Comment by GuB-42

I am definitely middle class, being raised in a middle class family and most people I know are also middle class. Definitely not elite, and I have nothing to do with Peter Thiel, the only thing I know about him is that he is a controversial billionaire.

But most of the times I met people of a high socioeconomic status, they turned out to be really nice and interesting, more commonly hiding their wealth than flaunting it. Sure enough there is the occasional prick, and they are particularly detestable because of how unfair it feels, so they stand out. But they are a minority, at least in my experience.

Note that by "high socioeconomic status", I mean something like the 1%, not the 0.001%, maybe things are different at that level, but I can hardly approach it. But from those who did, it was mostly positive, from a human to human perspective. But these are just second degree anecdotes.

The thing is, when discussing the elite, most people talk about news reports, business decisions, declarations, etc... When they are discussing lower-middle class, they are talking about personal experience, for understandable reasons. We rarely get "I had dinner with Peter Thiel, we talked about the impressionist style of painting and how he commissioned an artist to decorate the guest bedroom in this style" (completely made up story), that is, the small details that make people feel human.