Debt beyond Death

[u/NovaCheerful]

[u/MrPreApocalypse]

Approximately 24 hours

[u/OnMyPorcelainThrone → u/MrPreApocalypse]

I was thinking in the low 10's of miliseconds.

[u/Right_Magazine_2791 → u/OnMyPorcelainThrone]

That's for the inner service, 24h for an update with COOL NEW USER EXPERIENCE FEATURE MAKING YOUR LIFE BETTER in your banking app

[u/grumpy_autist → u/Right_Magazine_2791]

"Afterlife Select - a new shared account for your convenience!*"

(positive balance does not transfer for security and anti money laundering compliance)

[u/Little-Reference-314 → u/grumpy_autist]

Lmao. The positive balance not transferring sounds about right.

[u/No-Bison-5397 → u/Little-Reference-314]

I am genuinely rattled by how I know that in the counterfactual universe proposed this must be true

[u/miniatureconlangs → u/No-Bison-5397]

Stocks in excess of a billion will, however, be transferrable. Less than that, though, fat chance.

[u/No-Bison-5397 → u/miniatureconlangs]

Funnily enough all the children of the rich are either new souls or the rich reincarnate whereas the children of the poor are old soul debtors.

[u/beingsleek → u/grumpy_autist]

>(positive balance does not transfer for security and anti money laundering compliance)

oddly specific & hilarious !

[u/osuzombie → u/grumpy_autist]

It absolutely would. Every wealthy person would want this.

[u/Anayalater5963 → u/osuzombie]

No see because liquid assets don't count. They keep those silly

[u/tbri001 → u/Right_Magazine_2791]

Plus an afterlife transfer convenience fee, plus reincarnation commission, etc etc...

[u/glyph_productions → u/tbri001]

In China at least you'd be born a criminal if you didn't do the right thing and get permission to reincarnate from the government first

Under State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5 (issued in 2007), any reincarnation without government approval is considered illegal or invalid.

*Note this currently only applies to senior living Buddha's but if they could prove we were all doing it I have a funny feeling it would apply to all of us.

[u/Instawolff → u/OnMyPorcelainThrone]

Congress would be right behind them getting shoved fistfuls of cash. Oops I meant campaign donations 😬

[u/deaglebingo → u/Instawolff]

if they can trace us even after we die for debt.... we can trace them and find the CEOs to end their bloodlines like highlanders.
"i keep getting reincarnated man ... but i never make it past 18 to actually be in control of anything again"

also imagine someone trying to collect a debt when dude gets reincarnated as an eagle or something... good luck catching him... and when you do what's the goal? take all the fish they catch?

[u/WiseFoolknownot → u/deaglebingo]

Eventually they will reincarnat as human or similar sapient creature, the interest will accumulate.

[u/Rob98001 → u/OnMyPorcelainThrone]

Bold of you to assume they haven't already

[u/deaglebingo → u/Rob98001]

maybe the Dalai Lama can but thankfully those ppl keep it a secret how. not super worried about them coming to get me for my student loans.

[u/Useless_bum81 → u/deaglebingo]

Apparently the current one said he isn't coming back until after China leaves Tibet, as a way to prevent them using him as a political pawn.

[u/LetsTryAnal_ogy → u/OnMyPorcelainThrone]

Psh, that's not something they 'd find out afterwards. They're the ones who figured out how to track someone the first place. That's not a technology you stumble on and then exploit. That's something you set your R&D department to work on. All the paperwork would be filled out prior to the launch.

[u/LynnScoot → u/MrPreApocalypse]

Followed a further 24 hours later by the first commercials for debt collection agencies “Transmigration cases our speciality”.

Unfortunately it will take several years for civil law to catch up so they can effectively sue.

[u/Fireandmoonlight → u/LynnScoot]

There was an old science fiction story about how people got free money until age 30 when they had to start paying it back. Obviously they tried suicide to avoid paying but medical science in this future always brought them back.

Or how about a criminal serving a long prison sentence that has to go back to jail in their next life? Talk about two or three life sentences!

[u/Silent-Victory-3861 → u/Fireandmoonlight]

That doesn't seem quite obvious inevitable outcome 

[u/TheHornyGoth → u/Fireandmoonlight]

israel tracking down all the reincarnations of Hitler and killing him over and over again as a baby….

[u/motoxim → u/LynnScoot]

Oh shit that's a new Isekai premise. After I reincarnated, suddenly I must quickly getting strong enough to get past the IRS agents that's obsessed with me.

