Viktor Wembanyama is willing his team to victory after victory in the NBA playoffs and it’s striking how rare it is for someone to try hard openly.

Why did trying become so lame?

And what does society lose when people stop trying AND stop treating trying as a virtue?

Trying became lame because society started rewarding the wrong kinds of effort.

We’re all mimetic creatures. When we see someone get rewarded for doing all the things we were taught not to do, we question what we were taught. And we question what society really rewards.

A few societal trends over the past few decades may help explain what’s happening here.

First, let’s get this one out of the way. Social media has shown people that you don’t need to be smart, hardworking, or a good person to be rewarded with fame and money.

I’m not one of those people who blame social media for all our societal ills. But I do think it’s created a platform for people, who would otherwise not be considered upstanding members of society, to benefit.

Social media platforms don’t care whether what you do is good or bad, as long as someone tunes in and ads can be run against it. (And I worked at Twitter so I’m as guilty as they come of this.) The “creators” who pull mean-spirited and harmful pranks on people for views are a great example.

Second, reality TV, while entertaining, has glorified behavior that society has historically kept hidden.

The cheaters, the liars, the villains all get outsized airtime. They drive the narratives. The clicks. They get the biggest checks. There is now an entire pathway to sustainable wealth that starts with doing something infamous on a reality TV show. And admittedly, they could be trying hard at getting attention but that’s beside the point.

Third, the internet has made power laws visible. Building with bits has decreased the perceived timeline for wealth creation.

You can go from nothing to extreme wealth and fame in a small amount of time. Overnight success actually happens now. There are get-rich-quick schemes that aren’t schemes.

The internet is magic and participating in it can be life-changing. But that doesn’t mean it’s good for society. It might just be good for you.

Relatedly, the internet never forgets. If you do something embarrassing, there will always be someone to remind you of it. The internet keeps receipts. And this makes it so that if you try hard and fail, your failure is on display for everyone–possibly forever. So why even try?

Fourth, every millennial has been told they’re special and all they need to do is be themselves and they’ll be successful. In the spirit of developing healthy, confident kids, many people have been coddled to believe that results come inherently and not as a result of effort and focus.

(Weirdly, with AI, people’s humanity and uniqueness is actually a competitive advantage. So this isn’t the worst advice, but it’s only part of the story.)

Fifth, search and AI have made everyone feel like an expert. Years of expertise is summarized in seconds. Information is at everyone’s fingertips.

The illusion of knowledge is more dangerous than ever. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to Google or ChatGPT the “answer” to something and regurgitate that. Knowing something and knowing the name of something are two very different things. One comes from surface-level learning. The other is hard-won, more intuitive, and usually more right.

Some people in high places have gotten there in unsavory ways, sometimes riding the combination of trends above to fame.

Who do we know used reality TV, the internet, impulsive use of social media, and an elevated sense of self to become powerful? See. I don’t even need to say a name and the point is made. Society, at the highest level, has rewarded the people who understood what society rewards at a great cost.

No one thinks earnest hard work over a long period of time is the only path to success. Why try when, presumably, others have accomplished the same or more without trying? That’s lame.

When people stop trying, society hollows out.

Healthy societies persist as a result of dedicated people maintaining and building them over long periods of time. Sometimes they even make long-term decisions for a future they’ll never benefit from. That’s hard work.

When trying hard isn’t valorized, it removes people’s incentive to do hard but worthwhile things. Why keep a job through the hard parts to get to the good parts? Why do effortful reading when you can watch a YouTube summary? Why exercise when you can just take a drug?

Society becomes about shortcuts. And as we all know, most of the things that are truly good can’t be short-circuited.

You can’t grow a tree in hours or months. You can’t birth a baby in weeks. You can’t become a good writer without doing lots of hard reading and writing. You can’t become a world-class chef without years of toil. Almost everything worth doing takes effort and time.

The more we reward people who take shortcuts, the worse off we all are.

I believe in the power of free markets and the need to let them do their magic, most of the time. When they aren’t leading to outcomes society explicitly wants, we should use other means to keep them on track.

Yes, everyone wants to watch the train-wreck reality TV show. And there’s a place for that. But no, we shouldn’t glamorize these sorts of things by continuing to put them on bigger and bigger institutional platforms.

In the past few years, I’ve loved when people build things in public. Not only is it great for transparency’s sake, but also as evidence of what it takes. But I don’t think building in public goes far enough. Usually it’s surface level and shows all the fun parts of building that creators think others want to see.

What I’d love to see is more people showing their work AND showing their effort.

Proof of effort shows society that there was a price paid. It shows people that things don’t just happen. They take time and care.

Effort tells people the truth: yes, you can do it. No, it’s not easy. But if you try, a lot is possible.