Meh; a bit patronizing but I get the point he was trying to make quickly and succinctly - problems are relative; somebody who's been close to a desperate situation WILL have much more of an intuitive/experiential understanding of the issue, options, temptations, emotions, constraints involved.

(noting there's a difference between "I'm a student living with parents, I'd like a job but can't get one so I'm unemployed" and "I have 3 kids and a sickly partner and I'm overdue on rent and I'm unemployed and I have no social/family safety net")

I wouldn't call it "not having a real actual problem" - again, it's relative and so on; but a charitable read as "never been on brink of famine/poverty" may be a good interpretation?

You wouldn’t ask that question if you had.

But that's still rudely assuming that there is only one kind of " real actual problem in your life", meaning = problem with money and/or unemployment.

Is having to make a decision to take your child off life support a "real actual problem in your life"? How about being told that your visa won't be renewed and you have to leave your entire life, job, friends and family behind and move somewhere else? Is that a "real actual problem in your life"? How about a cancer diagnosis? A cheating spouse?

Not all "real actual problems" in life have to be related to money - you can have plenty of it and still be in an extremely difficult and distressing situation in your life, which won't naturally lead to increase in violence(cancer diagnosis is probably one of the worst events you can have in your life and yet I cannot imagine it's corellated to increase in violence rates at all). I frankly also find the attitude of the previous poster to be condescening and jugemental.

No, the parameters of the discussion was “real actual problem” meaning = “problems that put someone in a position where committing violent crime is preferable to the alternative.” It’s reasonable to assume OP’s intent was not to imply all other problems aren’t real.

And frankly, you don’t have to have experienced anything remotely similar to understand how economic desperation leads to crime, it just requires a capacity for, and willingness to employ empathy.

On the other hand, “Cancer patient goes on crime spree to pay for chemo” sounds like it could be a very funny film, in the hands of the right writer.