Which brings up the question, is this bootstrapped mentality just a pathology of the rich who are justifying their own privilege? Or is it something that's been internalized, you know, up and down the class structure by poor people themselves who don't feel that they deserve any kind of handout?

The just world is a theory by Melvin Lerner, and it rests on the idea that humans need to see the world as fair, just, and predictable, and that it's so psychologically important to us that it's easier to watch, in the instance of the experiments Lerner did, a woman being punished with almost no pretext than to believe her treatment is random.

So to keep ourselves sane, we're We twist the truth to make our own existence is more bearable.

We are poor or alone because we are undeserving.

The stranger over there is ill or failed because they were a failure.

They are ineligible.

The millionaire heiress has a Tesla or makes bank as an influencer because she is a person of merit.

And I'm wondering if you could describe both of these things and how they intersect, but how they're also different from one another.