I think it might be more apt to conclude that increased unethical behaviour leads to higher social class. They got there by figuratively stealing the food out of children's mouths, so why would literally doing that bother them?

The problem with higher classes is they keep exploring the limits of what they can do, and start treating other classes like how humans generally treat animals.

Parasite class

Practice beats theory in ethical behavior too. I grew comfortably in a house with very woke principles (before "woke" was turned into a pejorative). My partner just grew up in a large, poor family.

She is a much better person than I am.

"Those candies are for the children" for her is now like muscle memory. Her instinct, carved by years in a big family, is to mentally count the children and the candies in the jar and to split the candies in two if there are more children than candies. Because that's what her elders used to do for her as a child.

For me it's more hit and miss. I do a lot of things semi-consciously before I can stop to think "oh, those were supposed to be for the children". I do know the theory. In theory I am not a bad person, I promise.

Very little wealth is created, it is more commonly amassed by taking it from others and more importantly it is hoarded by an ability in the individual to override the feelings of immorality that arise from seeing the effects of its grossly uneven distribution. This coarse lack of empathy is scalable and holds from impoverishing entire societies to stealing candy from babies.

The link to the paper is broken. Here it is. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1118373109

I’ve been snatching from kids candy jars forever. So when does the upper class bank account show up?

TIL Improbable Research and also their podcast. Thank you for the content

"Upper class" AKA filthy rich.

And, it's no surprise at all. Greed, apathy, and selfishness all increase the more money/power one acquires. But, before that, no one gets rich by giving anything away, ever.

Why would this deserve an Ig Nobel prize? The implications of this study are important and highly relevant to the social predicament that western societies face. This is science getting directly to the root of the problem with humanity. If we want to hand out prizes ridiculing useless science, maybe consider baldness treatments etc. (hats already exist).

TiL that by definition kissing does NOT involve the transfer of food.

The whole ceremony was absolutely incredible, would airplane again

People from all economic classes can feel those below them don’t deserve more than they have. Even between to objectively poor people.