I think your (a) is due to wealth inequality. Even if people don’t know those two words, it’s not hard to see that $10 to $20 per hour jobs will get you nowhere. I think people do see the increasingly winner take all nature of business, that moving up to th next class is impossible if you aren’t able to achieve select professional routes. And worst of all, it’s so obvious that their children will be so far behind in terms of networking, signaling, and resources that their chances are also diminished.

We would have a wealth inequality problem if "things are bad, caused by wealth inequality" resulted in people fighting to make things better by fighting for things that would reduce wealth inequality. This is not what we're seeing.

We do have an anger problem because "things are bad, possibly caused by wealth inequality" has resulted in people fighting to make things better by angrily striking at random directions, a lot of those actually increasing future wealth inequality - so if we want to solve the actual causes (for example, wealth inequality) we'd have to tackle the anger problem first.

> Oh, but we do have an anger problem these days. People are not angry because they carefully examined their situation and decided it's caused by deep wealth inequality.

It isn't about my personal situation. Wealth inequality doesn't affect the people on HN in any real, substantial way if they work for a tech company because we (mostly) are in the 6 figure household income bracket where you can live a good life in America without being bothered by things.

I'm still angry about it because I see its effects in larger political campaign spends and a constant push for lower taxes on the rich rather than the poor.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/tax-cuts-for-the-r...

> A growing body of research suggests that investments in children in low-income families not only reduce poverty and hardship in the near term, but can have long-lasting positive effects on their health, education, and earnings as adults. Cutting programs that support low-income families to fund tax cuts for the rich could therefore also have negative long-run economic impacts.

Tax cuts for the poor, not the rich. :p

> Wealth inequality doesn't affect the people on HN in any real, substantial way if they work for a tech company because we (mostly) are in the 6 figure household income bracket where you can live a good life in America without being bothered by things.

Maybe in some cases. But not in others. Some of us are "secondhand smokers" of wealth inequality.

Myself, I'm the only techie in the family. My parents were not in tech. My siblings are not in tech. My SO is not in tech. Many of my friends aren't either. Supporting them in hardships caused by the income situation does affect me personally, and so does looking at the problems of people I know.

I don't think you fully understand my point.

Your SO not being in tech + your income probably is $100k or more. Once you reach that point in the US, you are not materially impacted personally.

We all have friends/family/etc that are not in tech and we float them money sometimes when they are in a bind. That isn't the same thing as wealth inequality materially impacting you personally.

You see the larger impact it has on other people. And that bothers you, which is perfectly understandable. But that is a political problem rather than a personal thing at that point.