[zaroth]

> The real value of money is that you can use it in place of time.

This is true to a point, but you stretch it to an absolutism. As if, a lack of money by definition means a lack of time, which is most certainly false. In many ways, having more money increases demands on your time, and this can hold true up through even Larry Page levels of wealth.

Working-class and poor people; many often hold a much more balanced world-view than the wealthy or elite. And yes, many of them used the internet to access diverse viewpoints mixed with their life experience in order to help arrive at those viewpoints.

I think net worth is very loosely correlated with some of the things you seem to think net worth is strongly correlated with.

[throwanem]

I love Hacker News! I can't imagine where else it might happen that a Silicon Valley startup founder would explain to a mouthy unlettered Mississippi redneck what it's like to be poor or working class. Thank you for that!

[zaroth]

Aparently not enough to curb the sarcasm, ditch the personal attacks, or think twice about your preconceived notions before posting.

Now, your self-description is quite colorful, but seems to only support my claims. It almost sounds like you're saying that a diverse group of people do actually have the means to discuss complex topics and critically analyze diverse viewpoints beyond whatever Facebook's algorithm might choose for them.

And thank you bobcostas55 for bringing data to the conversation upthread.

But if this is what you call "communicating with people not just talking to them" I'll just step out now.

Sorry to say, yours is the first direct reply in years of HN I've regretted not being able to downvote.

[throwanem]

Well, I was about to write out a long and detailed reply about how having more money means also having more choices, and how I think there is a substantive difference there which you overlook. I further intended to point out that I'm actually very unusual among my cohort, and that it is inadvisable to draw general conclusions about that cohort on the basis of what I say about myself or how I say it.

Before I could get more than a few words into all of that, though, I got an email from my father, who told me that my distant cousin who nearly died when his meth lab blew up is in fact permanently paralyzed in the lower half of his body, and between that and other injuries will almost certainly require lifelong care.

I may be a sarcastic asshole of a redneck, but I am also an amazingly fortunate redneck. I have made a successful career in software engineering, which enables me to earn more in a year than both my parents combined. A lot of that I send back home. I cannot send enough. I do not make enough. In that light the perspective you express strikes me as thoughtlessly facile. I did a poor job of expressing that in my last comment, which was written in the heat of the moment. Perhaps this one, with the benefit of reflection, will make it more clear.

It's a shame you are unable to downvote that comment, if you feel it is warranted. Perhaps someone else will step up and do so.