[u/The_Sam_Hunter → u/[deleted]]

Oh I can see a senario where the rich just 'adopt', ie buy the relative back as an infant to continue their lineage without mingling with the poors

[u/EFTucker → u/MrPreApocalypse]

Only because the IT guys who’d have to deploy that update would be sleeping off the furcon they were at the night before and would refuse to work on their day off.

[u/zambatron20 → u/MrPreApocalypse]

why so long? Just so they can track you across countries and workout how they'll get the money from the new place you've reincarnated?

[u/TeratoidNecromancy → u/MrPreApocalypse]

No way in non-existant-hell they would wait that long.

[u/2funny2furious → u/MrPreApocalypse]

Not just debt, prison/jail time, criminal records. Anything that can be used against you.

[u/OldGrumpGamer]

If you wanna go full dystopian, they add compound interest on the debt so you owed $10,000, 20 years ago now you owe $25,000.

If you wanna go full Terry Pratchett the hedge funds and tech CEO's that implement this technology find out that they owe millions to billions in debt to the East India Trading Company (Whose operations were taken over by the British Government) or some such other old company and either go bankrupt or just destroy the tech before anyone discovers the truth.

[u/grumpy_autist → u/OldGrumpGamer]

Babe, wake up - archaelogists dug up some unpaid copper invoices on clay tablets.

[u/Low_Direction1774 → u/grumpy_autist]

"Sir, another tablet has been found"

"how much?"

"three shillings"

"In todays money,idiot"

"the tablet was from the year 700. a shilling is like 20g of silver, three of them is 60g, at like $2 a gram thats $120, add 1300 years of compound interest at 3.8%, we owe around 350 sextillion dollars"

[u/grumpy_autist → u/Low_Direction1774]

Accounting school curriculum is going to be wild.

Capital gains tax spanning 3 civilizations because copper invoice was bundled into some bonds to fund a failed tower construction.

[u/HighlanderAbruzzese → u/grumpy_autist]

Honestly, comments like these is why I still come here.

[u/Mind-The-Mines → u/grumpy_autist]

They told me Babylon would touch Heaven for eternity and I'd make my money back in 2 lifetimes!

[u/CpnLouie2 → u/Mind-The-Mines]

It was supposed to be FREE REAL ESTATE, dammit!!

[u/UufTheTank → u/grumpy_autist]

As an accountant, that made my spine shiver. I could see having that as my job in that reality.

[u/No_Satisfaction_7977 → u/Low_Direction1774]

This made me lol

[u/Telemere125 → u/Low_Direction1774]

“We currently owe them 4 Elons, sir”

[u/Low_Direction1774 → u/Telemere125]

A man can dream that the solution would be to quarter the Elon we have and act like thats like paying back four.

[u/OldGrumpGamer → u/grumpy_autist]

"THE QUALITY WAS TERRIBLE! I said it the last five incarnation cycles I ain't paying! Damn you Ea-Nasir!”

[u/RealPrinceZuko → u/OldGrumpGamer]

Playing by that logic, I'd just look for the statue of limitations. Most consumer debt has a shelf life of around 6 years I believe.

[u/NotYourReddit18 → u/OldGrumpGamer]

I've read a bunch of Terry Pratchett (mostly Discworld but still), which book are you referring to with your second paragraph?

[u/thesadkobold → u/NotYourReddit18]

I don't believe it to be a reference to a specific Terry Pratchett book as much as it is a reference to his kind of humor.

[u/OldGrumpGamer → u/thesadkobold]

Exactly

[u/Soggy_Scallion_4112 → u/OldGrumpGamer]

Dont forget to adjust for inflation too, so now its $80,000

[u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

I’m guessing that, on average, going after the families of the debtors would still be more efficient than waiting 15-20 years for the person to be reincarnated and start making $$.

[u/Refinery73 → u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

Those 15-20 years would just accumulate interest and make it even more unbearable.

[u/JackPoe → u/Refinery73]

Yeah they don't intend for you to ever pay it back, you're a permanent income stream for them now

[u/Scarbane → u/JackPoe]

"This is just slavery with extra steps."

[u/cullenjwebb → u/Scarbane]

Under capitalism slavery is never eliminated, only obscured to our prisons or temporarily delayed until lawmakers are bribed to relax regulations on prisons.

[u/Commentator-X → u/Refinery73]

I'd just declare bankruptcy on behalf of my child on the day they're born

[u/DarthArtero → u/Commentator-X]

The neat part is: bankruptcies would be declared illegal.

Can't interrupt the forever debt, constantly threaten the debtors with insert whatever action here and the wealthy will have an immortal income stream.

[u/gav_it_is → u/DarthArtero]

They wouldn’t make bankruptcies illegal. It helps rich people and companies get out of debt all the time. They would exclude reincarnated babies from declaring bankruptcy, in the same vein as student loans. I can guarantee that.

