It may be cynical from your point of view, yet realistic from his. Just by participating on LW at a young-ish age, you're highly probable to belong to the "privileged" reference class. If you were a transfer student from Russia who grew up in poverty and amidst alcoholism, your view may be different.

IOW, consider anthropic, or in this case, Qiaochuopic, arguments. Feel free to correct me if in your case the above heuristic turned out to be mistaken.