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That's... that's all it's ever meant? Since when had wealthy/successful not afforded privilege? I think the point is that posts like this are becoming a sour t

That's... that's all it's ever meant? Since when had wealthy/successful not afforded privilege? I think the point is that posts like this are becoming a sour taste for a greater ratio of humans because of the increase ratio of disparity in global wealth/success. I don't begrudge someone their enjoyment and livelihoods and I'm a fan of DDR and lan parties like every good nerd. But please don't pretend or be ignorant of the idea that there are many more people in the world now that can both see this and likely never attain it despite "hard work" or "good investments".

m4tthumphrey 11d ago
> But please don't pretend or be ignorant of the idea that there are many more people in the world now that can both see this and likely never attain it despite "hard work" or "good investments". Of course - I am one of them - but I can still appreciate the project. Edit: To add, I would probably refer to this purely as hard work, good investments AND lots of good luck and timing, as opposed to privilege.
- abanana 11d ago
  Regarding investments, I can't believe how often people fail to understand that to make money by investing, you have to have money to invest in the first place! Getting rich by investing is a way to turn a small fortune into a bigger one. It's not a way to make a fortune in the first place. They both came from wealthy families. Of course they worked hard and applied themselves fully, without ever having money worries to distract them. But let's not perpetuate that cliché that it's purely down to "hard work", like the trope from rich people's self-marketing autobiographies. "It's all down to my hard work, nothing to do with my rich family, really, nobody works as hard as me"! People all over the world work very very hard, some much harder than these people, and don't have the privilege of wealthy families to fall back on. To clarify: correcting and clarifying isn't begrudging or complaining. Same for those of us who know we won't attain it because we don't have that privilege. They enjoy it, good luck to them.
  - tikimcfee 11d ago
    Yes indeed. I realize that the way I posed my response was as if I was angry at the person or people and not the last bit there about privilege. I am quite joyous that the things I like to build and play with are also something aspirational and "exist" in bigger, cooler variants out there in the world. Seeing Space, so to speak, stirs the imagination and drives people in amazing ways sometimes. It's the unfortunate mechanisms of the world and society and politics and business that partition this in uneven ways that hurts much more. I've met a lot of those very hard working people you describe I think, many times more over than myself in ways I sometimes find hard to admit. But that's what makes it emotionally poignant for me: we're both working hard, have visions, and neither have enough gas to get to the end of the road. To wit: I can't afford to pay a professional team to design a product around my technology toys, and that likely precludes me in this particular decade from ever making it into something that would "make money" or "become useful" to more than myself. I'd need the "privilege" of living in a city or state where technologically capable people could spend their time talking about software tools and problems with me, and not living between jobs and family demands where that spare time simple can't be afforded. The trap of poverty, as insidious as it is. Someone with disposable income the size of my salary can toss that at a team for a month or two and end up with a shape that quickly evolves into their idea without a second thought. My struggle - evident in my responses - is not feeling personally affronted when I know it's a nature of the world right now, and that doing what I think as "the right thing" sometimes means being pointed or unyielding in my beliefs. I'm still working on directing that into meaningful discourse.
- tikimcfee 11d ago
  Cool, and I think I came off sounding accusatory - that's from a place of misplaced attribution that you're not the right target for. I too would love to have been a part of building this, or of course "having" something like this; aspiration to bigger things is sometimes legitimately what brings drives someone an extra step further than they thought they could.
jebarker 10d ago
> That's... that's all it's ever meant? Per the dictionary, perhaps. But when people use it online they rarely mean it as a neutral statement about someone’s level of wealth. It’s typically meant to imply unfairness or that the wealth was obtained through unearned advantage.

m4tthumphrey 11d ago

> But please don't pretend or be ignorant of the idea that there are many more people in the world now that can both see this and likely never attain it despite "hard work" or "good investments". Of course - I am one of them - but I can still appreciate the project. Edit: To add, I would probably refer to this purely as hard work, good investments AND lots of good luck and timing, as opposed to privilege.

abanana 11d ago
Regarding investments, I can't believe how often people fail to understand that to make money by investing, you have to have money to invest in the first place! Getting rich by investing is a way to turn a small fortune into a bigger one. It's not a way to make a fortune in the first place. They both came from wealthy families. Of course they worked hard and applied themselves fully, without ever having money worries to distract them. But let's not perpetuate that cliché that it's purely down to "hard work", like the trope from rich people's self-marketing autobiographies. "It's all down to my hard work, nothing to do with my rich family, really, nobody works as hard as me"! People all over the world work very very hard, some much harder than these people, and don't have the privilege of wealthy families to fall back on. To clarify: correcting and clarifying isn't begrudging or complaining. Same for those of us who know we won't attain it because we don't have that privilege. They enjoy it, good luck to them.
- tikimcfee 11d ago
  Yes indeed. I realize that the way I posed my response was as if I was angry at the person or people and not the last bit there about privilege. I am quite joyous that the things I like to build and play with are also something aspirational and "exist" in bigger, cooler variants out there in the world. Seeing Space, so to speak, stirs the imagination and drives people in amazing ways sometimes. It's the unfortunate mechanisms of the world and society and politics and business that partition this in uneven ways that hurts much more. I've met a lot of those very hard working people you describe I think, many times more over than myself in ways I sometimes find hard to admit. But that's what makes it emotionally poignant for me: we're both working hard, have visions, and neither have enough gas to get to the end of the road. To wit: I can't afford to pay a professional team to design a product around my technology toys, and that likely precludes me in this particular decade from ever making it into something that would "make money" or "become useful" to more than myself. I'd need the "privilege" of living in a city or state where technologically capable people could spend their time talking about software tools and problems with me, and not living between jobs and family demands where that spare time simple can't be afforded. The trap of poverty, as insidious as it is. Someone with disposable income the size of my salary can toss that at a team for a month or two and end up with a shape that quickly evolves into their idea without a second thought. My struggle - evident in my responses - is not feeling personally affronted when I know it's a nature of the world right now, and that doing what I think as "the right thing" sometimes means being pointed or unyielding in my beliefs. I'm still working on directing that into meaningful discourse.
tikimcfee 11d ago
Cool, and I think I came off sounding accusatory - that's from a place of misplaced attribution that you're not the right target for. I too would love to have been a part of building this, or of course "having" something like this; aspiration to bigger things is sometimes legitimately what brings drives someone an extra step further than they thought they could.

jebarker 10d ago

> That's... that's all it's ever meant? Per the dictionary, perhaps. But when people use it online they rarely mean it as a neutral statement about someone’s level of wealth. It’s typically meant to imply unfairness or that the wealth was obtained through unearned advantage.