How can you tell if someone is kind? Ask how rich they are

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/21/how-can-you-tell-if-someone-is-kind-ask-how-rich-they-are

by davesque • 10 years ago

104 133 10 years ago

davesque• 10 years ago

tl;dr Wealth has a measurable effect on empathy. Individual stories and exposure to lower-income people can still compel wealthy people to be more generous in spite of this effect.

dkarl• 10 years ago

Empathy does not seem to be an involuntary ability like eyesight or smell. We smell regardless of the circumstances, but empathy can be keen or absent. Empathy for someone seems to come naturally to the extent that they can be helpful or loyal to us, and it requires discipline to extend our empathy to those who are useless or opposed to us.

It is interesting that the ability for someone to be a powerful force in our lives does not naturally elicit empathy for them. It suggests that we suppress empathy when we anticipate the need to act aggressively towards someone. Empathy for our enemies could be very valuable except that it might make us hesitate to hurt or kill them. We can see this in the U.S. elections right now, when both sides encourage us to believe that the motivations of the other side's voters are either inscrutable or malevolent.

bubo_bubo2• 10 years ago

Empathy does not seem to be an involuntary ability like eyesight or smell.

But my wife has accused me of selective hearing...

/rimshot

I'm here all week. Try the veal.

pessimizer• 10 years ago

Empathy isn't a sense, it's derivative from the senses and works by analogy with one's self. When what you sense from others seems similar to what you imagine others sense from you, by analogy you imagine that they have a similar inner life to you. The more difference from how you imagine that others would sense you, the more different you imagine their inner life to be from yours. When you see them to be similar to you, but more perfect in your opinion, you imagine that their inner life is more perfected than yours. If you see them as less contrived; less put together, you see their thought process as more honest, or more grounded than yours. If you see them as dirty or sloppy, you imagine their thoughts to be more perverse or more slipshod. If their movements or speech are slower than yours, you imagine them to be more stupid or more careful than you are.

It's the search for souls in other people, required to decide whether they feel pain in the same way that you do. You can never confirm that other people have souls and feel pain, it's a leap of faith that you have to make - what Hobbes would call a covenant - a unilateral agreement that you make with others without their participation in the hope that your good faith will lead them to reciprocate.

It's best if we just assume that everyone else is just like ourselves, and reserve our distrust for people that try to tell us otherwise.

yummyfajitas3• 10 years ago

Empathy is a catch-all phrase describing two separate concepts, and the psychological literature is careful to distinguish them:

Cognitive empathy is the ability to know what others are feeling. Affective empathy is when cognitive empathy causes you to have similar feelings to others.

It's best if we just assume that everyone else is just like ourselves, and reserve our distrust for people that try to tell us otherwise.

No, this is the typical mind fallacy, where we assume our mind is typical. It'll fail you wildly if you leave your local culture.

ars• 10 years ago

This is hardly surprising.

The rich person: "What's $5 for a tip? It's nothing, so why bother."

The poor person: "$5? That's a lot, and I can afford it, so let me give it."

Basically rich people value money less, and it doesn't occur to them that giving small amounts can still help people. And obviously it's not the custom to give large amounts as a tip.

pmoriarty• 10 years ago

  A bone to the dog is not charity. ...
  Charity is the bone shared with the dog,
  when you are just as hungry as the dog.

            -- Jack London

scottjad• 10 years ago

Luke 21:4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.

projektir4• 10 years ago

Rich people value money more, and compared to them, depending on how rich they are, effectively everyone needs it more. And they know if they start giving money away to everyone that needs it more they'll run out of it pretty quickly.

Poor people don't realize the predicament they're in and give away their money because they think someone needs it more, yet they're at a very high risk of becoming someone who cannot live independently and then needs to go find another source of charity to support them. This does not scale well. I understand why it happens but it's not something we should be raising to a level of sainthood.

The need for charity is a symptom of a dysfunctional social system and people falling through the cracks. There shouldn't be any mothers earning 19k in the first place. Giving them $5 doesn't fix anything, because you know there are a few million more of them and when you really want to change things it's really not enough and you need to attack it at the higher level.

_0ffh2• 10 years ago

How does that apply to tipping? You eating out at millions of places every week? Also, tipping is not charity, it is recognition of work well done.

hsitz• 10 years ago

The title of this piece seems misleading to me, and an example of how many people misunderstand statistics. I haven't seen any of the studies referred to, but I'm sure they don't establish a connection between wealth and empathy as strong as the one suggested. More likely, they show that rich people, on average, tend to have less empathy than less-rich people. But surely some very rich people have great empathy and some very poor people have very little empathy. And all combinations in between, even if, on average, greater wealth tends to correlate with less empathy.

