Not 100% true. In fact not even 90% true. The article uses too many absolutes like how it says that you need to bring something special to the table to get girls interested in you. Truth is, good looks and some flair gets you much further bad looks and lots of talent so it's not all black & white. The article doesn't mention that, in real life, you can go a long way by bullshitting and being arrogant and confident - even though I guess that's a skill too, but it's not being productive. In fact, most of the higher-ups I've worked with, I found to be very incompetent in most tasks.

Having said that, the real world is harsh and it depends on how well you play the game. Myself, I say "fuck society and its demands" like many on this forum - we grew up being different, liking stuff that is not considered "normal" or "popular" by society. We live in niches and that by itself has taught us to stand up for ourselves - this is true for me and many of my friends who don't believe in the typical family/kids/mortgage/large car/desk job crap.

I refused to take a low paying job and just went for the job I wanted to do - and I got it after a few years of looking around and taking risks. I couldn't have done it in the US since I wouldn't have been able to afford to be unemployed for that long - but West-Europe at least is more advanced in that respect. Basically, the article is more true for Americans because American society is harsh in that respect. I'd say, invite the writer over to Europe to get his eyes opened.

Thanks for clearing this. I avoid discussing this as I don't belong to either American or West European view. What the article misses out is the importance of mentality. Where I live, every success is looked upon with contempt and everyone who tries to make a change as a smart ass, and there is a widely held belief that corruption solves everything. That is why my country is the poorest in Europe. This article is written solely for Americans, but as the American green capitalism is spreading throughout the world (McDonalds employees here are treated like those in the US) we can relate to this text in a way.

More or less it works this way in most counties from the wrong side of the iron curtain. Fortunately it seems to be slowly changing.

In what context are you using the term "afford"?
And if I may, for how long were you unemployed and how exactly did you financially afford it?

Good looks and flair can take effort as well. He brings example of going to the gym, and the girl spending an hour every morning to look good. In that case what you offer the girl is that she feels good being with someone who looks good and has flair!

The article :3.

OK, I'll try my best, but keep this in mind: you can disprove statements, but you can't disprove worldviews (or, more succinctly, "paradigms"). Blind men and the elephant, yadayadayada.

"#6. The World Only Cares About What It Can Get from You"
Well, if so - "fuck you, world! You can go to hell".
Does it really, or is it simply one of the ways of looking at it? When I smiled at that exhausted, timid cashier today - what benefit did it bring me? No, she didn't smile back.
Doesn't this implicitly assume that I should fulfill the world's expectations? WHY? Perhaps the world should bend to MY will ;P! On maybe, just maybe, I should try to CHANGE this world instead of "accepting it for what it is"?
What is this "world" anyway - middle-class infested American suburbia? #secondworldproblems

"#5. The Hippies Were Wrong"
They're pulling all the wrong strings here. I may not be 100% in line with everything the hippies are/have been/were standing for, but attacking them is kinda like attacking Buddhism to me - may well be justified, but doesn't appeal to me.

"It's brutal, rude, and borderline sociopathic, and also it is an honest and accurate expression of what the world is going to expect from you."
Fuck the world. Fuck its uncaring bulk. Let's make a better one.

"#4. What You Produce Does Not Have to Make Money, But It Does Have to Benefit People"
That's a very roundabout way of saying "do good". I guess that's because these people are more familiar with the term "money" than "good" (when said "good" doesn't mean "commodity").

"(...) Only if step one in the book is "Start making yourself into the type of person girls want to be around.""
This can be generalized - finding A woman, A job, A house... You name it.
That's not the problem.

Here's an example: Linux is great. It has one flaw - you can't run games on it as well as on Windows. For the purpose of the argument - assume that's true.
What is the solution, pace Cracked? "Well, if the operating system doesn't fulfill your needs... Just change your needs, duh!". Girls are looking for different traits? Acquire traits. Change, adjust, CONFORM.
FTW.
I've asked myself the question often in the past - "If I could - would I want to be like other people?". It remained rhetorical throughout the years - being in line, being "one of them" could be a road to happiness, but that's not a road for me to take. Even if I could wipe my memory clean and incur enough brain damage to enjoy myself and the world around me without hating myself for such disgrace - I wouldn't do it. It's better to be sad Socrates than a happy pig.

