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.
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?
I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. Very few people in the world ever see themselves as actually evil. Every villain is the hero in their own story.
But if we recognize basic truths about people’s preferences, I think a greater good can be achieved. Everyone wants a place to call home and good food on the table. Everyone wants good health and to have a sense of purpose or meaning to their lives.
This is universal, regardless of race, sex, gender, nationality, language (I can’t include religion as some religions demand the oppression & extermination of others).
I’m too lazy to be problematic, so yeah. Never doing laundry would be nice. Wear once. Recycle.
I’d use the same tactics misinformation spreaders use to counter them. I’d buy all the media outlets I could and start forcing them to run left leaning and communist praising stories. I’d send the Murdoch’s a check with “Kill Yourselves” written across the envelope and then play the rich guy “Whoopsie!” when they try to get me in trouble. I’d establish permanent funding for public schools with an attachment; you have to investigate each child’s style of learning if you want the sweet 10 mil a pop. Honestly I think I can make every oligarch throw up and try to assassinate me.
Does “corrupted by power” cover mega building projects?
I don’t know where morality falls on my desire to build New Tenochtitlán.
I think I would because I know what it’s like to have a real job and pay my bills with it - as opposed to being born into a rich family or striking it rich because you were the right tech bro at the right time and you got lucky (and you fucked your partners over a little too).
There’s a million interesting social projects I would like to donate to. People and organization who don’t need all that much to do a ton of good around them. I would feel truly happy to donate to them and feel as though I had a net positive impact in my community.
And also, I despise the arrogant tax-evading billionnaire class so much, I don’t think I could live with myself if I realized I had become one of them without realizing some day. Just that thought alone would keep me on my toes every day I think.
Oh hell no. I would not trust myself.
Even less I would trust those I empower to fix problems because corruption is everywhere
Interestingly, I’d be forced to take this deal if wiping my memory of it was a side effect of rejecting it.
And when I took it? Yeah, the money would influence me and self interest would shape some of my decisions, but at the end of the day, I have to live with myself. If my decisions aren’t also shaped by empathy and compassion for others, then I’d have lost myself.
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.
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.
that doesn’t typically end well for most of them either
according to (this list)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery_jackpot_records], 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.
Birth lottery maybe
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.
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
Soo it’s nowhere near the same- but in FFXIV I once spent weeks after an expansion crafting/gathering to make money to buy a large housing plot. By the end of it I had around ~600million (an absurd amount). Unfortunately my luck just wasn’t here and I lost every lottery I entered. Now- I probably have like 5 million. Where did it all go? To other players. I’d just buy people things. Someone in chat said they really wanted this or that- I’d buy it. People wanted a small/medium plot and didn’t have the money? I’d give them the gil. I found literally no reason to have so much gil just for the sake of having it, and I love seeing people get excited. I’d put together little welcome packages with expensive mounts, minions, clothes, etc and gift them to new players. I kind of started doing this in real life to, just to a lesser degree as a stranger handing you a gift can be a bit weird. I’d like to imagine, with infinite wealth, I’d do the same thing to a larger scale- really find ways to improve and bring joy to the lives of others. I’d obviously spoil myself with things, but I imagine I’d spend most of it on other people.
2 chicks at the same time and no one would starve or be withought shelter.
…“I’ll tell you what I’d do, man”…
Yeah, I’d give it a shot. I’d hire a bunch of experts instead of just shooting from the hip though.
Climate change is a big priority.
No, but give it to me anyways because I’d do something incredibly funny with it (Devote the remainder of my life to gaining access to a bunch of influential people and politicians so I can tell them to eat shit to their face, resting assured that they can’t levee any meaningful consequences against me)
Yeah cuz unlike real billionaires im not a piece of literal shit. Theres only so much you could do from inside the system tho. Youd need to work outside it. Id probably arm and train a liberation army in every nation that needed one, and use my money to buy up patents on high technology and hand the information on how to reproduce it over to China.
I was listening to Behind the Bastards and the guest asked him why it seems like there’s a pattern of crazy wealthy people doing sex pest things. He said there was a study that related a certain level of wealth to having a brain injury. Basically, when you have a certain amount of crazy obscene wealth, the concept of value loses all meaning to you, and that loss affects other types of value as well - like personal value. Wish I could find more about that. Seems like it would be an interesting read.
That said, I would take my unlimited money and build an underwater Bond villain lair. From there I would do what I could to make the world better, but leave me alone.
I think I’d try it. Though I expect that I’d be corrupted easily if I tried to set up foundations and such as I understand that’s very difficult. I think I would just hire an elite military trained unit. Use them to sabotage the wealthiest and convince them it was another ungodly rich person who did it. Maybe when they’ve killed enough of each other, we could fix society without their influence.