The point above, I'm sure, is obvious to most people reading HN. But certainly not to everyone, especially people with poor understanding of statistics. So it bothers me that the title seems calculated to increase the likelihood of misunderstanding. Okay, rant over.

projektir4• 10 years ago

There seems to be a glaring problem in statistics in general that large scale statistics may completely hide small group effects. I.e., if there is something that really benefits from X for 5%, but doesn't benefit from X for 95%, statistics will make it look like it doesn't benefit anybody. Yet that 5% group may absolutely be relevant. This always sits in the back of my head when I read things like: "Children are not influenced by their parents but by their peers", or "twin study proves this".

But I haven't seen this discussed much or brought up, even though it sounds a lot like what you're saying. Is this relevant? Is there a name for this? Is there some reason as to why I shouldn't worry about this that I'm missing?

bubo_bubo2• 10 years ago

When you buy a BMW, you have an extra asshole installed.

/snark

But seriously, in my early 20s I did land surveying. I found that the richer the neighborhood, the nastier the neighbors were. I've had people be rude to me because they think "something is up" when we were simply trying to document how one neighbor can buy 6 inches from another to make a legal setback for a garage. And then I've had just random people offer me coffee on a chilly morning. I'll let you guess which was the upscale and which was the working class neighborhood.

derekp7• 10 years ago

There is also a big difference between old money and new money. And hard-earned money vs. inherited money.

My dad used to deliver furniture as a side job for a local upholstery shop. Most of the clients had money, but some were rude while others (esp. the "old hard earned money" types) were extremely friendly.

Mz4• 10 years ago

I am sure it doesn't help that plenty of people say ugly things like "eat the rich." Plenty of rich folks "have dozens of friends and the fun never ends -- that is, as long as they're buying." If you know all the people around you would not hesitate to sell you out and only have any so-called respect whatsoever because you have money and power, it isn't like you are getting any empathy.

That shit cuts both ways.

AvenueIngres2• 10 years ago

I live in an old-money, hard earned neighborhood. People are a marvel: Respectful, polite, kind and always willing to assist if they can.

imgabe• 10 years ago

Alternate theory: being less empathetic makes it more likely you'll get rich

gjolund2• 10 years ago

You must work in finance.

Mz4• 10 years ago

I said essentially the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12771478

I most assuredly do not work in finance.

logicallee• 10 years ago

I don't work in finance but it's a common enough conclusion to draw. It's not hard to agree with your parent comment.

jondubois3• 10 years ago

I think that's true. Rich people are often jerks.

People are nicer to you if you're a jerk (I say this from my personal experience having being both a nice guy and a jerk).

No one respects nice people.

Nice people don't get promoted, they don't get funding, they just don't get invited places.

rokhayakebe2• 10 years ago

Can you please expand on this: People are nicer to you if you're a jerk?

xenadu02• 10 years ago

People are nicer to you if you're a jerk No one respects nice people. Nice people don't get promoted, they don't get funding, they just don't get invited places.

That hasn't been my experience. Being a jerk can only get you so far and makes people much less inclined to help you.

Building consensus, being friendly, doing favors to build good-will works wonders.

Perhaps you and I are using different definitions of "nice" and "jerk"? Being nice doesn't mean being a doormat, nor does it mean hiding your true feelings and failing to set boundaries. Perhaps you are mistaking "jerk" for confidence? You can be very confident without being an asshole.

rifung• 10 years ago

They talked about this in the article

"But it is beginning to seem that the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability that gives them a market edge. The problem is caused by the inequality itself: It triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains."

Mz4• 10 years ago

AKA you don't have to be a callous jackass to get rich and stay rich, but it probably helps.

oldmanjay• 10 years ago

I'm not sure I believe any politically convenient social science anymore.

adiabatty• 10 years ago

I'd wait for a bunch of other studies that back this up, or fail to.

The trouble is that there may be loads of studies that find the opposite, but they are more likely to be stuffed in a file drawer somewhere because they contradict what we'd like to believe is true.

crdoconnor• 10 years ago

Yeah, the media always passes on opportunities to lionize the rich and powerful. /s

mgleason_3• 10 years ago

Has "Rich" become the new quasi-racial slur - with studies to show that the Rich are genetically stupid, greedy and now mean.

Does the story really not link to even one "Study"? If the studies exists, are they pier reviewed?

What happened to the Washington post? Didn't they report news at one point?

cokernel• 10 years ago

The article links to multiple studies, for example:

* Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/11/1716

* Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086.full

* The Psychological Consequences of Money: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5802/1154

* Social status modulates neural activity in the mentalizing network: https://keelyamuscatell.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/muscatel... (from NeuroImage)

* Noblesse Oblige? Social Status and Economic Inequality Maintenance among Politicians: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

* Having Less, Giving More: The Influence of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior: http://www.krauslab.com/SESprosocialJPSP.2010.pdf (from J. Pers. Soc. Psych.)

