Let’s say that you have an opportunity to gain billions to fix the society from the top. Do you think that you would keep your integrity and use your money for the greater good, or that you would be corrupted by your power?
If so, would you still accept the offer knowing that you would just make the situation worse?
And if you believe in yourself, how would you try to convince an hypotetical entity to give you this wealth?
To avoid regrets let’s say that if you decline the offer your memory about the deal gets erased.
Let’s say that you have an opportunity to gain billions to fix the society from the top.
Society can not, and never will be, fixed from the top.
Nor is money the solution to our problems, if anything, it is a huge part of the cause (and why communism aspires to a moneyless society, among other things).
So even if I say I’d only accept the money if I could instantly redistribute it, as long as other billionaires, and the systems that create and uphold them, exist, my personal actions would probably make little difference in the long run, and any money I shared would end up right back in their pockets (by virtue of how capitalism works).
I will hire people much smarter than me to fix those problems. Climate change? 100 billion to the scientist with the green coat. Poverty? 80 billion to the guy who gave away his only scrap of food. I will become the master delegator. Heck I’ll even have a guy who will do the delegating. Literally have the money do the work for you.
I’d get YouTube premium
Elon? That you? Start with overturning “citizens united”
Yeah, I’m awesome!
If I had infinite money, everyone would have infinite money.
Except Steve. Fuck you, Steve
If everyone has infinite money, it would suddenly become worthless and society would quickly fall into chaos. You must be an anarchist.
- Build lots of free housing everywhere
- Lowers rent significantly
- Create a new healthcare provider that everyone is automatically included in with fees of $0
- Healthcare providers will have to lower their fees to even try to compete
- Lobby government for fairness doctrine to he reinstated
- Right-wing media gets neutered
- Create plentiful public food gardens
- Retailers have to lower their prices
- Create a 500km tall gold statue of myself
- Satellites now have to clear larger orbits.
- Shining dong to inspire the masses
For the monument to your hubris, maybe make it a space elevator too? Also satellites can totally get around your enormous shining dong, it won’t successfully clear LEO like you hope.
Also satellites can totally get around your enormous shining dong, it won’t successfully clear LEO like you hope.
*narrows eyes*
what have you heard?
- Build lots of free housing everywhere
No, not because I’d necessarily be corrupted, but because I’m a dipshit who doesn’t know shit about fuck, I’d probably, crash the world economy completely on accident and then have an emotional breakdown about the fact that I’d ruined billions of lives without knowing how to fix it.
i think super rich people do fucked up shit because:
- that’s the only way you become mega-rich, and
- they want more
if i already have ‘infinite’ money, why would i want more, and since i’m getting this via magic or something, there’s no incentive to be evil in order to become or remain mega-rich. in short, yeah, i reckon i’d be alright, and we’d all be better off in the long run.
- that’s the only way you become mega-rich
People have become billionaires by literal lottery. They’re not evil geniuses; don’t flatter them by suggesting so.
according to this list, nobody has gotten a billion from a lottery, yet. but sure, i guess that is the way to get rich, without having to exploit others. i also feel like i ought to point out that i never accused anyone of being evil geniuses, just evil.
edit: fixed link
Ah, just $997.6m. My bad, I guess.
Yeah, but there’s plenty of nasty mean poor people, too. If you put that incomprehensible wealth on a lack of morals you’re basically painting them as a Lex Luthor figure who can just choose to outmaneuver everyone else. Meanwhile, there’s pretty strong statistical evidence the ones that didn’t win literal lotteries just won figurative ones.
Birth lottery maybe
It’s actually really hard to get a billion dollars directly from the lottery.
You pay like 60% (or more maybe?) taxes if you take it as a lump sum. And still lots of taxes if you annuitize it, and then it will take too long to be a billionaire unless you win it in your 20s maybe.
You also have to win a full billion in the first place, and someone else pointed out the highest winnings are actually juust short. So, technically I was wrong, although the point still stands.
There’s been several winning jackpots over a billion now. There was one a couple weeks ago.
Yeah, but apparently they’ve all been split a few ways.It’s a distinction without a difference, but there you go.
