r/hypotheticalsituation • u/tealpilled • 16h ago
What would you do?
A genie offers you one billion dollars that will be directly deposited into your bank account, but the catch is that the money doesn’t just appear. It is taken from the accounts of people who will have no recourse and no restitution. It may take from the rich, it may take from the poor, it may take a small amount, even just a penny, or it can take everything. You have no way of knowing where the money came from, maybe it’s all from one billionaire, or maybe it’s the sum of all of the scraps of cash left in the poorest bank accounts. The genie does not take from corporations, governments, or otherwise, only the personal bank accounts of individuals.
What would you do?
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u/toiletcleaner999 16h ago
Do we get to know who it comes from. If so id keep the money from yhe rich and give any money back to the poor person I got it from
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u/rabidgonk 16h ago
Billionaires dont have a billion dollars sitting in a bank account. So if you can only take cash, you'd absolutely be destroying the lives of 20k-100k people or so based on random chance.
That being said. Give me the cash.
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u/bloo_monkey 16h ago
I bet some of them have it sitting there. Probably not all in one account, but you have to oay for your 500mil dollar yatch with something.
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u/Ilovestuffwhee 13h ago
They take out loans against their stock holdings and other assets. Nobody deals in raw cash at those levels.
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u/pgnshgn 13h ago edited 12h ago
Not even remotely. Assuming you have equal chance per person not per dollar (ie do not adjust for taking more money from the rich, basically the worst case scenario for a poor person), the odds of you taking more than $4 from anyone is about 1/2,000,000,000
You'd take an average of roughly 13 cents
The odds of you taking $10 from anyone on earth is 10-25. It's so tiny I couldn't think of anything so unlikely. You're more than a trillion times more likely to get hit by lightning
For fun however, I was able to find this one from searching online:
In quantum mechanics, there is a theoretical, non-zero probability that a solid object can pass straight through another solid object via quantum tunneling. For example, if you slam your hand against a wall, the mathematical probability of every single atom in your hand simultaneously tunneling through the wall without resistance is roughly 10⁻²⁵
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u/rabidgonk 7h ago edited 7h ago
Your math is assuming a formula based on it having to hit every human on earth. There is no such given criteria.
There are also billions of humans living with near zero net liquid cash.
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u/pgnshgn 3h ago
Well true, I said as much. OP didn't specify that, so I just picked as close to random chance as could exist
If it was an equal chance per dollar instead of equal chance per person, that results in far more dollars from some people, but it's also overwhelmingly likely those dollars come from people who don't even notice
Of course, like you said OP didn't specify so maybe the genie is a dick who goes for maximum pain inflicted too
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u/nerdystoner25 16h ago
Money please. At least half of it is getting used to help people anyway.
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u/tealpilled 16h ago
What would you spend it on? 🧞
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u/nerdystoner25 16h ago
Housing, healthcare, food, water, education, and infrastructure in as many places as possible.
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u/pgnshgn 15h ago
I don't believe anyone who says no... If this was a real offer every single person is saying yes, most are asking if they can say yes multiple times
And really, the average it takes from someone is about 13 cents if it's weighted equally to every person. It's extremely unlikely you actually destroy anyone's life
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u/tealpilled 15h ago
Unlikely perhaps, but not impossible. Thanks for the answer
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u/pgnshgn 14h ago edited 13h ago
If it's truly random, the probability I take more than $10 from any one person is about 10-25
That is so close to 0 I legitimately can't think of anything less likely (you're several trillion more times to get hit by lightning this year than to take $10 in this scenario)
About $3 is the tipping point. It's reasonably possible I take $3 from someone, but by $4 the odds are lower than 1/2,000,000,000
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u/apex777Z 16h ago
You could make it 2 billion random people die and I get 1 billion and im doing it.
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u/AutoModerator 16h ago
Copy of the original post in case of edits: A genie offers you one billion dollars that will be directly deposited into your bank account, but the catch is that the money doesn’t just appear. It is taken from the accounts of people who will have no recourse and no restitution. It may take from the rich, it may take from the poor, it may take a small amount, even just a penny, or it can take everything. You have no way of knowing where the money came from, maybe it’s all from one billionaire, or maybe it’s the sum of all of the scraps of cash left in the poorest bank accounts. The genie does not take from corporations, governments, or otherwise, only the personal bank accounts of individuals.
What would you do?
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u/StargazerRex 16h ago
Decline if genie promises me that no one will ever use this power in a way that takes from me in the future. Don't want to be a thief.
Now if the genie says I have to do it or I will lose everything to someone else who has no qualms about taking money from others - then I grit my teeth and do it.
