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.
If this is a magical entity, then I would just tell it to give me $100 for every $1,000,000 I use for charitable work that doesn’t directly benefit me.
If I give away $1,000,000 100,000 times, that’s 100 billion dollars of charitable work. And my net worth would “only” be 10 million dollars, certainly wealthy, but not idiotically wealthy. Plenty for me to invest and have doctor money levels of passive income, but only by giving away the vast vast majority of the money I get.
Or I guess I could just ask the entity to cap my net worth at 10 million dollars, and only give me that money when I have given away some arbitrary amount of money it gives me, like 500 billion dollars or something, Idk.
I would trust myself, but I know that I would be the villain in some people’s lives.
Maybe the worst of us should live in fear.
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Yes, because I didn’t sell my soul bit by bit stepping on the hands of others over an extended period of time to get it, my mind is still that of a worker with a rage for injustice.
I think I would be fine. I already have limited wealth and I’m directing a significant portion of it to the betterment of the world around me. If my wealth/income increased tenfold (as an example) I don’t think I’d be able to find a use for more than, idk, 15-20% of the additional money? So I’d just heavily ramp up the funds going to charities and local causes.
Extending this out to the infinite wealth scenario, I’d be able to help more causes so I’d need to find out which charities are actually putting money to use for what they say they are, extend my mindset beyond local causes and to the whole globe. Almost certainly drop some fat stacks into buying out basically every fossil fuel corp and start the process of getting that shit phased out. Sure I make some terrible people rich(er) in the short term with the buyouts but fuck it, the environment needs to be prioritized.
How I’d convince this hypothetical entity? Idk, probably just explain all of the above and I guess show some hard data on my track record for this. If the entity is determined to put the money in the hands of someone who is going to do good, either I’ll be good enough or I won’t.
If its not infinite and “just” billions then I’m probably going to funnel about half of it into local (national) causes and the other half into affecting what positive change I can worldwide. Process for convincing the entity remains the same.
i would become so evil so quickly
Yeah, no kidding. I would never be satisfied with infinite money, I’d need more!
The foundations I would be donating to probably would
Yes. I’m so disinterested in money to the point it’s probably unwise.
While the idea of the class traitor is one typically applied to the proletariat, it can also be used to describe members of the upper-class who believe in and espouse socialist ideals. For example, Peter Kropotkin, an anarcho-communist who wrote The Conquest of Bread, was born into a noble family. Additionally, Friedrich Engels, partner and lifelong friend of Karl Marx, the revolutionary socialist, was himself a son of a wealthy factory owner. Such people sacrifice their ability to be part of the capitalist upper-class for the sake of who they see as the oppressed, even if it hurts their status in the process.
I would give it away by making college trust funds for poor kids in my area until I had the 4-5 million left that I would need to retire and never work again. Why anyone has more money than that is beyond me.
I absolutely would not trust myself, but I also feel deeply that I should be allowed to test this hypothesis with lived experience.
Does “corrupted by power” cover mega building projects?
I don’t know where morality falls on my desire to build New Tenochtitlán.
Nobody can be trusted with that much power. Not even yourself.
yeah I would just hire a really smart people And ask them what they think
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.
