[flyGuyOnTheSly]

Makes enough sense to me...

If you don't know anything about anybody... like the homeless man rummaging through my recycling bin right now looking for bottles... It's easy to look down on them or just write them off.

But if a neighbour told me anything about that same man... perhaps that he lost his job last year and thus just tries to supplement his income by picking up bottles in his spare time... I would feel immense sorrow even just looking at that man (who is still a stranger to me). Enough so that I would probably offer him some extra cash and a bite to eat if I had it.

I witnessed a man break into my neighbor's house the other day... which enraged me at first (what if it were my house?!) but when I saw the man who did it... I immediately felt sorry for him.

This was a desperate, dirty, homeless man with a smile on his face as the police dragged him away. He was probably just looking for some shelter to sleep that night.

The house that he "broke into" did admittedly look abandoned. And I found myself trying to justify the reasons that he might have tried to break into the house, rather than hating him silently.

All because I got a look at him.

[jondubois]

Lack of resources can make the kindest, most altruistic person behave in extremely ugly, selfish ways.

You don't know who someone is until you see them go through poverty. Also, you don't know who you are yourself until you experience that terrible feeling of scarcity.

For me, greed is the worst human attribute. When I see rich people being greedy, I find it hard to imagine how much worse they would be as human beings if they were poor.

[coldtea]

>You don't know who someone is until you see them go through poverty.

The inverse is also true: you don't know who someone is until a) they get rich and/or powerful (and change), b) you go to poverty (and e.g. they prove to be only "fair weather friends").

And I would just more harshly someone who reveals themselves to do bad things or be a bad friend when they get rich or when you get poor, than someone doing bad stuff when THEY get poor.

Because desperation can force one to do things they don't want or like (like borrow money and not give it back or even steal), but the others don't have that excuse.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I think we vastly underestimate how much of an affect our environment-the circumstances we find ourselves in—has on us.

Different aspects of our personality are revealed, or developed(?), in different settings. Temperature, time of day, how tense our muscles / tendons feel, how well we sleep, I think we underestimate how much all of these contribute to what we call 'personality'.

[coldtea]

>I think we underestimate how much all of these contribute to what we call 'personality'.

I agree.

But there are still people who are not changed much in important qualities despite big changes in their circumstances (e.g. from poor to rich, or from obscurity to fame or power, or vise versa) and others who change behavior totally with the subtlest of life changes.

(E.g. now got a more high paying job, let me dump my lower earning friends for people more to my class).

[3pt14159]

Just watch out that they dropped their poor friends for the reason everyone expects.

I don't give a fuck if someone is rich or not, and I have a number of poor friends[1], but I made the conscious decision to cut out friends that I wouldn't befriend if I met them today. Many of the people I cut were poor, but it's not why I cut them. I cut them because they stopped growing after or during highschool. When I talk about politics or society I don't want to feel constrained. I don't want to have to explain things like the catch up effect. I don't want come over with an expensive scotch and have people mix it with Coca Cola.

I understand that labour mobility and the internet have lead to a fracturing of society into different enclaves of intellectual and (usually) fiscal subgroups, but I don't want the only reason I'm hanging out with former highschool friends to be that I read Coming Apart and I'm worried about social cohesion. It's too high of a price.

[1] Most of them are either PhD candidates or in a profession that they love that just generally doesn't pay well, like Singer Songwriter. To me and I feel to most people that cut their social group sometime in their 20s or early 30s class or culture is the critical distinction, not wealth.

[coldtea]

>I don't want come over with an expensive scotch and have people mix it with Coca Cola.

Well, on the other hand, I don't want to be "friends" with people who judge me by my knowledge of drinking etiquette.

Who gives a duck for how one drinks an "expensive scotch" (sic) compared to friendship?

I'm not sure what bond was broken when someone upgraded friends based on how they treated an expensive scotch, but it was no real friendship from that person's end.

While above says "I don't give a fuck if someone is rich or not", the whole criteria seems to be "they're out of my new social class and don't share its interests and pastimes" -- in fact, you openly admit class plays a big role. So it's not about "being rich", but about having brought up and/or behaving as a rich person -- same difference.

>* It's too high of a price.*

The price of keeping a friend like a real friend would do, despite their lack of sophistication?

[bigtunacan]

>I don't want come over with an expensive scotch and have people mix it with Coca Cola.

I buy $100+ bottles of bourbon and mix it with cola because it takes good, because I like bourbon and cola. Shitty bourbon and cola still tastes like piss. When I'm with my friends that can only afford a bottle of BV and they bought then I suck it up and drink that and treat them with respect and I don't judge them.

You really sound like you should do some self-reflection because from your post you sound like a total asshole.

[ashark]

> I cut them because they stopped growing after or during highschool. When I talk about politics or society I don't want to feel constrained. I don't want to have to explain things like the catch up effect. I don't want come over with an expensive scotch and have people mix it with Coca Cola.

What you care about is class, not wealth. It's a learned set of knowledge, behaviors, and taste that's very hard to fake or change past childhood. Wealth matters mostly not for its own sake but because keeping up with some class behaviors takes money (or a patron). See also: the trope of the impoverished noble houseguest. Caring more about class than wealth is normal. Mistaking one for the other is itself a class marker.

[Kurtz79]

"Most of them are either PhD candidates or in a profession that they love that just generally doesn't pay well, like Singer Songwriter."

I don't think your definition of "poor" matches most other people's one.

[Sorreah]

So if you have to explain a make-believe theory to a friend, or if they don't want to offend you and mix your "special" ("special" enough that even supposed experts in the field have a hard time identifying whether it's expensive or not) alcohol water with sugar water to make it bearable, they're dead to you.

Because people deserve to be judged on the sensitivity of their taste buds.

Somehow, I believe they're better off.

[dkrich]

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln

[mtgx]

This is also why I think statements like "being rich is a choice" don't come near telling the whole story, if they are even partially true.

Our circumstances probably affect 90% of how we end up doing in life. What if you were born in Nigeria or Syria instead of the U.S.? What if your parents were very poor and without much education themselves, and therefore not only did they not afford to pay for a good education for you, but they also didn't give you the best education at home? And so on, and so on.

[coldtea]

http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate

[jondubois]

To an extent, but I think being rich also shields you from reality. Rich people don't realise how greedy they are because no one ever dares to tell them or even hint at it.

They get used to getting extra attention, extra laughs at their jokes, extra compliments about how generous they are, etc... Over time, their idea of normal becomes very abnormal.

[rsp1984]

When I see rich people being greedy, I find it hard to imagine how much worse they would be as human beings if they were poor.

They probably are poor, at least from their viewpoint, because humans like to compare themselves against their peers, not against the average person they have nothing to do with.

So rich people compare themselves against other rich people in their social circle and then decide they want to have a little more. It's not greed from their viewpoint, it's "not falling behind".

[ramblerman]

These are different effect imo.

You are talking about the motivation behind a story, which might give you more compassion for the motives an individual held.

That's quite different from saying that putting you in a room with said homeless man and sharing life stories for 45 minutes is going to build a significant connection between you two.