I think most would actually need to experience life as a royalty-earning creative worker. It is such a different paradigm that the challenges and complexities, and what they imply on a mass scale, are not easily grasped otherwise.

It really does remind me of the debate about global warming. People who can't or won't independently consider and evaluate abstract information well will instead just look at their current experiences.

They don't see the temperature climbing much, and anyway who cares if it gets a degree or two hotter, so what's the big?