“Anyone who had/has rich parents”.
Worked my ass off moving up through food industry - from retail to operations manager of a manufacturing plant.
Didn’t get rich until my folks gave me a 6-figure loan to start my own business, with an interest rate so low+generous it was basically free money. That enabled us to take risks in the first 2 years that we never would have attempted otherwise. Some of those paid off.
Hell I wouldn’t have been able to grind out 65+hr weeks in my mid-twenties getting experience if I didn’t have such a great support system, largely enabled due to not having to truly worry about bills or food until I “got on my own feet”.
Yeah, I put work in. But I could’ve done the exact same amount of effort and made many times less money, essentially guaranteed if not for randomly being born to the right situation.
Behind every early retired person is someone who gave them some kind of resource most others likely will never have access to.
Yeah standard of living overall is factually better than at any other point in the last few hundred years.
Medicine alone has made getting to or living past your mid-30’s far less hard or filled with pain - even for those in poverty.
And hell I’d argue that if the original commenter really believes it’s a dystopian shit-show…it’s crystal clear how to make your own lot better.