* Class and Compassion: Socioeconomic Factors Predict Responses to Suffering: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4MZvkUMsuJ_dmtEZUxOaFJZaFU... (from Emotion)

I omitted the study in the Chronicle of Philanthropy from this list because I couldn't find the actual data.

mark_edward• 10 years ago

The poor rich so maligned and oppressed by society. At least they can afford to buy the world's tiniest violin.

Applejinx3• 10 years ago

Not genetically, surely. I'd think that has nothing to do with it. Stupid to the extent that they can be incurious and rely on their stored capital to avoid intellectually difficult problems, greedy as a self-selecting behavior, and mean because that appears to be an epiphenomenon: no direct mechanism by which wealth makes you a jerk, but a whole spectrum of associations and conditions which make being a rich jerk by far the most comfortable thing to be.

I'm not sure if it counts as a slur. To a rich person, isn't 'poor' the real slur? Surely meanness is sort of orthoganal to what being rich is about, or even helpful?

Also, I'm not sure this alone is harmful to society. If we acknowledge the very rich are evil jerks by nature, all that really means is 'maybe we shouldn't listen to them on moral topics' and 'maybe their opinions on how to run society are not trustworthy, because they're evil jerks by nature and will disproportionately favor themselves even when taking a larger view would be advantageous'.

Just don't let them write the tax code, and they can be evil all they like, perhaps to their neighbors or social inferiors :)

projektir4• 10 years ago

I would be suspicious of the correlation was really so straight. There are a lot of complicated factors around why one might be nice or not nice and in my experience it hasn't been anywhere near this simple.

As an example, people who had hard lives often become hard themselves, and that may make their conduct worse. People in countries where things are not going well are not exactly super duper nice. People also tend to treat different people differently, so they may be nice to one group and not nice at all to another group. People may especially be not nice to a group if they perceive that group as a threat.

A lot of the definitions here seem rather tailored. Giving large tips is not really the information I'd use to determine whether or not someone was nice, especially since this gets layered on top of social signaling in a specific culture. Generally, things like giving money, donating to charity, etc., may be viewed as shallow level contributions by the rich and they'd rather do something they perceive as more significant, such as lobbying or starting a company.

Some of this reminds me a bit of accusing meat eaters of animal cruelty. Meat eaters didn't invent it, even if they're receptors of the end product. There are some meat eaters that promote animal cruelty directly, though, and there are also systems that promote it, and those should be the subject of scorn.

I'm sure there are empathy gaps because people don't share experiences. But a person is not evil if they simply don't support those less fortunate, or if they don't understand them. That's just an empathy gap, and people are generally quite bad at relating to experiences they don't have in general, in both directions. A person needs to actually be doing bad things to be classified as bad.

lucio• 10 years ago

really? all rich people are jerks?

Any article claiming all $x are (not nice|$y) will be marked as classist|sexist|racist.

Let's talk about double-standards.

rokhayakebe2• 10 years ago

I used to be a bartender and that makes me a good tipper I think knowing what they have to go through. Also I feel like giving back.

adrianratnapala3• 10 years ago

I'm Australian, and most Aussies will tell you that Australia is a no-tipping society.

But the waiters and bartenders I've known don't beleive this.

notyourwork• 10 years ago

Americans gave nearly $1 billion more to the approximately 3,000 victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks than they gave to victims of the South Asian tsunami three years later, even though the latter tragedy killed more than a quarter of a million people

Does anyone else find this conclusion unfair? I am not trying to down play what happened in Asia but American's uniting for their country isn't able to be compared to American's supporting crisis in other parts of the world. I suspect their conclusion is true but suggesting American's give less because of how much they donated to 9/11 versus a storm on the other side of the world isn't a fair comparison.

jaggederest2• 10 years ago

Objectively, a tragedy that killed 83 times as many people is deserving of at least the same funding as a local tragedy, I would hope.

That said, locality bias is a strong thing, and to some degree what makes us human. I don't find it to be critical, merely descriptive of the way people work.

enraged_camel3• 10 years ago

It's not about locality but about identity.

An American in San Diego is much more likely to contribute funding to aid disaster victims in New York than in Tijuana (which is only 20 miles away, but across the border).

foofoo55• 10 years ago

It's fair in the context of her statement:

We give more easily to the people and causes we see

All she is saying is that the amount of giving is correlated to the proximity, which you seem to agree with. It's just a statement, not a judgement.

briandear4• 10 years ago

I agree. How many rich Thais gave money to Katrina victims?

thekevan2• 10 years ago

I really wonder about the methods of this study.

In my area, in the fun, dirty and gritty part of the city is where there are dive bars, vape shops and crazy little variety stores and head shops, you have to have your head on a swivel when crossing the road to not be sideswiped by some rusted out Geo or Nissan with the tailpipe being held up by a coat hanger.

