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I've worked with and lived around both poor and relatively rich people, but I can't say that the rich stand out as lacking empathy or compassion specifically. F

I've worked with and lived around both poor and relatively rich people, but I can't say that the rich stand out as lacking empathy or compassion specifically. From my experience I would say the opposite is true, creating "anti network-effects" for many poor people. There seems to be growing resentment of "the rich" recently, but I believe that's misplaced. Things will get worse for "the poor" until the cause is diagnosed correctly.

ansible 6y ago
I don't know that the rich are above-average in lacking empathy or compassion. Though there does seem to be a correlation between wealth and ruthlessness, which isn't exactly the same thing. However, when we see bad behavior from the rich, like the Koch brothers, their wealth amplifies the bad behavior and it seems to have an outsized effect upon the world.
- brokenkebab 6y ago
  >correlation between wealth and ruthlessness Any numbers to support this? Or you just believe so?
  - ansible 6y ago
    How many billionaires can I name that fit the label "ruthless"? How many are there that don't? Maybe not Gates, but Steve Ballmer. Larry fricken' Ellison. Terry and TC Gou. Koch Brothers. Musk & Bezos. The list goes on and on.
TomSwirly 6y ago
Judge people by their overall actions. The top richest Americans have sucked out all the extra value created in society for the last two generations, while offloading a great deal of risk onto individuals, who are the least likely to be able to bear it. Overall, we are in the process of destroying our ecosystem, and again, the richest people on the planet consume and waste literally _orders of magnitude_ more than the poorest. You having met some rich people who are also nice is just an anecdote.
- dschuler 6y ago
  Well, if you want to resent rich people for being rich, that's your prerogative, but I don't think there's much benefit in seeing it that way. You mentioned planet ecosystem and consumption, so let's use energy as an example. The richest people consume much more per capita than everyone else, but still represent a tiny fraction of overall usage. So no matter how you deal with the rich, it won't solve that problem. Meanwhile, everyone acts in their own self-interest, so you have developing nations increasing their per capita energy consumption as their standard of living increases, and overall energy use goes up. The planet doesn't know the difference in who used to energy and whether it was justified/deserving/whatever. The result is the same. So what's the solution? You could decrease wasteful consumption (commuting, global shipping as labor arbitrage) and you can change how energy is generated (i.e. renewables), which you could lump into political and technological changes. The easiest way to do either is to align people's incentives so they'll naturally drive those changes, since again people act in their own self-interest. Some rich people will lose out in that transition and try to oppose changes, others will benefit and try to further them, but the net effect isn't necessarily negative. And of course energy use is just one example here. So these problems are kind of orthogonal to how you feel about rich people, meaning that if you let yourself get distracted with that, you'll have little impact.
alisonatwork 6y ago
There have been some studies done on this (for example [0] and [1]) and it does seem that wealthy people are less compassionate. Anecdotally my experience aligns with the findings in the studies - my richer friends seem far less likely to tip well or give money to a panhandler than my poorer friends who tend to be more inclined to share the wealth, when they have it. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce... [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973533.2018.1463225?journalCode=hbas20& https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973533.2018.14...

ansible 6y ago

I don't know that the rich are above-average in lacking empathy or compassion. Though there does seem to be a correlation between wealth and ruthlessness, which isn't exactly the same thing. However, when we see bad behavior from the rich, like the Koch brothers, their wealth amplifies the bad behavior and it seems to have an outsized effect upon the world.

brokenkebab 6y ago
>correlation between wealth and ruthlessness Any numbers to support this? Or you just believe so?
- ansible 6y ago
  How many billionaires can I name that fit the label "ruthless"? How many are there that don't? Maybe not Gates, but Steve Ballmer. Larry fricken' Ellison. Terry and TC Gou. Koch Brothers. Musk & Bezos. The list goes on and on.

TomSwirly 6y ago

Judge people by their overall actions. The top richest Americans have sucked out all the extra value created in society for the last two generations, while offloading a great deal of risk onto individuals, who are the least likely to be able to bear it. Overall, we are in the process of destroying our ecosystem, and again, the richest people on the planet consume and waste literally _orders of magnitude_ more than the poorest. You having met some rich people who are also nice is just an anecdote.

dschuler 6y ago
Well, if you want to resent rich people for being rich, that's your prerogative, but I don't think there's much benefit in seeing it that way. You mentioned planet ecosystem and consumption, so let's use energy as an example. The richest people consume much more per capita than everyone else, but still represent a tiny fraction of overall usage. So no matter how you deal with the rich, it won't solve that problem. Meanwhile, everyone acts in their own self-interest, so you have developing nations increasing their per capita energy consumption as their standard of living increases, and overall energy use goes up. The planet doesn't know the difference in who used to energy and whether it was justified/deserving/whatever. The result is the same. So what's the solution? You could decrease wasteful consumption (commuting, global shipping as labor arbitrage) and you can change how energy is generated (i.e. renewables), which you could lump into political and technological changes. The easiest way to do either is to align people's incentives so they'll naturally drive those changes, since again people act in their own self-interest. Some rich people will lose out in that transition and try to oppose changes, others will benefit and try to further them, but the net effect isn't necessarily negative. And of course energy use is just one example here. So these problems are kind of orthogonal to how you feel about rich people, meaning that if you let yourself get distracted with that, you'll have little impact.

alisonatwork 6y ago

There have been some studies done on this (for example [0] and [1]) and it does seem that wealthy people are less compassionate. Anecdotally my experience aligns with the findings in the studies - my richer friends seem far less likely to tip well or give money to a panhandler than my poorer friends who tend to be more inclined to share the wealth, when they have it. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce... [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973533.2018.1463225?journalCode=hbas20& https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973533.2018.14...