
Effort shock: how the Karate Kid ruined the modern world - bd
http://www.johndiesattheend.com/updates/?p=1071
======
btilly
Right theory, wrong cause.

Our whole society has moved towards a philosophy that children are not allowed
to fail. As a result we give people easy "successes" at every opportunity, and
don't let people experience the fact that they can fail. The result is people
whose self-image is like a balloon - really puffed up but likely to deflate
suddenly on facing a real challenge.

Obviously the opposite extreme of beating kids down is not good either. But we
need a balance. And we need to drive the message home that some things take
work.

~~~
pvg
_Right theory, wrong cause._

Which theory and cause? That the world is ruined and the cause is the Karate
Kid? You might have taken it a bit too literally.

 _Our whole society has [...]_

Our whole society probably hasn't. Is your argument seriously "kids these
days"? Because I don't think the author is really attempting to engage in a
meaningful debate on whether the Rocky montage is or is not the driving factor
in our poor ability to estimate effort required. It's just a bit of hyperbole.

~~~
xiaoma
>Is your argument seriously "kids these days"?*

Maybe btilly's argument is _parents_ these days. It isn't like kids wanted to
fail in the past. The difference is that until recently, most kids on the
football team _didn't_ win any ribbons or prizes in the past, but now even the
chubbiest, least co-ordinated loser is a winner who comes home with a 3rd most
improved defensive player ribbon. Similarly, there was a time when an average
student got a C. Now, a lackluster effort is often worth a B+.

It makes perfect sense that people will have a distorted view of how difficult
success is if they are never allowed to fail, never exposed to "dangerous"
playground equipment of their grandparents' day, and who are always allowed to
beg an excuse to get extensions or extra test-taking time.

------
Dove
The point of concern for me in modern mythology is not the unrealistic amount
of effort required to succeed, but the portrayal of risk. If the main
character is likeable, good-hearted, and he gives it his all, he never fails.
Things just work out for him.

Winston Churchill said, "It is no use saying 'we are doing our best'. You have
got to succeed at doing what is necessary." And at the time he said it, it was
an unremarkable sentiment echoed in literature. The modern rule seems to be
more along the lines of, "If you're nice and put in a decent effort, things
will work out."

Some examples: Modern little orphan Annie is met with success after success
and kindness after kindness in response to her charm and ingenuity,
encountering only minor setbacks; her counterpart in Dickens' _Oliver Twist_
meets nothing but disappointment and injustice for a very long time. The
slight justices in the story are only those which are _achieved_ by the
characters with a lot of work and risk -- and even they, they often fail.
_Titanic's_ Rose drifts into and out of a beautiful adventure, but _Gone With
The Wind's_ Scarlet toils and schemes endlessly to gain what she has, even
after losing everything through no fault of her own. The central romance of
_Casablanca_ does _not_ simply work out as a modern audience would be
accustomed to expect; the characters focus on doing what is necessary to
achieve their aims.

The older stories have it right. In order to achieve something, one must
assess the cost. You can't just do your best and hope. Rather--in the mode of
Churchill--you must _do what is necessary_. And failure is familiar even to
those who do that and proceed with best effort and intentions. A generation
raised on Disney happy endings is learning the wrong lessons about the
necessity of planning and perseverence.

~~~
sliverstorm
Thankfully not _all_ modern stories are like that. The notable example on my
mind the book series 'Song of Ice and Fire'. So many bad things happen to good
people :(

I should probably read Oliver Twist.

~~~
presidentender
Stephen King usually deals some pretty harsh blows to his characters as well,
and his sympathetic successful characters tend to get where they are by
working hard.