On the flip side, in our most affluent immediate suburb, people give you right of way constantly. Everyone stops for pedestrians, even if they had plenty of time to go anyway. I mean they are almost religious about it.

yummyfajitas3• 10 years ago

I don't know about driving offenses, but we can quantify other harmful behaviors. The poor are far more likely than the rich to deliberately do things that harm others - rob them, engage in violence, etc.

Economic motivation for crime is a possible confounder. But we can eliminate that confounder by examining crimes with no plausible economic motive: intimate partner violence, assaulting family members, rape. Poor people engage in these crimes at 4x the rates of others.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf

(Another interesting fact - contra Trump - is that poor Hispanics seem far less criminal than poor whites/blacks. This also contradicts popular left wing narratives - if poverty makes poor whites/blacks beat their wives via "stressors" or other mysterious phlogiston, why are Hispanics immune?)

jaggederest2• 10 years ago

(Another interesting fact - contra Trump - is that poor Hispanics seem far less criminal than poor whites/blacks. This also contradicts popular left wing narratives - if poverty makes poor whites/blacks beat their wives via "stressors" or other mysterious phlogiston, why are Hispanics immune?)

Presumably, within immediate memory they have a comparison available with "the old country" which makes a low-end existence in the US seem positively posh.

didgeoridoo2• 10 years ago

The obvious (not necessarily correct) answer is religion and community enforcement of norms. No idea if this is empirically defensible; maybe you'd need to compare north vs. south (and control for about a thousand other variables) to disaggregate the root causes from the noise.

I also wouldn't say that intimate partner crime, etc. has "no plausible economic motive"; the rich have far more to lose from a stint in prison, and so might be far less likely to commit these crimes. The "economic motive" is that impulse control prevents economic loss. This (again conjectural) thesis dovetails with the idea above; if it's not economic losses that scare you straight, it might be community/church pressure that does so.

projektir4• 10 years ago

I think you're conflating terms here.

The left wing narrative is closer to saying that growing up poor in a given country is likely to generate heavy stressors. And I think this is correct, because growing up poor in a country implies that your family is very low status, which is all sorts of bad from all sorts of sides.

The people immigrating to your country are probably not very low status in their country, as they had enough mobility to immigrate, OR growing up low-status in their country had different effects. I don't know enough about Hispanics to say much, but I think family structure and philosophy may be factors.

There's also a difference between having no money and having a potato yard and some goats and having no money. Poor Americans often literally have nothing - no money, no food, no parents, no education, no philosophy, etc. In other places, the amount of money you have doesn't correlate so obviously, so when you immigrate, a lot of stuff sticks around, even if it's invisible in the simplistic model of money=success, especially given that immigration itself often gives you an arbitrary pay cut that may take a while to compensate.

You can move to the US, and lose your certification to be a doctor because your degree doesn't count in the US, but that doesn't make everything leading up to you becoming a doctor magically evaporate.

sgt101• 10 years ago

I believe that poor people are more likely to receive very long sentances in the US justice system. This is because if a middle class kid commits a crime their family will hire a lawyer and ensure proper process at least. So it seems to me that in the USA poverty is a predictor for disrupted family life, it is more likely that your mum or dad will be removed from your family for a prolonged period if you are poor even given a similar propensity for criminality in your group. Given that a family is disrupted in this way is it any wonder that decision making capability is then further damaged - producing a depressing spiral down?

erikpukinskis2• 10 years ago

You didn't quite complete that sentence and it changes the meaning quite a bit:

The poor are far more likely than the rich to be arrested and prosecuted for deliberately doing things that harm others

hossbeast• 10 years ago

The whole concept of tipping is broken and needs to be done away with. The restaurant in the story should be charging the customers more than $11, so that it can pay its staff properly.

JumpCrisscross• 10 years ago

I like tipping. When I have great service, I tip 25%+. When it's terrible I have two times tipped zero. Employers must pay minimum wage. If a tipped employee isn't being made up their wages up to the minimum I will (and have) happily supported their contacting the appropriate authorities.

European service, in contrast, is terrible. I've similarly found myself avoiding no-tip restaurants in New York - their service is noticeably worse.

And why wouldn't it be? If you are a good server, you pull a multiple of the minimum wage. Only your inferiors would prefer a guaranteed lower tier. Hence, self selection.

dagw• 10 years ago

European service, in contrast, is terrible.

Very much disagree (with obviously lots of caveats and exceptions). European service is very reserved, minimal and spends most of the time being completely invisible, except those few moments when I actually need it. They rarely volunteer information, but are extremely knowledgeable when asked.

