I think cruel is when you fail to acknowledge the deck is stacked against the person. A millionaire telling someone they are poor because they are spending som

I think cruel is when you fail to acknowledge the deck is stacked against the person. A millionaire telling someone they are poor because they are spending some of their money on comforts is, at the very least, tone deaf. I can see calling it cruel. TFA just points out that the opposite tack (It's all society's fault so I'm screwed no matter what I do), is also not helpful. Also (IMO; not sure if author of TFA would agree with me) the "lazy pessimism" is at least partly a push-back against "cruel optimism." If the optimism were paired with more empathy, then lazy pessimism wouldn't be the obvious alternative.