GRRM's stuff (most prominently 'Song of Ice and Fire') is just plain bleak.
Hard work isn't rewarded, because _nothing_ is. I mean, it's good, and a
valuable life lesson, but it's sure not motivational.

~~~
sliverstorm
It may not be motivational, but god it does train you to love and cling to
those tiny tiny little victories.

------
mrshoe
From <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1112881>

_What's usually the biggest mental hurdle for hackers to transition into
entrepreneurs?_

 _pg: Coming to terms with the effort required._

Still, it's important to remember that some people work two full-time jobs and
barely make ends meet, while others work roughly the same hours and make
millions. Working smart is just as important as working hard. I suppose that's
a goal of YC's -- to help us work smart while we work hard.

~~~
chrischen
Yep. It takes two things to succeed in your goals: intelligence and
persistence.

Intelligence is necessary so you know what to do. Persistence because the
universe is messed up and not always consistent, and doing the right things
might sometimes not work for no explainable reason (but also because it's
impossible to account for all variables and make perfect choices all the time,
so we've got to be able to absorb that).

~~~
petesalty
I'd throw luck in there too. A little luck goes a long way.

~~~
chrischen
That's what persistence handles. It minimizes the effect of luck. What I
mean't by the unpredictability of the universe is in fact the luck. To
overcome luck, you simply persist. And no amount of intelligence can overcome
the unpredictable (because it follows no rules). So that's why you need
persistence, as well as intelligence.

------
sumeetjain
I don't think the article is worth reading.

According to the author, "Effort Shock" is the phenomenon of realizing
something is a lot harder than you thought it was. Then you get depressed
about it and give up. This explains failed blogs, failed diets, failed
restaurants, etc.

The Karate Kid and other Rocky-esque movies ruined the world because the
training montages make it seem like you can go from beginner to expert in a
single Survivor song.

I was hoping the author would dig deeper into the subject, but he just
repeated the same thing again and again and ended with a plug for his book.

~~~
wvenable
Give him a break! Do you know how much more effort it would have taken to dig
deeper into the subject?

------
mattm
I was in China teaching English when the movie "Kung-Fu Panda" came out. I was
surprised at the comments. Most people said something like "I liked the movie
but it was unrealistic how easily Panda became a Kung-Fu master." I can't see
people in North America coming to the same conclusion.

I think people in the "East" tend to know better than people in the "West" at
just how much effort is required to become a master at something.

~~~
kscaldef
Wait, so, an animated kid's movie about animals that talk and do kung-fu has
unrealistic plot elements? Say it ain't so!

~~~
rue
Heh, I think they meant it in the sense of breaking suspension of disbelief
required to find the story engaging. Which sort of illustrates the ingrained
effort level calculations we make. Perhaps.

------
lotharbot
From my perspective, the training montage in Karate Kid demonstrated that it
took a LOT of effort, not the little bit this article criticizes it for. Two
months of hard work, from sunrise to sunset, to develop muscle memory? It's
not the 10,000 hours required to become a world-class expert, but 600+ hours
of intensive training is enough to see some pretty decent results. The other
movie he criticizes by name, Rocky, was similar. Rocky had 2 months to train
for his first fight, and he wasn't starting from scratch.

It's hard to become a world-class expert at anything. You need some
combination of latent talent and many thousands of hours of training,
hopefully with someone who really understands how to train you effectively.
But I don't think either Rocky or the Karate Kid greatly misrepresent the
amount of effort it would take for an exceptionally talented individual, with
a great trainer, to make the leaps they did.

~~~
chime
But the whole point is that two months is NOTHING. I ran 50 miles in an
ultramarathon last year and it took me 6 months of pretty intense training
(one marathon or longer every weekend in june & july). Even my six months were
absolutely nothing compared to the guys who've been running for past 20 years.
There is NO way I could have done anything during those six months that could
have made me anywhere as good as the pros. So yeah, Karate Kid is indeed not
possible.

~~~
sumeetjain

      6 months : 50-mile ultramarathon in real life
      2 months : Winning a city-wide karate championship in a movie
    

These seem proportional to me.

