It's an oxymoron, that highlights elite's dismissive attitudes towards the working class. You might stumble upon oxymorons in all kinds of non-technical literature in various languages.
'Poor' is not usually considered an expression of 'compassion' in most contexts, certainly not on HN.
Are you learning English? If so, it's best to follow the dictionary meaning and examples.
For example, when HN users write 'poor engineer', 'poor dev', 'poor software', 'poor working environment', 'poor commute', etc... they most likely don't intend to attach any connotation of compassion.
I think most readers will interpret 'poor suckers' literally as in 'suckers' who are lacking wealth/income/means/etc...
> It's a bit weird to label millions of people, including presumably yourself, as 'poor suckers', is this a joke?
Your average millionaire is closer in wealth to the average homeless person than he is to the average billionaire.
A single catastrophic event - be it some kid getting paralyzed on your backyard trampoline, an investment gone wrong, a company going under because it can't compete with Chinese government-backed price dumping, disaster that rips apart one's home that has gotten uninsurable, cancer, or early-onset dementia - can wipe out their wealth in the blink of an eye, whereas the billionaire can afford to sink half a billion into a yacht and still have not made a dent in his wealth.