I get the schadenfreude. I used to dismiss the suffering of people who were “beyond” the survival levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. This changed for me when I read that Peter Singer himself focuses on influencing survival-level needs for those in poverty because they are more immediate and are more quantifiable.

He said something like, “Well-off people suffer, of course, but those types of suffering are more difficult to measure and entail interventions beyond vaccines or food distribution. I don’t focus on those types of suffering because there so much of the basic kind and also because it’s too hard of a problem.”

When I segmented suffering by the individuals’ place on Maslow’s hierarchy, it helped me develop more compassion for the rich than is in vogue. “Oh, that guy driving that Lamborghini isn’t hungry, but he might be the loneliest person I’ve ever met.”