Disclaimer: I am not rich and dev salaries here are about 30K to 60K (rent is 1.5K per month). Tax is 40%+ (i.e. thrifty SV-people make a lot more)
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...
It's main message is that:
1) The averages person's knowledge of the world is extremely outdated and in most cases blatantly incorrect. It's not that people don't know the answers to questions like "what percentage of the world's population live in extreme poverty", it's that they think they know and their answer is incorrect.
2) Human's have a lot of instincts that work against them when trying to evaluate data. For example, implicitly assuming that straight line graphs will continue in a straight line, focusing far more on negative things than positive things, categorizing things incorrectly, and misunderstanding large numbers.
3) Positive change tends to happen very slowly and therefore isn't consider newsworthy, so we don't hear about it even though it's happening every day.
The book really made me question my view of the world and I would highly recommend it to everyone. It's short, easy to read, enjoyable, and very insightful.
That said, the author focused more in the differences between what he calls the four levels of poverty, and to be on level 4 (the level almost everyone on this site is on) you only need to make $64 or more a day. He doesn't talk much about the inequality between the people at the bottom of level 4 and those at the top.
I would attempt to apply the authors thoughts to this specific situation, but I only finished the book a few hours ago and haven't really finished processing the information yet so I will leave that task to someone else for now.
Hope this information helps, and I really think the book is a good read for everyone. Bill Gates is giving a free .epub copy away to all college grads in the US this year, and I don't think his website actually verifies that you are graduating, so I think anyone that signs up can download it here. [1]
[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/My-gift-to-colle...
As someone who isn't where here is, this kind of comment isn't as hugely insightful as you may think.