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>Good. We need more of this kind of thing around here, and less negativity and the "luck is everything, effort is irrelevant, sit on your ass and wait for the government to fix all your problems" bullshit that we've been overrun with lately.

What a thoroughly disingenuous strawman.

No it isn't. You see that attitude around here every single day. It's become just short of prevalent from what I can see. Everybody wants to push this agenda that "all of success is luck" and frankly it's absurd.

I believe it is because more people who are ‘smart’ have stopped believing in free will.

Could be. And admittedly, the issue of whether or not free will is a real thing or not would affect a great many things. My position, at the moment, is that we can't be sure, and we seem to have at least the illusion of free will, so I chose to make the simplifying assumption that we do, indeed, have free will.

That said, is is hard to explain exactly how "free will" would work in a universe that seems to be mostly - if not wholly - deterministic.

> If you're working in the fields for less than minimum wage in 110° temperatures, the become a manager at McDonalds could easily count as "making it."

This is something I thought was cool about this guy’s story: by the time he became a janitor, he had already “made it” relative to his campesino upbringing (or at least how the article makes it sound).

But he didn’t stop there.

Working in the fields in sweltering heat for less than minimum wage means you're not trying hard enough, all you have to do (in addition to dying of heat exhaustion) is to work hard and pursue your dreams!

- guy with a website with a bunch of enterprise software gibberish

> Working in the fields in sweltering heat for less than minimum wage means you're not trying hard enough

It means that although you are working hard but not working smart.

Working in the fields in sweltering heat for less than minimum wage means you're not trying hard enough

You do realize that nobody said that, or anything even remotely close to that, right?

Also... I've actually "been there and done that" as far as doing manual labor, outside, in the NC heat in July and August. So you can think what you want about what I have to say, but at least I'm actually speaking based on a lifetime of experience that includes growing up dirt poor, and managing to make it to a level where I can have "a website full of enterprise software gibberish".

you'll find success in yourself and not fawning praise of hustle lifestyle pieces... or... you won't

I, for one, disagree. And here's why:

https://qz.com/work/1231617/what-you-learn-about-business-wh...

> 110° temperatures

110° temperatures has a tendency to kill off whatever crop you are growing. It's not a common growing condition and most areas with these temperatures regularly are not considered suitable regions for efficient agricultural production.

Phoenix gets to 110 every year and you can definitely grow oranges and cotton there, at least.

That's cool. I didn't realize Phoenix is a significant market supplier of agricultural products.

I live in Phoenix, Arizona.

Phoenix itself - that is, the "Metro Phoenix" area - doesn't really supply agricultural products, but Arizona in general does, and has a very large and diverse set of climate zones which allow for this.

People tend to think of Phoenix and Arizona in general to be one giant wasteland desert - when nothing could be further from the truth.

Can you find such areas in Arizona? Certainly (but really, they aren't "wastelands" - just really hot and dry areas, but even so, there are plants, insects, and animals around). But there are far more diverse areas climate-wise in the state.

And many of these areas have been or still are large producers of various agricultural products.

Arizona is historically known for it's "5 C's":

https://azlibrary.gov/collections/digital-arizona-library-da...

Three of which are ag-based (cattle, citrus, and cotton).

Finally, this:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/yuma-lettuce_n_6796398

...which has had it's downsides and issues recently, but things like that happen and are sorted out.