I don't think previous generations were particularly altruistic toward the poor. In general people "sacrifice" for their family or themselves, not for others.
This thread had already devolved to generic ideological tangent, which is exactly what we don't want here. But you took it to an even deeper circle of hell with snark and personal attack. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the spirit of this site more to heart? Maybe you don't owe your enemies better, but you do owe it to the community you're participating in.