US service is loud, annoying and in my face. They prattle on endlessly about this and that, show up constantly to try to make small talk, and never seem to be able to just leave the customer alone. Service staff in the US also feel more, if not inexperienced, then at least new to this particular job and I always get the feeling they've all just worked at the place for at most a couple of weeks. They've got scripts they've memorised, but they seem far less likely to have any deeper knowledge of what they're serving.

What I will agree with is that the worst service I've had in Europe is worse than the worst service I've had in the US. Working for tips forces everyone to get to a minimum level.

ac29• 10 years ago

Not sure why you were downvoted, but some states allow paying wait staff less than minimum wage. What most needs to change is not allowing sub-minimum wage jobs subsidized by tips.

For people who live in California, FYI, wait staff is required to be paid minimum wage, which can not have tips counted against it.

vinay427• 10 years ago

No, "some states" do not allow for paying wait staff less than minimum wage after tips. The federal minimum wage in theory enforces this. It's rather misleading to point out that they might be making less than minimum wage without tips, especially when the average hourly wage after tips is well above the average minimum wage at $11.82.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_Stat...

danieltillett• 10 years ago

Yep. If the person was really empathic they would go out the back and tip the busboy and dishwasher.

Tipping needs to die.

arjie3• 10 years ago

I have a pet theory that restaurants are implicitly subsidised by everyone. Here's the prospective chain:

* Restaurant pays servers minimum wage

* Servers make more than that via tips

* Servers do not report tips (maybe past some threshold, let's say min wage) on taxes since they receive them in cash

* Restaurant pays payroll taxes on minimum wage, servers pay income tax on minimum wage

* The remainder that the server keeps and the lowered payroll tax comprise the subsidy.

If the restaurant had to keep server pay constant, it has to compensate for the tips and the income tax on the tips, and it has to pay increased payroll tax on the rest. Not doing this is highly advantageous to every party here except the taxpayer. And the taxpayer doesn't care about the few microcents on the dollar.

I still tip because that's just how things work here, of course.

drakonandor• 10 years ago

- some knucklehead waiter applies for government assistance he is entitled for on paper, but doesn't actually need (e.g. food stamps, full pell grant, welfare? whatever)

- every news station in the country runs an article about how your business relies on government handouts

code_sardaukar• 10 years ago

It's only natural to feel more empathy for people in situations we've been in, but this isn't the entirety of morality. I've never been a cow but I go out of my way to avoid causing suffering to cows and other animals.

Rich people haven't necessarily experienced much hardship, so they need to have a more abstract kind of empathy, but this doesn't make them worse people. Indeed, if a rich person felt that had done enough by paying taxes, I wouldn't blame them. From a utilitarian perspective, I would rather have another person who pays $100,000 in taxes and gives $0 to charity than someone who pays $20,000 in taxes and gives $1,000 to charity.

todd8• 10 years ago

For an interesting contrast, see Who Really Gives? Partisanship and Charitable Giving in the United States, by two political scientists at MIT [1]. The results there surprised me, for example, there is a positive correlation between the states that voted for Bush in 2004 and charitable giving.

Also from the conclusion "Although previous research indicates that conservatism is a reliable proxy for identifying potential donors or donor communities, our results suggest that organizations would be better off simply targeting wealthier donors, regardless of political beliefs."

[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1100...

arjie3• 10 years ago

As this paper and others describe, the difference is almost entirely attributable to giving to religious causes, most notably the local church. I'm not going to say it's not charity to give to a thing that's a charity, but if the cause is evangelizing Christianity, then that's not the same as giving some poor kid food and education. Of course, the whole thing is confounded by the fact that the guy evangelizing is often also providing food and education, but without knowing the percentages it's hard to see if the numbers still line up when you subtract that cost.

akvadrako• 10 years ago

According to a well-researched article [1], in 2010 Catholic Chartities USA spent about 85% of it's $170 billion budget on health care and colleges.

Based on what I've seen in poorer countries, my personal take is they do provide high quality education and care without much overhead. The evangelising is mostly implicit and doesn't take many resources. More than anything, it provides a soft filter for who gets those services.

[1] http://www.economist.com/node/21560536

partycoder• 10 years ago

This video presents a study on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc

tajen6• 10 years ago

I've tried being generous (and still donate, probably more than all my coworkers together), and I still get pissed upon by leftists. Talk about empathy.

I live in France, my parents weren't even that rich, but we strive to work hard. Being motivated by good marks at school makes you bullied because you're a krelboyne. At work, as soon as colleagues learn you've been to a private high school and top college (both of which cost <$100/month and have active policies for lower income families), people come up to you and explain all the reasons why students from good schools aren't so good at work ("They don't have the grit", they say, "They aren't street-smart" – Happened to me 4 days ago again). A lot of citizen in France think it's fine to be jealous to someone because he was good at school, comes from a good background or is Christian. It would be ok if there weren't actual discrimination from people who want to offset the supposedly "easy life" you've had: The boss who bullied me in plain sight of everyone also was the only boss who had a shorter degree than I had.

