They are describing what they'd do to write a paper to "whitewash the staggering amount of wealth and power is held by American oligarchs," so, a list of things that should appear plausible to the reader, but which are fundamentally misleading. Ignoring PPP is a great way to get numerical differences without QOL differences, as you point out.

I haven't gotten to the article yet, but I'm pretty sure this is intended as a criticism or the article.

But ignoring PPP does the opposite of whitewash the accumulated wealth. Ignoring PPP makes the disparity greater, not less

Increasing the disparity between countries reinforces the argument "conditions in your country are so great, stop talking about your internal income inequality" which is, I think, what the original comment was implying to be the point here.

Looking at the article, it uses the term "international dollars" instead of "PPP adjusted dollars," so I think the original comment just missed that the dollars are actually adjusted.

It makes sense if you read the original comment as a criticism of the article ("whitewash the staggering amount of wealth and power is held by American oligarchs" is, I think, pretty clearly a bad thing to do) which just missed that the dollars in the article were adjusted.

yeah, it sounds like we interpreted "whitewash the staggering amount of wealth and power is held by American oligarchs" in different ways.

I took it as minimizing the disparity between rich and poor countries.

I don't know how to reconcile your interpretation with the idea that someone should feel guilty for having a higher dollar income but the same PPP income as someone else.

The dataset doesn't ignore PPP, it's expressed in "international dollars" which is a standard PPP adjustment to US levels.

That's not really discussed because it's an utterly standard thing to do in cross-country comparisons, but the article might have been better if it talked about the fact the data is PPP adjusted so the actual dollar amounts earned in the poorer countries are even lower, and the fact that PPP adjustments aren't perfect so people on $6.70 of imputed US purchasing power can still pay rent

The parent post argued that the article would have been more impactful if it ignored PPP. It also said people should feel guilty if they have the same PPP, but higher salary without adjusting. This makes no sense to me.

This is the point I am pushing back on.

What does PPP stand for in this context? I was confused by his example, too - it seems like he's suggesting that if somebody is paid less but has a proportionally smaller cost of living, I should still feel bad about that? Am I being insensitive for not? I feel sorry for people who are living in squalor, not people who have similar lives to my own.

PPP = Purchasing Power Parity. It is exactly as you described. We have the same purchasing power if in my city I make $10/day and a beer costs me $10, while in your city, you make $5/day and a beer costs $5.