~~~
shaddi
I'm not a runner, but I would assume that unless you're already pretty
physically fit or have running experience you can't start from scratch and run
an ultra-marathon in six months. Full marathon practice sessions weekly for
two months! I would reckon being able to recover between those that quickly is
a skill developed over years, even if not necessarily from running.

FWIW, I think the point was that even if the kid took 2 months of "moive
time", the audience perceived that time to be only a few minutes. Two months
of solid work is a lot, and I don't think a few minutes of film can do justice
to that.

------
Eliezer
My father (Moshe Yudkowsky, author: The Pebble and the Avalanche) has a
similar thesis about how Star Trek caused the downfall of American
engineering:

"Well, Captain, you crashed into that planet there and sheared one warp
nacelle completely off. It'll take two months in dock to repair."

"Dammit, Scotty, I need it in five minutes!"

"Okay."

------
Jach
I didn't really like the article. It's just summing up what we've known for a
good time: success requires effort. I don't buy movies being the cause of it.
I did find the choice of Rocky somewhat amusing though, especially when the
author mentioned his book taking 8 years (albeit doing other things).

Sylvester Stallone: [Explaining to 'The New York Times' on how he wrote the
script for Rocky in three days]: "I'm astounded by people who take 18 years to
write something. That's how long it took that guy [Gustave Flaubert] to write
'Madame Bovary.' And was that ever on the best-seller list? No. It was a lousy
book and it made a lousy movie."

Effort alone doesn't make one successful, either, and in my opinion telling
people it's going to take them years to succeed is just as bad as telling them
they can succeed in 21 days.

~~~
mikecane
If you can stomach the voice of Anthony Robbins, there's a very interesting
YouTube video with some background about Stallone and Rocky:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2AXGz4rAQg>

------
atlantic
I don't entirely agree with the author. It all depends on how you interpret
the films. For me, the karate kid did not make expertise in karate look easy,
but simply possible. It is important for people to realize that, given the
appropriate training system, they can achieve anything, and that no domain is
the exclusive preserve of the very gifted.

In my case, the film motivated me to put in the necessary hours, and to pass
my black belt in shotokan karate in my early thirties, after eight years of
almost daily training, the equivalent of about 5000 hours at that stage.

I don't think I was ever under the impression it was going to be easy; but I
always did hold on to the belief that it was possible. So all in all, these
films were a positive influence.

------
Rauchg
This is a fine example of mediocrity, making things sound a hundred times more
difficult than they really are for the sake of making a point.

The blog post is so badly riddled with fallacies that it becomes hard to
figure out what the author tries to convey. An example: the author mentions
that you can diet for months, with incredible effort, and still not lose
weight. He's basically appealing to the reader's emotions, making you remember
that last failed diet in which you ended up gaining weight. But guess what?
You DIDN'T work hard enough! That's all there's to it. You just have the
impression that you did. I can say this from experince, after failing many
times and finally realizing what it takes.

Articles like this support the invisible walls we create for ourselves, for
work, for our diets, for our addictions.

~~~
jimbokun
"You DIDN'T work hard enough!"

Isn't that the sole point of the article?

------
kls
The concepts of the article are pretty foreign to me, so much so that it
sounds to me like and individual who is blaming society for their ills.

My life experience has been completely the opposite of this summation. When I
was a kid I was mediocre at everything, it was not until my adult life that I
became exceptional, now things come easy to me. People look at me as kind of a
daVinci (not claiming I have had anywhere near the impact as him) but the
point is, a jack of all trades and a good enough master of them as well. I am
never the best, but I am above average on almost anything I take interest in.

Anyway, wrapping this up into a point, with the ability to master anything, I
stopped looking at failure as failure and looked at it as a proven iteration
that does not work. I know it is cliche to say, but perception is reality and
if you have a negative perception that will manifest itself in ones actions.