I've donated thousands to charities. I've volunteered for immigrants, kids of immigrants, I've volunteered in detention centers, I've volunteered in free events aimed at lower-income families, and with a team we went to help an orphanage abroad. I've given more than a thousand hours of volunteering in 5 years, in parallel to my studies and work. I never expected a "thank you". But a little consideration and respect from the leftists would do. But my life is still considered like a result of sheer luck, not a result of my hard work.

The problem isn't the poor: They do need help. The problem is the leftists who give lessons. There's a non-stop cliche that, since you're rich, you're an asshole. Even if you are generous and litteraly more generous than them, they won't stop the hate. This article is one of them, generalizing about "riches are assholes".

All in all, living in France, taxes are supposed to provide support for the poor. I'm tempted to leave it at that and stop donating, because I need to focus on my life now (no gf, no kids yet). But somehow I keep donating.

briandear4• 10 years ago

I also live in France and I couldn't agree more. There's an implicit (and often explicit) hatred (on the left) of those that are more financially successful. There is also a social distrust of entrepreneurship and any activities that are higher risk, higher reward.

"The nail that sticks out gets hammered."

galfarragem2• 10 years ago

That's true on all left skewed countries, not just France. Southern Europe countries are a good example of such distortions.

trabant00• 10 years ago

I have a somewhat similar background. When I was young (<18) I used to feel guilty from time to time. I mean there is no denying that I got a head start by being in a family that could support me in school, pressure me into getting an eduction, etc.

But after a while I started noticing a pattern. The people that are into shaming me are the ones that never do anything, never get involved into anything, all they do is attack others to feel better about their lack of results. Somebody who wants to change the world for the better sees an asset in me. I am smart, educated, have financial stability, I have resources to help others and it pays to have me working by their side.

So now in my middle age I laugh at these original sin proponents. White guilt, middle class guilt, born into money, cis, heterosexual, etc, just endless emotional bullshit by drama queens who never accomplished anything. I work and produce results. They just wanna tear down everything that makes them feel weak without having anything to replace it with. The freaking internet would stop without people like me and they would have no facebook and salon to bitch on.

scalio2• 10 years ago

The internet's infrastructure is a good example of relatively rich people doing good for everybody. Our digital world is built on tech developed largely for free by people rich enough to be able to afford this unpaid labour. Nobody ever thanks them, yet they go on because work, not complaint, is the only way to make an actual difference.

Keep laughing! It's the only weapon against malevolent idiocy.

MicroBerto2• 10 years ago

I got a head start

You know we're nearly too far lost when even someone like you thinks you got a "head start" because you were simply parented. You probably didn't even realize how that guilt shined through into your comment!

My parents were/are awesome and I will NEVER apologize for it.

titzer• 10 years ago

I never expected a "thank you". But a little consideration and respect from the leftists would do.

Kudos. Have you ever done something nice that you haven't told anyone about? (and don't interpret that as a personal attack, it's a serious question.)

tajen6• 10 years ago

I almost never talk about all of this. Except the detention centers, it's so interesting and emotional that I often tell the stories. That's where I learnt about Christmas Island.

YeGoblynQueenne3• 10 years ago

It makes sense that you feel frustrated by criticism, but you should recognise the fact that if you were poor you'd feel frustrated also. The point of there being an imbalance of opportunity ("privilege" and lack thereof) is that some people benefit from it and others are taken advantage of.

It's only reasonable to expect that the ones who are taken advantage of will feel frustrated, regardless of any acts of redress offered as a compensation from those who benefit form the imbalance.

> The problem isn't the poor: They do need help.

I don't think that's the problem. I think the real problem is that in a society that values material wealth above all else, everybody wants to have more of it in order to be valued as a human being.

So the poor want to become rich and the rich want to become richer. You can't fix that with donations, unless you and everyone else who is some level of rich share your entire fortunes with everyone else... or unless the entire financial system changes radically and fundamentally (which will happen around the same time as pigs grow wings and fly away).

> The boss who bullied me in plain sight of everyone

I mean, I don't think you sound that rich even (not 30+ meter sailing yacht rich, say). It is definitely unacceptable for people to treat you badly, for whatever reason, not to mention your income. On the other hand, if you were that rich you wouldn't have to put up with them in the first place, so that's doubly wrong.

tajen6• 10 years ago

I think the real problem is that in a society that values material wealth above all else

Not sure that's true. There are tremendous movements of people valuing love over money. What we need is love. And since, personally, I'm unhappy and I'm constantly downplayed by a lot of people and I'm given a feeling of guilt (see: feminism, for example), then I'm obliged focus on fighting for my right to belong to society instead of fighting for others' right to belong to society.

