Thread by @ElSandifer

This is a deeply flawed article on a number of levels (most obviously its basic framing of “look at these rich people who are good guys!”), but it’s stirring a lot of emotions about economic privilege and the responsibilities thereof. nytimes.com/2020/11/27/sty…

I spend an awful lot of my time thinking about the economic privilege I’ve stumbled into, and exactly where the guillotine line is. And like, my family is never going to go beyond upper middle class. Our money comes from professional-class wage labor, and there’s a ceiling there.

It’s just that a nurse, a software engineer, and a writer who makes enough to constitute a living wage living together and sharing resources in practice do quite well for themselves.

We’ll end up being able to buy a nice house and continue being able to bankroll some queer kids, some by just handing them money, others by deciding to splurge and hire domestic laborers, but our best case scenario is that we might collectively be a paper millionaire.

And I don’t really know what to do with that. It’s not enough that ostentatiously divesting it is productive. But it is enough that it clearly carries responsibilities, especially in a world where so fucking many people are nowhere near what we have.

But it’s enough that when we buy a house we are going to visibly be Rich People. It’s enough that I’m left looking at the trappings of minor luxury—a second fridge, nice speakers for our living room, a juicer—and going “all of that could have gone to a bail fund, why didn’t it?”

And ultimately I reject that reasoning, because I really do think the point of life is to eat good food and listen to good music in a comfortable room. But of course, that’s a very convenient answer too.

This line of thought doesn’t really go anywhere. I don’t have answers. Like I said, the tier of luxury I live at isn’t actually the problem and isn’t capable of being a major solution. No answer I come up with is going to be hugely better than “idk man, just be generous.”

But I’m still left staring at the question an awful lot.