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Comment by sillystuff | Hacker News Reader

>single study claims...

This study is one in a trend of studies that have been showing that the rich are lacking in attributes that are valued by the majority of people while possessing a surplus of those considered to be negative traits by the majority. I.e., rich people are unkind, less generous, less empathetic, and now, in this study, they* are shown to express less gratitude. And, the wealthy are more self-centered, behave unethically, are narcissistic, and feel entitled.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/does-wealt...

* In capitalist societies, wealth brings power, so I am treating 'rich' and 'powerful' as equivalent.

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What a ridiculous article. People playing monopoly are greedy when they get rich on monopoly money? Mercedes drivers are less likely to stop at cross walks (never mind they are old and have no idea what they are doing)? Oh rich people don't agree with my political views, it must be because they are heartless (cough not because they have statistically higher IQs, no of course not).

How about we take some real examples. How much more likely is a poor person to murder someone? Beat their wife? ... you know the answer already, which of course was the point of these whole "rich people are antisocial" posts. It is attempt to try and subvert some inconvenient truths - truths that need to be subverted in order to push a certain ideology.

Anyway, from a personal note, I grew up in a very working class area, and I have been to many third world countries. Let me tell you, poverty, real poverty that is, really turns people into absolute pieces of shit. There is no judgment here, it would probably happen to me or anyone else reading this if they were in that situation, but poverty really ruins peoples morality and decency. That is a fact.

> rich people don't agree with my political views, it must be because they are heartless (cough not because they have statistically higher IQs, no of course not).

Studies show that wealth and IQ aren't strongly correlated. It's questionable if higher IQ informs political beliefs.

> How much more likely is a poor person to murder someone? Beat their wife?

The fact that rich people have other ways of imposing power on someone doesn't change anything. A rich person can sue someone into oblivion as opposed to murdering them. A rich person has a prenup, so they don't have to kill their wife. A rich person doesn't have to beat their wife for not making dinner because dinner not being made because it just gets ordered in.

> poverty really ruins peoples morality and decency. That is a fact.

It's an assertion, not a fact. I haven't seen any studies that support that.

> (cough not because they have statistically higher IQs, no of course not)

Do they? (honest question)

> How much more likely is a poor person to murder someone? Beat their wife?

I don't know. How much?

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