I agree with the rest of your comments, and thank you for that kind and mindful last paragraph.

enraged_camel3• 10 years ago

>There's a non-stop cliche that, since you're rich, you're an asshole.

I don't know how rich you are exactly, but in my experience, beyond a certain threshold (noticeable among upper-middle class and above), there is a strong positive correlation between wealth and assholeness - or at least traits we generally associate with assholeness.

The correlation is indirect, though. Wealth is correlated with income, which is correlated with rank (e.g. higher in the org = higher salary), which in turn is correlated with strength of personality. Assholes tend to push others aside (and take credit for everything) to get promoted, and those at the top tend to demonstrate sociopathic tendencies such as yelling at or otherwise abusing underlings, and making rules and policies that fuck over others.

There are of course exceptions, but there is little doubt in my mind that the correlation is real.

tajen6• 10 years ago

There is a strong positive correlation between wealth and assholeness.

Then what's in it for me, rich person (In the hundreds of thousands of savings at 35, starting from $500 at 22), to give back or be kind?

Nothing, since you'll keep assuming I'm an asshole by default. That's the experience I give above: People who defend poor people are real assholes to richer ones, independently of their generosity or personal values. The only way you like a rich person is when they're not rich (even then you'll keep beating them until they're dead, because of their background).

It's the same mechanics at play that skews incentives when people live under prejudices, as when a racist says "All black people are thieves". Then all blacks are incentivized to steal, because the good person won't be recognized. Even if, in a parallel world, thieve proportions were true in statistics, it would still be wrong, because we can't afford leaving aside the hundreds of thousands of honest black people. We must give everyone a chance and treat them with equality.

Saying "all black people are thieves, there are exceptions but there's a strong correlation" is an unfair generalization, just as saying "There is a strong positive correlation between wealth and assholeness [...] there are of course exceptions, but there is little doubt that the correlation is real". Which are... the exact words you've said.

YeGoblynQueenne3• 10 years ago

> a private high school and top college (both of which cost <$100/month and have active policies for lower income families)

That's... very unfair.

Education is one of those things that exemplify privilege, because it's just so unequal, and dependent on income.

Offering positions to a top school to a few kids from poor neibhroughoods doesn't begin to address the fact that the vast majority of those positions are offered to kids with rich parents, often without any regard to their academic achievements. Where academic achievement is taken into account, the fact is often that the kids from the richer backgrounds are in a much better position to take advantage of the opportunity, because of their higher income.

For a personal example: I went to a private school, one of the "good" schools in my country of birth (Greece). This was thanks to my father's political connections, rather than his income. Pretty much all of my fellow students could afford extra-school teaching sessions, to help them with their grades. I didn't get any, because my father couldn't afford them, so my grades sucked throughout school.

This was compounded by the fact that many of my teachers also offered private tutoring, which tended to significantly boost the grades of the pupils who chose to take advantage of it. There is an obvious conflict of interest in having a private tutor who also grades your school work, but at least my dad's connections (I think he was owed some favour from the school's owner) ensured that I managed to finish school. I'm finishing a Master's now and preparing for a PhD, so I'm not complaining, I can do well in my life.

Still, I have many friends from similar, or poorer backgrounds who didn't have a dad with good connections and had it much harder than myself.

There's also the fact that kids from poorer backgrounds tend to suffer from problems that never trouble the richer kids. For example, all my friends from out of school did "drugs"- I mean they did stuff like sniff gasoline etc. Needless to say this did not help their job prospects much. Is that income dependent- you betcha my rich fellow students, if they ever did drugs, would get the good stuff, not glue and gasoline.

Again, I dont' think that's something you can fix with donations. The problem is that a very large number of kids from poor families simplly fail to find their way in higher education, or employment, that matches their level of ability and get into situations that the rich kids simply never find themselves in. Some get lucky and benefit from support programmes, but the majority do not. That is a great injustice and it makes sense that people are frustrated about it.

And, again, while donations and philanthropy help, things will not change significantly unless we find some fundamental way to address inequality- which is very unlikely.

tajen6• 10 years ago

You don't get it. At ~1000$/yr, it's almost free, independently of your background, and admission is based on good grades at high school. We do get factory worker's children in the main admission, proof that it's possible. And in addition to that, there are more seats offered to people with low income and average grades at school. Concerning extra-school teaching sessions, nobody takes any, so money won't be a discrimination factor. Concerning housing, if your income is low, the on-campus housing is free, the subscription fee is reduced and they get pocket money. What could we do more?

Society can only ensure:

- Poor people => treated with humanity,

- People who work, independently of their background => be rewarded.

You betcha my rich fellow students, if they ever did drugs, would get the good stuff, not glue and gasoline.

