Why the Rich don’t Understand the Poor Explained in 6 Screenshots

The problem is with the view from the top

While reading through the many negative comments about India’s Mars mission a question arose in my mind:

Question: Why do we (the relatively affluent) have a problem with the poor doing something that is perceived as an elite club activity?

Answer: The rich and the poor just don’t understand each other very well because the view from their respective stations in life are just too different.

Let me use few screenshots from Hans Rosling’s recent BBC show ‘Dont Panic: The truth About population Growth’ to illustrate. Please scroll down. It won’t take a minute.

1. The world’s population lined up in a ‘poor to rich’ axis. Each man in the graphic represents a billion.

2. Meet the richest billion — earning 100 dollars a day

3. The middle billion people — earning 10 dollars a day

4. Now meet the poorest billion people — earning a dollar a day

5.View from the top: See how it is for the the rich viewing the poor. Professor Rosling uses the ladder to emphasize the difference in altitude between a100 dollar and a 1 dollar guy. Seen from ‘that’ height, it is easy to feel disconnected.

6. View from the pits — Poor viewing the rich: For the 1 dollar guy,the 100 dollar rich man or even the 10 dollar guy is at astronomical heights. Result is same — disconnect between the rich and poor

That difference in altitude, my friend, is what skews our views

“The problem with us who are living on one hundred dollar a day is that when we look down on those who have ten dollar or one dollar look equally poor to us.We can’t see the difference”— Hans Rosling