"#2. What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What It Makes You Do"
Oh no... Oh, you didn't just write that... My good Logos, you stupid ass-backwards people...
There was a theory, you know, or a set of theories that claimed something akin - behaviorism. "The inside doesn't matter". I'll even give you an anecdote: the theory of meaning in behaviorism is interesting. A thing isn't your connotation, words don't simply point to items (you'd have trouble with words like "red" or "infinity".)...To be (something) is to be reacted to (in a given way). Having explained that, our professor told us to simply ignore behaviorists. Yes - you read that correctly - stop reacting. If you don't react to a behaviorist, he doesn't exist, right ;)? At least in his own min... Oh, snap - can't say that :3!

"Don't get me wrong; who you are inside is everything (...)"
OK then, this sounds promising...
""Who you are inside" is meaningless aside from what it produces for other people."
Why the hell should I care about other people? Why are they suddenly all that matters? What about me?

"#1. Everything Inside You Will Fight Improvement"
Kinda, but not really. All the examples below? They do not apply. Then again - very little does in my case.

Now for the best part - I ADORE the idea of self-improvement, determination, shaping oneself towards perfection. I'm all about that, now more than ever. I also love things that are entirely internal, like dreams, memories, feelings and imagination. I love things with no immediate or apparent practical application - that's how our civilization came to be, thanks to idle reflection for its own sake.
I will change in a way I see fit and seek out challenges that appeal to me. I will not simply face challenges first, respond accordingly. I don't want to be the person I am, but I also don't want to be the person I "should be", unless that happens to also be the person I actually strive to be.

"Yes, but no... but yes, although not exactly." is what I'd say is my reaction to the text. The premise is decent, the conclusion on the right track, the argumentation seems pretty abominable. I refuse to think in a way that makes this article make sense. I'm also going to take from it the same thing I put in it myself: "Be strong and act".

What can I say? Capitalist alpha male propaganda bullshit. "Your job is all you are, to get laid you need to have money, to be happy you need the approval of others, success as a human being is defined by professional success." Yeah, I've heard that kind of stuff. "Dishwasher turned millionaire! Land of endless opportunities!" It goes hand in hand with yuppie culture, typical American elite school bullshit etc., it justifies social problems like poverty ("they are poor because they are lazy!") etc.. An empty pursuit of "success", worthless human relationships based on something as unstable as the job... it's insane.

Also, while I haven't seen Glengarry Glen Ross yet, the film that the article's author considers so brilliant and uses as his number one source, I'm pretty sure that the film was actually socially critical in the exactly opposite direction the article goes.

Jackpot!
My answer card said "internalizing capitalist abuse", but I'm glad that your gut instinct answer is "capitalism" as well.
Those who own the means of production have always said "You need to work harder!"... Now those who do NOT own the means of production say "We need to work harder!" xD.

I was unemployed for three years. I wanted to be a graphic designer and was only offered pathetic jobs with no future instead - sandblaster, garbage collecting, call centers, meat factory, etc. Basically the lowest wage jobs that are horrible to say the least.

Out of high school in 1999, I had two areas I had interest and skill in: IT and graphic design. IT had a big demand at the time so I picked that only to find that, with the Y2K thing passed, the market crashed and companies refused to hire anyone without former experience so I got screwed. Leaving uni in 2002, I decided to go for graphic design instead but with no formal studies or experience, it was really hard and it took me three years to find a job.

During that time, I had to use my savings (€10.000) to keep up my spirits. I had a monthly unemployment pay which was just about enough to cover the basics but if you keep getting rejected, you need to pamper yourself quite a bit to keep up your spirit! But since I've had a good job for 8 years now, I'm glad I did all this - and like I said, if this had been the US, I'd never have been able to do that.

I thought the whole thing was rather negative. To be honest, it sounded like somebody whining about "Well, I made it, but I made it the hard way, so I'm going to make the mistake people everywhere make, and that is to project my subjective feelings and opinions onto generalized statements about how it really is, despite that just being my opinion."

