I travel a lot, and the most valuable intrinsic lesson I absorb from it is interacting with people completely different than me socioeconomically and in every other way and realizing how fundamentally similar everybody is underneath the trappings of their immediate environment, whether that be culture, birthright or another wave crashing into their egos.

Yes.

My family is upper middle class, although my mom did struggle financially for a few years. I went to school in a poorer neighborhood, so I do have some friends with less money, I have some friends with parents who make about as much as mine, but I dont have any friends with really rich families, although I was sort of friends with one who went to vocational school with me.

It does help to understand just how much it sucks to have no money, so yes.

Yes and for an interesting reason. I am a member of a minority group. Doesn’t matter which, and I have never seen it as a defining part of my identity, but it has one obvious advantage: my friends have come from a wider variety of class backgrounds than they otherwise might have.

Personally I’m skeptical about multiculturalism, I think it can be dangerous in democracy if taken too far. But the fact that humans inevitably sort themselves into groups does have some upsides. De Tocqueville mentioned the political one: groups are a bulwark to protect the individual from the state. But there’s another: a group which is based on ethnicity, or sexuality, or some other immutable personal condition, or religion, or a political ideology, or even a hobby, is at least not one which is based on money and social class.

Yes, because I have experienced varying levels of prosperity myself, and because my dad’s family had money and my mom’s parents literally lived in a trailer.

Not sure that it influences my perspective, except that I have an urge to “be nice on the way up, so you don’t crash so hard on the way down”, and I feel comfortable in most places whether run down or opulent, and consider that an asset.

I’ve lived in trailer parks and worked for multi-millionaires/firms worth billions, so yes. With some exceptions, rich people are insanely insecure and often just fucking boring.

I come from bizarre family, with an upper class father and a mother who grew up in extreme poverty, experienced wealth and now lives in poverty again after divorce.

Although most of my friends are lower middle class, two of my closest friends are homeless asylum seekers and two are doctors, one of which is a neurosurgeon. Some others are unemployed or upper middle class. One of my closest friends is so wealthy I can’t even fathom it.

I don’t have dozens of friends, as my writing could imply. We’re talking 15 persons tops. So there’s indeed a little diversity in there.

And frankly? It’s exhausting and often infuriating. Switching is complicated. But hey, I won’t complain. At least I have close ones. I know some people want for friendship (e.g. my gf).

I was born in the lower bourgeoisie. Not rent rich but very comfortable like vacations in foreign places every year and alpine skying. My family also was very catholic and conservative and so was I.

During my highschool years I distanced myself from religion (partly thanks to an awesome priest at my school). I also befriended some folks who were more open than I was but still palatable to my shitty views.

Then throughout college I made some leftwing friends who helped me discover a whole new world of concepts and personal freedom.

And through these friends I realized I was trans, polyamorous, and mostly a massive removed.

So pretty much everything of who I am and my current life which hinged on meeting the right folks from other backgrounds.