Empathy
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Yes I've often found that too. They understand how hard life is sometimes
If being poor was a choice then maybe but there are scientific studies that show that adverse environment is likely to cause dark personality traits to emerge in people.
I'm willing to be those studies don't include a representative sample of objectively rich households for comparison. Because it's pretty clear to just about everyone on the planet that the families making multiple millions a year are severely lacking in empathy. That's usually how they amassed that wealth in the first place.
In a society / country that’s wealthy that’s likely to be true. In a society / country that’s poor it’s likely that more are looking out for themselves only and that makes for shitty people regardless of status.
This is kind of important - I commonly see that people want to fight bigotry head-on rather than addressing what caused people to be bigoted in the first place, for example.
It's a double edged sword. Should we solve problems that cause resentment and a lack of empathy? Absolutely!
Are the people who are already spoiled racist/greedy fucks going to magically become not racist greedy fucks because their problems are solved? Most won't!
So, both "sides" wanting to first eat the rich and those wanting to solve inequality are correct. Both problems will have to be solved before the systemic issues are actually resolved.
Just look at Norway, the only country on the continent not boycotting the New Nazi Wagon because it's a good value buy right now.
Cook.
Resilience
The rich get stressed about losing a proportionately small sum compared to their total net worth.
Millions upon millions of poor people live their daily lives on the edge of destitution and homelessness, and still find happiness. The amount of stress some people live with seems superhuman.
Work
My dad had five jobs. Five.
This was when it would all be written on a holy calendar of work, to keep straight, which we kids should never touch. Again.
Temporary hacks for broken stuff. If you're poor, you need those hacks to get anything working, since things never break when you have the money to replace them. And as anything else it's a skill you improve by doing, so...
(Warning: nothing lasts longer than a temporary hack.)
Pay the milkman on time. My great uncle was an old fashioned milkman and he said the poorest houses always had the money ready to pay him when he showed up and it was the big houses in the posh streets that often had excuses instead of cash and lied about not paying last time etc.
Care.
Share the planet.
Probably just about everything that's done by servants/"the help"/"assistants". If Jeff Bezos' life depended on cleaning a kitchen well within a given time, he would be doomed. Though Bezos is not the best example, since he seems to have grown up somewhat poor and actually worked as a line cook in his youth according to wikipedia - but most rich people aren't upstarts, they become rich by inheriting.
Try.
People who can buy their way to success give up when they have to put in some effort of their own.
Produce less CO2
Compared to those born rich? They can better tolerate discomfort, I guess.
I often find they're more assertive and better at fighting their own or someone else's corner.
Small talk
I don't think money, or the lack of, defines anyone's ability to do (or to be) better as a person.
Some people just don't have the life experiences that lead to understanding how other people's stressful financial situations impact their lives. When someone doesn't know what having nothing really means, it is difficult for them to have empathy.
It may not be an insurmountable barrier, but it is a massive one to overcome.
All you say is correct but I'm not sure to understand the link with the op question, which was what can poor people can do better than rich ones? Just in case, it's a real question: I think I can read English quiet well but I may have missed something here.
Having wealth reduces the ability to empathize with people who are poor, and empathy is a necessity to care and do something about other people's challenges/suffering. Being poor at some point in one's life increases the chances of caring about other people who are struggling compared to someone who was born into wealth and never really struggled to survive.
Overcoming real challenges increases the likelihood of being a better person, but isn't a guarantee.
lack of, yes i agree.
but an excess of wealth is inherently immoral, therefore making them worse as a person.