I think it&#x27;s possible that its both a sickness and a boon. I fully agree with your point that the &quot;fear of being a loser&quot; does drive people to work harder, do better, etc. All of that has (generally) positive effects (well, assuming that you are willing to ignore the fact that many people will use less-tan-ethical means of making more money).<p>However I can also see it as a sickness in the sense that we fetishize this extreme success. Imagine a hypothetical person that has to make a choice between doing some risky start-up that will consume his&#x2F;her life or getting a solid job that allows them to work 40 hours per week and then enjoy their personal lives. Nobody would explicitly blame the person who chooses the latter option but we celebrate (especially on HN) the people who choose the former option. We celebrate it to the point that there are many people who choose the harder option simply because they feel they are a loser for not going after it and throwing everything they have at it. I don&#x27;t see that being a good thing that everyone who is on the fence decides to go for the risky&#x2F;hard path simply because of some societal zeitgeist.<p>Then again, as you point out, those individual choices lead to our collective advancement, so it&#x27;s a really hard balance.