In the non-sucky parts of the real world, you don't have to give really long answers to questions or risk losing points. So treat this as a hack you … - Paul Graham

To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire.

Adults lie constantly to kids. I’m not saying we should stop, but I think we should at least examine which lies we tell and why. [...]

A lot of the things adults conceal from smaller children, they conceal because they’d be frightening, not because they want to conceal the existence of such things. Misleading the child is just a byproduct.

This seems one of the most justifiable types of lying adults do to kids. But because the lies are indirect we don’t keep a very strict accounting of them. Parents know they’ve concealed the facts about sex, and many at some point sit their kids down and explain more. But few tell their kids about the differences between the real world and the cocoon they grew up in. Combine this with the confidence parents try to instill in their kids, and every year you get a new crop of 18 year olds who think they know how to run the world.

In England, at least, corruption only became unfashionable (and in fact only started to be called “corruption”) when there started to be other, faster ways to get rich.