Are you saying the jackpot, or the one time cash out value which is always less than the annuity value? Because those are different things. And there’s several jackpot values that were single tickets above 1 bln
Ah shit, you’re right. I was reading the table wrong.
Okay, so the top one is actually a two billion jackpot that came out to just below a billion due to the way the cash is awarded.
Lottery winners don’t often stay wealthy forever though
True. Then again, you don’t hear a lot about the Carnegies anymore either. Social mobility just works in both directions, and about as often.
Social mobility just works in both directions, and about as often.
Yeah, no, that’s a massive streaming pile of self soothing bullshit that isn’t convincing anyone but you.
You want to have a look at the hard numbers? Give me a moment to gather sources. Basically, it’s a random walk, and the ever-worse inequality is induced by the upper end “spreading out”.
I’m below the poverty line myself, BTW. I am not one of the winners who would need to self-sooth.
You don’t become a billionaire by pure luck though, you need to seek out situations that could make you rich and then you need to get incredibly lucky (unless you are born into money of course).
Being the type of person that seeks out becoming that rich is going to have to do it at the expense of others.
It’s true, if you don’t play you can’t win. That being said, if you go through these people’s life stories they come across as very similar to the legions of entrepreneurs that didn’t strike it big.
Maybe what you’re saying is that everyone who’s tried to make big money is a bastard. I guess you could do that, but that’s not really the impression I’ve gotten of the startup dorks I’ve met.
that doesn’t typically end well for most of them either
i would become so evil so quickly
Yeah, no kidding. I would never be satisfied with infinite money, I’d need more!
yeah I would just hire a really smart people And ask them what they think
Screw it. If I had limitless wealth time to see if ending homelessness is possible with every bit of it I can.
What I want for me is a stable living situation, fun times on a motorcycle, and time to do hobbies without killing myself at work and to travel. My secondaries are those things for the people I care about. Other than the killing myself at work, that sort of thing is obtainable without being a millionaire.
So after that, throwing billions into building affordable housing seems like the plan, combat these scalpers that overdo rent and see if I could beat the countries, then the worlds goal of “stable living situation”. After that… figure out what’s next.
Yep, I’ll use it to combat climate change however I can. Propaganda, lobbying (aka: legal bribery), funding green energy, and use profits from said green energy to continue funding my anti big oil propaganda.
Hijack the platforms of a major political party, purge fossil fuel supporters from the party. Try to get a progressive president elected, use my influence to get them to use executive orders to suspend any pipeline projects, any pro-oil projects, etc.
Try to get fossil fuel vehicles banned ASAP. Like stoping any further productions of fossil fuel vehicles immediately, ban all sales of new vehicles in like 3 years (or less if possible). Begin carbon recapture projects.
etc… etc…
And get a lot of security. I’m sure big oil will try to assassinate me for this.
I’d move to Cuba and bankroll the worldwide working class adventure.
Being in a place like Cuba will keep you grounded, you can’t go ape shit with spending on nonsense and use it to aggrandize your power. I’d just chill on some Caribbean beaches and smoke cigars with some older Cubans until the bourgeoisie is overthrown.
I would take it but it would be quite a job to manage that. If literally infinite, and not an amount, it would break the idea of money, right?
I’m not sure society can be fixed from the top but would be interested to see what happens if grants are directed in ways that grow the bottom part of the economy, could it be made vibrant, can the value be circulated around not exploited? Can the land be restored? The oceans? How do you audit to prevent fraud, to keep it from making things worse?
I would be very happy to not have to worry about my personal budget but to have the responsibility to try to fix the world with money seems like an impossible task. Money could fix my personal situation, but can it fix everything? Probably not.
I do think I would try though, yeah.
Buy all the debt. Then fuck off into the sunset. Humanity is better off for it.
A Jubilee year should happen regardless. Yeah.
I think this is sort of a pandora’s box too. Buying the debt off means paying the banks, LOTS. So you’d not only inflate all currency to oblivion, but make banks the richest entities by far. That’s dangerous.
Hmmm…so then keep your money secret, fund a space program that pays more than SpaceX, NASA and Blue origin or what ever.
The. Use that wealth to build a colony ship. Fuck off to a new planet?