Ok, Dave, maybe you're just surrounded by assholes. :-)

"Your only worth is in what you can provide to other people." Um, no thank you.

Ponder this: the best thing you can do for someone else, is to do the best thing for yourself. Oxymoron? No, it isn't. Expecting other people to somehow magically make you happy is not going to work.

Now, it could be that he's saying the exact same thing, but his wording makes it sound completely opposite. Or maybe he isn't. Doing something for others because you expect something in return is just another form of manipulation. Doing something for someone else because you feel like you should, or you feel obligated, it not the same as doing something for someone else because that's just the kind of person you are.

Imagine what the world would be like if people did things for other people without expecting anything in return.

Maybe I lack in reading comprehension, but I don't see anything in the above which disproves #6.

BTW, "working to change the world" can be construed to benefiting the society. Oh no, you're conforming! Unless of course you're just talking of changing the world with no intention of actually following through. See my response to your response for #6. Still not seeing anything to counter the article here. You don't want to change, fine. What he's saying is still common sense - if you offer nothing to the girl / job / etc, you have no right to complain that they don't want you. You're not a main character in a harem anime where girls will fall in love with you just because.

As far as Linux, what he's saying is that if Linux doesn't fulfill the mainstream needs, Linux devs have no right to complain that about the mainstream not adopting them. Linux is the actor here, we are the society. It's still common sense - you've heard the term "actions speak louder than words"? That's what the article is saying. You are what you do. And of course words speak louder than thoughts.

Other people see what you do, hear what you say, have no clue what you think unless you tell them - and if your actions contradict what you say, you better be real damn good at speaking!

You don't have to care about other people - unless you want them to care about you. If you say "screw the world", be ready for the world to screw you right back. That's the whole point here. This one is obviously subjective. It applies to me, because I personally am not a fan of change. While I too ADORE the idea of self-improvement, I lack the willpower to actually put in the effort required to self-improve much, despite knowing that it would obviously be to my own benefit. I have plenty of internal dreams, but it is unlikely that they will ever be more than that because I do not actually work to achieve them.

The tragedy is I'm not even good at capture the flag.

Reduce the AI level to "novice" and voila.

I can't (and therefore will not) disprove anything.
One thing I can say is that I had the foresight to explicitly say this:
"OK, I'll try my best, but keep this in mind: you can disprove statements, but you can't disprove worldviews (or, more succinctly, "paradigms"). Blind men and the elephant, yadayadayada. "

Eating chips can be "construed as benefiting society".
If you can translate "doing good" into "benefiting society" every step of the way - be my guest.

No, if I'm changing society for the better, the society is conforming, because society is what changes, not me. That's the very opposite of conforming - it's making others conform.
Unless you want to broadly define "conforming" as "acting like others", in which case - be my guest. I'm not an anti-conformist, I'm a nonconformist.

The hardest part in changing the world is figuring out HOW and INTO WHAT you should do it. Doing stuff is EASY. Solving problems is usually a lot simpler than figuring out which problems one should solve (bonus points: that itself can be treated as a problem. You can interpret this into a contradiction if you take the right turns on your way).

No, I do. I really do.
I know this must be extremely confusing - "Why are you agreeing with what I understand as the conclusion of the article, fail to disprove any of its premises, and yet claim to disagree with the thing?".
Like I said - this is far from simple, but the clue is in the word "paradigm".

How about this: "if people think your game is hard, make it easier"?
I'd say - let them try harder or play something else.

Yeah, but I don't find it very convincing, it being only comprised of words and all ;).

No, I am the one who DOES... but more so - the one who sees and thinks.

I don't think you'd want me to sum this attitude up as "Less thinking, more talking!" and "Less deliberating, more doing!".

Damn, I simply need to finally read through Nietzsche now, there's no excuse ;P.
If this doesn't sound like a pertinent response - sorry...

I wish you good luck in your efforts, but remember - don't let people tell you what to do.

Yes, I do love paradoxes, why do you ask ;P?

You've convinced me. Let's make a world where we're all like that.

It will be heaven on earth.

Actually, I suppose that's got some grounding (if you'll excuse the pun), as Angels don't have free will, and supposedly our future sales grabbing selves don't have it either. Everything is simply the fight.