For those who decided to smoke gasoline, who decided be a high-school shoplifter for fun, or decided to mug other students, then a hospital is the most that Republic can give them, not higher education. Life's what you make it, and society can't offset your own will.

besselheim• 10 years ago

Yet, aren't you also applying similar stereotypes to "leftists" here? Not everyone with a left-wing political outlook has the attitude you have described.

MicroBerto2• 10 years ago

It might be time to redefine "leftist" at this point. What is so "left" about being intolerant?

To me it seems more like class warfare, and sides are being chosen amongst the elites, the ultra poor, and those of us stuck in the middle.

You, unfortunately seem to them like an elite but behave like a traditional conservative, which gets you nothing but hatred from all angles. I'm sorry about this and hope you keep doing and preaching what you believe in.

xupybd• 10 years ago

There are elements in the far left, very outspoken elements that are very intolerant. It's not something that is inherently left, but it's become the public face of the left to all of those who have different views.

The right has similar issues, you mention you are right and you get pegged with the climate change deniers and everyone assumes you think the poor are poor because they are lazy. This is not what most in the right think but it is what gets the most press.

ionised3• 10 years ago

What is so "left" about being intolerant?

Nothing. It's utterly meaningless and just a way to define an 'us' and a 'them'.

ionised3• 10 years ago

Maybe stop labelling people 'leftists' and thinking of the world in a black and white, tribal, left versus right 'us versus them' way.

That doesn't help anybody.

nitwit005• 10 years ago

Some of the examples made me wonder if only the most empathetic poor would agree to participate in a study.

cperciva• 10 years ago

Talk about stereotyping! This headline is no better than "how can you tell if someone is a criminal? Look at their skin colour".

Correlations in large populations do not mean that every individual shares the identified characteristics. I find it absolutely shocking that a paper at the level of the Washington Post would publish such drivel.

rhaps0dy• 10 years ago

It's exactly a stereotype. AKA weak bayesian evidence for a characteristic based on other, easier to measure, characteristics.

EDIT: I thought the result was going to be exactly the opposite before I made this comment. My first impulse was to go and delete it. I'll leave figuring out implications of such biases in reasoning as an exercise to the reader :(

uola2• 10 years ago

Socioeconomic status is an important factor in how we behave. The argument here is that people with more money are less kind because having more money makes them less kind. Unless you're making a specific argument were someones skin color is the prime factor in making someone more criminal that statement isn't factually correct. So no, it's not the same thing, but your frequent rhetorical outrage is noted.

kahirsch• 10 years ago

Rich people are also taller than poor people, on average, but how silly would it be to write "How can you tell if someone is tall? Ask how rich they are."

The research is about average differences in people's empathy correlated with their education and socioeconomic status.

The headline is talking about judging individuals based on their socioeconomic status.

musha68k• 10 years ago

Have you read the whole article?

galfarragem2• 10 years ago

I think it goes both sides: the richest and the poorest neighborhoods are the nastier. They will segregate/bully who doesn't match their lifestyle.

briandear4• 10 years ago

I might anecdotally argue that the upper-middle 'near-rich' neighborhoods are 'nastier' than the more upper class 'rich' neighborhoods-- perhaps the 'almost rich' have more insecurity than the comfortably rich. Just an observation from personal experience.

user5994461• 10 years ago

What is poor? What is rich?

Is being poor when you can only get one iPhone per children... but cannot replace one when it accidentally falls down and break after 6 months?

Tomte• 10 years ago

I think another aspect might play a role: when you're well-off, but not obscenely rich, you're probably risk-averse. You don't want to end up in the lower-class, dependent on other peoples' charity, so you're holding your money together.

When you're already within reach of that you're more likely top end up there, but the difference isn't as stark.

bachmeier• 10 years ago

Does anyone have a two sentence summary? I am not a subscriber so I'm blocked from reading the story, and clicking the "web" link doesn't help.

rosstex• 10 years ago

I was having this problem, but it turns out my ad blocker (uBlock Origin) had the "Anti-Adblock Killer | Reek‎" filter disabled. Turning that on fixed the problem!

tldr; studies show that when presented with images of money, people were less likely to pick up pens or donate to a hypothetical charity.

tajen6• 10 years ago

The article provides ~12 examples of how rich people are less generous. It proxies "rich people" with parameters such as nicer neighbourhoods. It shows that proximity to the victims creates more empathy (e.g. 9\11 victims vs Tsunami victims, or experience being a waiter, etc) and gives it as a reason for the rich people being less empathetic towards poor.

throw2016• 10 years ago

Breezing through life without life changing adversity gives little opportunity for self reflection and contemplation unless one happens to be interested in problems beyond one's own.

And if the thinking of 'us and them' takes hold whether in the rich, poor or other groupings there is always dehumanization, reductionism, blame and sociopathy.

Those in adversity or have faced adversity will identify with others and may need or have received the help of other people leading to some kind of mutual empathy.

How can you tell if someone is kind? Ask how rich they are

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