In the USSR, not working while being able was a crime that, although rarely enforced, carried huge social stigma; and, if you were an "undesirable" on the level of the subset of the drug addicted homeless in Seattle, neither the police nor the class-conscious workers would treat you like a human being. You'd be in forced treatment or jail (after being beat up, possibly) in a blink. An attempted clear delineation of the working class and the underclass (based on the class consciousness where the "parasites" group isn't only composed of the rich), is one of the few good things about "real leftism"... I wish the American leftists picked it up. In the USSR you could have observed a lot of different people in the same exact circumstances (or as close as the government could get them to be - standard apartments, jobs, education, ...) making completely different life choices, to really appreciate that. There were much fewer oppression/inequality/... excuses, but the result was much the same.

There's no need to have empathy towards the underclass silenced by tech money, or whatever. I never had it to start with and never will; and I feel like lots of the people you are trying to "reach" are like that to a large degree, it's just not a fashionable thing to articulate clearly these days. I personally feel completely fine voting for Sanders and other economic progressives, supporting free healthcare, public education, low-income housing, etc. while simultaneously having negative empathy towards habitual criminals and underclass in general. These are not mutually exclusive, as far as I'm concerned they are mutually reinforcing.