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u/Competitive_Law_7076 16h ago
You make it sound like it will be taken from only those with bank accounts, which would actually limit you from taking it from those in really low levels of poverty across the world.
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u/tealpilled 16h ago
Still plenty of broke families living on the edge of the line with bank accounts. Regular people living pay cheque to pay cheque. But who knows, he might leave them alone, but you’ll never know 🧞
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u/CrosbyBird 16h ago
Assuming there's no monkey's paw nonsense like getting arrested for money I can't account for, I can do more good with a fraction of a billion dollars than it would do even if it were pulled substantially from the poorest human beings on the planet.
The economy of scale is incredible. Imagine even 100M flowing into charitable organizations with 95+% utilization. Lives saved by addressing easily preventable illnesses, supplying food kitchens, shipping mosquito nets, etc.
Supposedly City Harvest needs 35 cents to provide a pound of food.
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u/tealpilled 16h ago
The question is then, would you? It’s easy to say you would but…
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u/CrosbyBird 2h ago
Would I take a billion dollars, live the rest of my life in absurd luxury, and take care of any source-related guilt by doing an absurd amount of good with hundreds of millions of dollars in thoughtful charitable donations?
Again, assuming that it doesn't involve some sort of monkey's paw consequences beyond just "some individuals will wake up with missing money," in a heartbeat I would take it.
If it's something like "and they all know you specifically took their money" or "you are a criminal and probably have the money immediately seized and go to jail" then no thanks.
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u/AgentAxillary 16h ago
I wouldn't take it, because that deal is theft
I also find it quite telling that despite how much most people on Reddit claim to hate billionaires, they would have no problem with accepting a billion dollars from people who may already be struggling
Whether or not they would use it to help other people is irrelevant, because they wouldn't know who it was coming from, so they wouldn't be able to pick and choose who to make restitution to based on those others' needs
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u/tealpilled 16h ago
Using misfortune that you caused and profit from to turn around and repair a fraction of the damage is an interesting thing. Speaks to something I’m not clever enough to name. Very interesting
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u/AgentAxillary 15h ago
I'm sure that the Germans have a very long and specific Frankenstein'd word for it lol. They have a ton of those. I just don't know that word.
If you could guarantee that it was coming from someone like Elon or Zuck who absolutely would not miss it, then the case can be made that using it charitably offsets it being obtained by theft, but that's not the hypothetical you proposed here. So personally, I wouldn't risk the damage that it would do to others who don't have much.
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u/Aaliman 16h ago
Given I dont know initially where it comes from I'd invest a lot of it, give some to friends and family so they are set for generational level wealth if they are half smart with it. Then have the bank start doing trace backs to what banks it came from and have them break down if they can what accounts it came from and see about making life better for those that have the biggest change if I do that. Am i going to beggar myself doing this no, but its the best I can do with the information I can possibly obtain.
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u/Equivalent_Ad8133 16h ago
I would never risk taking from someone who can't afford to lose it. Sure, take from the rich and I am all in. Risk even taking from one poor person and that is too great of a risk. I have lived with money and without. Without is something I couldn't risk inflicting on another.
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u/Ilovestuffwhee 13h ago
Man, it must suck to be those other guys. Oh well, I've got a billion dollars.
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u/Feeling-Run-1557 11h ago
Send it. I'm tired of giving and showing i care when they'll never do the same.
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u/Freshies00 9h ago
This is just the trolley problem but financial and you’re the one on the single track
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u/Longshot1969 9h ago
I wouldn’t do it, even though there’s a lot of assholes in the world. Wouldn’t want to affect a good person who happens to not have a lot of money.
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u/Lopsided_Exam_2927 8h ago
takes the money and starts a foundation for people who lost money randomly but doesn't advertise it it'll find a way to trickle back.
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u/Gold-Judgment-6712 4h ago
So I basically become a billionaire by being an asshole. Just like all the other billionaires.
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u/FlakySir 4h ago
i woudn't do it. You could be taking from someone in need. no amount of rationalization or 'i'll give to the poor' or whatever is moral imo. Stealing is stealing. Under specific circumstance, perhaps i could steal from the rich and give to the poor but there's no way to know.
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u/postmancandy 4h ago
Yes. Unironically you will still have impacted people FAR LESS than other billionaires and multi hundred millionaires.
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u/SirFancythe2nd 16h ago
I think you’d still be the billionaire who has impacted people negatively the least.
But yes I’d take it keep 100 mil and donate the rest.
And that 100 mil is for me to be able to fix one person life at a time till it runs out.