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Comment by gandalfian | Hacker News Reader

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psych...

Are rich people heartless? 22 NOVEMBER 2019|HUMANITY According to Christopher Ryan, rich people have the tendency to separate themselves from the rest of the world

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*have the means. The desire is probably much more spread among the population.

Once I saw the title of that video I knew they were all nonsense. What an inhumane thing to say, as if how hard you work has anything to do with what kind of person you are. Is there a certain net worth where you cross a line and no longer have a heart? The problem is not inequality, it's poverty.

Rich people are not rich solely because of how hard they worked. THAT is an inhumane thing to say, as if poverty would vanish tomorrow if only the downtrodden masses put in a little effort.

In first world countries yes, the harder you work the more money you make. Especially true over longer periods of time because of the compounding value of hard work.

That is absurd. You could work yourself to death scrubbing dishes and it will never match the returns of inheriting a fortune from your parents. You do not live in a world where wealth is meritocratically distributed.

People are not stupid. No one working a low-skilled, low-wage job is confused about why they don't have more money.

That is not really the whole story, though. My wife and I (self-employed) work around two days a week each and make about as much as other couples where both people work full-time 50+ hour weeks (inc. commute) in professional jobs. We used to work 3-4 days a week and made about 30% less money.

I'm assuming that you're comfortable incomes come from high skilled work, or at least work that is highly valuable. You may no longer be working as much now to earn the same, but you had to put years of hard work in to get there, most likely.

> In first world countries yes, the harder you work the more money you make. Especially true over longer periods of time because of the compounding value of hard work.

This is so unbelievably incorrect that I struggle to put words to it.

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