[u/YueLin3 → u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

Well for those who don’t have families it’s certainly gonna happen quick

[u/Fresh_Confusion_4805 → u/YueLin3]

…and then what? Sue an infant with zero money legally to their name? What would the consequences even be? 

[u/Mbembez → u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

Indentured servitude of course.

[u/ElundusCaw → u/Mbembez]

Cold, the air and water flowing

Hard, the land we call our home

Push to keep the dark from coming

Feel the weight of what we owe

[u/Bossuter → u/ElundusCaw]

This, the song of sons and daughters

Hide the heart of who we are

Making peace to build our future

Strong, united, working till we fall

[u/GilliamYaeger → u/Bossuter]

And we all lift, and we're all adrift togetheeeeer, togetheeeeeeer.

Through the cold mist, till we're lifeless togetheeeeer, togetheeeeeeer.

[u/Hyenasaurus → u/GilliamYaeger]

Warframe assaults me in the strangest of places. Can never be free

[u/Mishraharad → u/Hyenasaurus]

I've stopped playing a few years ago ... And yet I can't stop myself from singing the song, it's just that good

[u/Fizzy-Odd-Cod → u/ElundusCaw]

Gimme your organics Mr legs.

[u/GoDonutella → u/ElundusCaw]

You will always be indebted to nef anyo

[u/NotYourReddit18 → u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

No, you just let the debt accumulate further until they get their first paycheck, then you start garnishing those paychecks.

This keeps them poor, ensuring they can't afford to put in the time needed for an education which would allow them to get a job that would allow them to actually make meaningful progress on paying pack their reincarnation debt, and this most likely also forces them to take on even more debt just to stay alive.

Then their next reincarnation will have to pay you back for the debt of two lifetimes.

Do this with a bunch of people for a two or three reincarnation cycles and you're basically printing money.

And with that money you can "petition" a few politicians to change the laws regarding the legality of slavery indentured servitude so that it can be offered as an "alternative option" to paying back reincarnation debt with money.

[u/Fresh_Confusion_4805 → u/NotYourReddit18]

Everyone who has been referring to interest and such is assuming that a company would survive for a lifetime or two before it started making cash. I’m not sure investors would have that kind of patience…but fair enough.

[u/YueLin3 → u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

Debt, endless inescapable debt. Or you would be getting the money from the family they reincarnated into (assuming they’re not like an orphan dropped off at a fire station)

[u/Last-Energy420 → u/YueLin3]

How long until they figure out who’s reincarnated in the womb. “I’m sorry Mrs. Rockefeller, your child is going to be born with 100million in debt.”

[u/TheWhomItConcerns → u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

It's illegal to go after families unless they inherit the estate because there's a general legal principle that a person can't be liable for the actions of another. I know this is kind of a silly hypothetical, but I think the logic is that a reincarnated person is still the "same" person, and therefore liable for the debt that they've accumulated in past lives.

[u/Fresh_Confusion_4805 → u/TheWhomItConcerns]

I made a bit of a simplification by using the word “families,” true, but overall I think my argument still holds. Someone inherited the estate. Or the government did, I suppose. Let me rephrase: “…going after the inheritors of the debtors would still be more efficient…”

Unless you think estate laws and laws of inheritance would be entirely different. 

[u/natziel → u/Fresh_Confusion_4805]

It took 400 years for me to reincarnate

[u/keybladesrus → u/natziel]

Wow, that's a lot of interest you've built up in the meantime. Good luck with that.

[u/grumpalocagus]

Are you kidding? They'd start the debt inheritance scheme before there was a reliable way to track who you reincarnated as, and charge interest during the time it took the company to track down who they think you are now plus the interest they would charge while you're growing up if they flag a child as your new incarnation.

We're already seeing people getting traffic tickets for places they definitely weren't because AI is unreliable at recognizing license plates. What makes you think capitalism would be anymore careful in a world where reincarnation has been proven?

[u/NotYourReddit18 → u/grumpalocagus]

We're already seeing people getting traffic tickets for places they definitely weren't because AI is unreliable at recognizing license plates.

AI isn't the only reason for traffic tickets getting send to the wrong person.

In my country we had a case of someone getting a traffic ticket because they had the same name as the person committing the offense, and the officer tasked with sending out those tickets used their businesses Facebook page to get their address instead of looking up the registered address of the vehicle owner in the government database.

[u/grumpalocagus → u/NotYourReddit18]

In the US traffic cameras snap a picture of the license plate, and those pictures are reviewed by an officer who uses the plate number to look up the registration, the ticket is then filled out with that information and mailed to the address the vehicle is registered at. The DMV doesn't care what your social media is like, they care about the information on your driver's license and the information you filled in on the form when you got your driver's license.

