[sethc2]

Here’s a guy who saved his money and invested it and made a huge fortune from an inherited fortune, all so he could give it away.

The response - “ugh what an a-hole, who inherited his wealth”.

I’m so sick of hacker news. I mean if you were defending someone who squandered their opportunities but the bias was in the system, I applaud that defense. We should be very aware that some people are screwed and oppressed.

But it’s like you can do no good, unless you’ve overcome some huge gross injustice, or had zero privilege.

It reminds me of the Baptist’s who tell people they have no faith because you haven’t first went off and totally screwed yourself up and riddled yourself with addiction before “coming to Jesus”. If you respond well “I’ve just tried helping the poor, trusting and worshipping what I know of God, and being compassionate towards my fellow man” they’ll ask “but have you been first an awful human being then prayed the Jesus prayer?”

Likewise on HN - “I gave all my money to charity to help the less fortunate” response - “yeah but did you inherit that wealth?”

[zpeti]

The religion analogy is great, because that's what this is.

Wealth, privilege is now original sin for a lot of people. There is no real way to get out of it. See here. Even giving it away means you stay guilty. Never mind the guy didn't even spend his money on anything. Just having it is sin.

I think the only way you can get rid of this original sin is by donating to climate change efforts or BLM or something similar. But I'm pretty sure even then you will be thought of as the inheritor of priviledge.

And this, by the way, is how bolshevism is born. Like actually.

[croniev]

Not a fan of grabbing into the 'ole anti-communist propaganda box. I'm not saying communism is a great ideology, I'm saying that we are far from bolshevism, and calling people that have gotten used to fighting privilege and have thus become ideological 'bolsheviks' is unoriginal and boring. I do think that if you were born with privilege, you don't lose it. Can't undo the past. So yes, even if you give your money away, you are still the 'inheritor of privilege'. It's not about trying to lose that title, it's about what you do with the title. If you donate it all, that's great! But gotta acknowledge where it came from, and not pretend like it was only "habits and hard work". Face the fact that you are privileged, it's not shameful. Another Comment in this thread already explained that it's not about this guy in particular, but the people who pretend like privilege is not a thing.

TLDR: No matter how much you donate, don't deny your privilege if you don't want to be called out for it.

[frongpik]

We even have a prominent populist who "will return power to the people". And to be frank, when half of the nation lives in poverty, poulists won't have any trouble getting votes.

[lotsofpulp]

> The response - “ugh what an a-hole, who inherited his wealth”.

I don’t see any comments calling the donor a pejorative. The other comments are accurately pointing out the article is wrong about how he obtained his wealth.

[peter422]

The comments are not bemoaning the guy, they are bemoaning the article that implies the way to build wealth is with good habits.

The guy didn’t write the article, he lived a long life and donated a lot of money to charity after his death. I’m sure he’d be the first to say that he was lucky to have inherited so much wealth.

[sethc2]

That’s true. I should be more fair. My comment is a bit out of frustration at maybe one or two other comments.

While the criticism against “good habits build wealth” is legit when it leaves out the inheritance fact, i think I was just annoyed that the focus was on that rather than what was a good use of an inheritance.

[rriepe]

I've had similar complaints about HN and the Baptists, but I never would have connected them had it not been for this comment.