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Comment by qazpot | Hacker News Reader

I think the part about "unrealistic goals" is applicable to a lot of spheres of life and exacerbated by the social media. Social media after all inflicts high expectations and pressure to convert your life into a performance on everyone irrespective of profession, culture, age, country.

And ofcourse the Titans of social media - zuckerberg, chamath, tiktok and 1000s of engineers, PMs will not pay for the harm their engineered products have caused because waters have been muddied enough and no true accounting of the harm can happen.

It is kind of like inventing a new synthetic highly addictive drug which is technically legal but very harmful and you can sell it to everyone.

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Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger.

You don't need Facebook or the Gram to be keenly aware that all your university buddies who went into tech are going on vacations to Maui and buying their second homes, while you're still grinding your life away for nothing in a university lab. In fact, all you need to do be aware of this is to show up to your friends' bi-weekly happy hour at the local.

I’m curious how that isn’t obvious to someone going into research.

It is quite obvious, which is why the parent poster's ire is misplaced.

> Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger.

No, it's not. Social media created a world wide bullying environment. Most of people all over the world are in trouble because they have to compete with unrealistic image of you or your profession created by social media. Whatever you are or do, you are never good enough. Education, medical field and science are especially vulnerable in this regard.

Tech sector isn't really exception, but insane amount of money people get in some parts of the world for compensation makes it more tolerable.

Except it is not an unrealistic expectation to be paid adequately and not be underpaid worker.

Social media might make this disparity obvious and in your face, but it did not create it.

I don’t disagree, but in person people do I think tend to avoid discussing in detail money-associated things with people who can’t afford the same. Like they’re not going to avoid it entirely, but a lot of points might be glossed over, the conversation may be changed quickly, etc. Whereas on social media there is more detail out in the open regardless of social context. That context ignoring part is kind of new.

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