cuts of meat such as bone-in shoulder easily. Nor can I get it cut at a butcher because USDA guideline has limits on outside meat.

Food is only 3 categories: fats, carbs, or proteins.

Let's consider proteins: The major meat I buy from Costco is the Australian grass-fed lamb import. The Sprouts has lamb, but it's been sitting on the shelf for a long time. The factory farmed pork, chicken, fish, and feedlot beef give me symptoms of malaise.

Almost all processed foods are using canola oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, etc.--the polyunsaturated fats are shown to highly depress metabolism, despite what the USDA guidelines say.

For carbs, most of the wheat is chemically bleached with "Oxides of nitrogen, Chlorine, Nitrosyl chloride, Chlorine dioxide."

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B...

The wheat and the corn give me symptoms because I am fairly aware of my body's reactions. Some person might be extremely unhealthy and live in a slum (from my perspective) and say that they're fine, and we would both we right because each perspective is relative to an individual.

Many are increasingly unable to afford to even transport oneself in the United States without a car or gasoline because of the suburbanization of infrastructure yet cities are increasing in price.

The internet affects the real world because federal laws, which be written in places far away from where you live, affects people's behaviors and how they can do things.

You categorize me as a surface-level thinker prone to the emotional dramatics derived from the internet not having deeply thought about the reality and nature of things, but I would hope that the above comment dispels such preassumptions.

Seemingly widening inequality and inability to land meaningful jobs as a lived experience for people I know makes my concerns reasonable and truthful based on lived experience (young 20s).

[chr15m]

"the greatest at what you do" is by definition a zero sum framing that will lead 99.999% of participants to view their lives as a failure. It is literally madness to make this your goal.

The alternative is to choose to be very good at what you do, which has a good chance of success if you try hard at something you care about.

[kaiwenwang]

I feel like very good isn't enough as employers want the best candidates but not the average candidates, and if you're sort of in the middle then the so-so companies don't want you either because they think you'll leave.

Something about the increased social stratification of our times, which also has to do with increased transportation and communication.

Might also depend on your locale. Plumber in Germany might be better than SWE in Texas.

[pragmatic]

Woah that’s bleak.

You don’t have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the other people the bear is chasing.

The bar is so low in corporate America you could trip on it.

Just try to be halfway competent, do something useful at work, read a book or two about your industry. You’re already way ahead.

Don’t fall for the hacker news bs.

Lots of millionaires out here that never had a successful startup.

[kaiwenwang]

I've tried to be as accurate as I perceive it, and the descriptions of the environment are accurate to the locale of most of the United States.

If the bar is that low, then the environment is sure to be like the first place I described.

[coderatlarge]

> Lots of millionaires out here that never had a successful startup.

what do you mean by this?

[asdf6969]

> The bar is so low in corporate America you could trip on it.

I talk to incompetent people all day every day but I don’t know anyone competent who could get the opportunity to work here without at least a few weeks of studying and a lot of luck. Thousands of applicants for every position and you still think meritocracy matters? The only winners in this market are people with no self respect and the well connected

[iddan]

I’m not from the US, but from my visits there and continuous reading of the living conditions in America this comment seems painfully true. As someone living in Israel I’m grateful we don’t live in those extremes.