One of the big issues is that the human mind, unless trained, is bound to a
simple understanding of time. Within that simple understanding is an internal
pressure to race the clock. When one looks at time is a more spatial manner
then they start to see failure as less about being set back x amount of time
and rather that though the distance traveled will require some adjustment one
has still traveled a distance and made progress.

I cannot stress enough that attaining the right perception can be the
difference between success and resignation to defeat. The greatest key to
attaining that perception, above all else is creativity.

------
3dFlatLander
There's a clip from southpark that has to do with this topic. Hope you guys
don't mind. <http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/185666/>

------
mapleoin
That's called a montage! <http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/185666>

------
johnfn
I like this article; the message really resonates with me. For instance, I
write music. But a good three minute song could take me days to write (and
most musical artists usually take way longer than that). I like to animate,
but a minute of animation could take even longer than a minute of song.
Similarly, writing a trivial game or a simple app just takes way longer than
it should.

But I don't think that this sort of complete inability to gauge how long
something should take to do has anything to do with the Karate Kid. Instead, I
think the ubiquity of complex works makes the effort required non obvious, and
even difficult, to see.

Right now, I'm hearing music on the radio, typing on Hacker News, running
Google Chrome on Ubuntu, with a book next to me. Incredible amounts of work
went into each of these things. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for
me to fathom the amount of hours put into Ubuntu, for instance. It feels sort
of like our inability to comprehend huge numbers, or the Universe - and I kind
of feel like there might even be a tie in to that old Wired article about the
'Monkeysphere' somewhere. The omnipresence of complex creative works makes for
two related effects: we only use those works for relatively short periods of
time, and we come to take them for granted.

Surely before we were totally immersed in a world full of the products of
work, we took more time to appreciate the details around us. But now we are
essentially incapable of doing that. I wouldn't say that that is a bad thing;
it's just a change. But it does lead to problems like the article mentioned
where we can't properly understand how much work some things take.

The other issue I mentioned is that we only use these things for short periods
of time. No matter how familiar we become with a game or web app, we can not
fathom the amount of detail put in to that app by the creator. I'll use the
example of a game: every time we play through, we will only see one path
through the game. But the game creator had to account for _every_ path (just
like the creators of Ubuntu had to account for someone doing any possible
action within the OS). So there are several orders of magnitude more depth in
the game (or OS) then I could ever truly appreciate just by playing it.

I think that this sort of analysis can be extrapolated to all sorts of other
creative mediums as well. We read a book in an hour, where the author probably
labored an hour just choosing the right words for a sentence. There would be
no way to appreciate that kind of work unless we spent ridiculous amounts of
time reading, but we don't - like I said, we only use things for (relatively)
short periods of time.

You probably read this comment in a minute or two, or maybe didn't even read
it at all and just went down to the end to find the tl;dr. But it took me
maybe 30 minutes to write. So there isn't one. Go read it.

------
apu
This guy is the editor of cracked.com!

...actually I don't know whether to be impressed or horrified.

------
rick888
We need to talk about something more important here:

How they ruined the franchise:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY8amUImEu0&feature=pyv&#...</a>

~~~
machrider
I don't understand why it's called "Karate" Kid, when he's in China and
learning kung fu...

~~~
rick888
"I don't understand why it's called "Karate" Kid, when he's in China and
learning kung fu..."

It seems like they are just using the name to get people to watch the movie,
which is a completely different story.

There is also a small scene where they make fun of the original.

~~~
rick888
why the downvotes, it was on-topic and true.

------
runT1ME
What if the main character was some karate-prodigy that didn't know it until
he found his master?

This is not completely unheard of.

~~~
jodrellblank
If it's not completely unheard of, you'll be able to cite examples...?

~~~
runT1ME
BJ Penn (now a UFC champion) trained in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for 4 years before
he won the world championships. Most people take 8-10 years to receive a black
belt, and then a year or two to become competitive on the world level.

I don't think its unheard of that a very talented kid could find a fantastic
teacher and excel in a city-wide tournament.

