American culture seems to be rife with men who went to the Marines and after being discharged of duty went on to either lead successful lives or who’s life took a turn for the worse and ended up on the street.
Of c, the two groups are not equal in numbers and the third much larger group lies in between these two groups. Now, I still am interested in the disparity between the extremes. Why do some people who join the Marines go on to create an over represent the Marines amount the successful, while others end up on the street? They are all given a clean slate somewhat and are exposed to the exact same environment, what do the successful learn which the unsuccessful don’t?
Sample bias. Any advertising, campaigning, fawning and celebrating are the exceptions. You are exposed to the “success stories” exponentially more through media thanks to government and corporate forces despite the successes being exponentially rarer than the failures: suicides, mental health disorders, divorces, denied medical care by VA, insufficiency of college fund programs, underemployment, etc. The coverage Success Stories get as the 1% or whatever, dwarfs the failures which are the 99%. This reversed representation explains why they may be perceived as equally likely, which is confusing.
The answer is sample bias; deliberately misleading. After all, who is going to sign up if they could see reality represented? Most would just work fast food–same crappy outcomes, fewer bullets.