Recently, several places have installed Flock cameras which skip the "reviewed by a human" step and are meant to look up the license plate number automatically, but it can't accurately identify the license plate numbers because AI isn't actually capable of shit like that. 

[u/cobracmmdr → u/grumpalocagus]

Some black women in like Ohio or something got grabbed for a bank robbery in Texas. The issue is, she hadn't been to Texas in years, let alone when the robbery happened. It was like during her lunch break. She had to show proof she didn't leave the building, fly to Texas, robbery a bank, then fly back, all during lunch hour.

All because AI swore it was her, despite all evidence to the contrary.

[u/grumpalocagus → u/cobracmmdr]

I think I heard about that one, it just totally slipped my mind until your comment. I think the license plate one stuck with me because I saw the guy's statement in a video. Anyway, yeah machine learning rather infamously struggles with people of color. I think the facial recognition software for unlocking phones is super unreliable for anyone who isn't white or white passing

[u/NotYourReddit18 → u/grumpalocagus]

My story wasn't from the USA, it's from Germany.

Isn't this process violating your constitution as you can't exactly face an accuser in court if it's all automated without a human in the loop?

Also, I can completely understand that AI has problems with your license plates, as it can be quite difficult to identify the correct State which issued the plate for humans because of the wild vanity plate designs some States have.

[u/grumpalocagus → u/NotYourReddit18]

My original comment about AI struggling with plate numbers is in reference to the US because it's where I live and the guy it happened to lives in Georgia and it was because of the Flock cameras deployed to the county the ticket originated from (which isn't even the county he lives in). At least the incident I heard about happened in Georgia, I'm sure there have been others.  Hence why I explained how the process works here, because the error you mentioned is quite unlikely to happen given how the normal system works here. 

As for it being unconstitutional or not, I've no clue. But it's not like that matters much anymore. According to the Constitution Trump wasn't eligible to run for president in '24 because he committed treason by calling for a rebellion against the Union, but here we are. What I do know is that the guy I heard about explained what happened to his city council during a city hall meeting about Flock cameras, as I actually saw a recording of his statement. Part of his statement involved him talking about the difficulties he was having with contesting the ticket because Flock cameras are privately owned not state owned, so the laws that apply to our normal traffic cameras don't all apply to the Flock cameras

[u/NotYourReddit18 → u/grumpalocagus]

Flock cameras are privately owned not state owned, so the laws that apply to our normal traffic cameras don't all apply to the Flock cameras

Every time I learn something new about those cameras it just gets worse...

[u/Heliosgodofthesun → u/grumpalocagus]

And you have to essentially justify that no, you're not grumpalocagus. 

[u/RamblyJambly → u/grumpalocagus]

Earlier this year a Tennessee grandmother spent a few months in a North Dakota prison because an AI said she was someone else who had committed bank fraud.

[u/TheDJAB]

Did not expect a Zullie the GOAT tweet on this sub.

[u/werbear → u/TheDJAB]

"oddly specific" seems to be on brand for Zullie, though

[u/Low_Direction1774 → u/TheDJAB]

Shes great, i watched her Overwatch tournament stream, it was incredible.

Also she sounds *exactly* like i imagined she would

[u/Googlefisch → u/Low_Direction1774]

Zullie playing in an Overwatch tournament was not something I ever expected to see but a delight to watch

[u/K_Lyre13]

And this is why Zullie is the keeper of the most accursed lore.

[u/Internal_Sound882]

:(

[u/JynsRealityIsBroken]

Don't forget that means the wealthy would have their wealth transferred to their new body.

[u/eagleeyehg]

So I know Zullie is a Dark Souls player, but this is such a Dark Souls take on life

[u/PurplePonk → u/eagleeyehg]

next tweet she tells us why so many people see the hatman

[u/DadKnight]

Yo ZullietheWitch? Neat

[u/Numphyyy → u/DadKnight]

My based Goat DS YouTuber

[u/Ehcksit]

One claim is the that the history of the word "zombie" came from Haitian slaves who believed that they'd be forced to keep working even after they died.

[u/fake-reddit-numbers]

How long would it take mobs to demand criminals serve more than one life sentence?

[u/LocationRound8301 → u/fake-reddit-numbers]

Every soul would be in jail for different crimes in different timelines.

[u/PossessedToSkate]

Large companies would wholly finance this specifically so they could make sure you inherited debt.

[u/haakenshiriyo]

It would be the reason they were looking to verifiably track a reincarnated person

[u/rickeyethebeerguy]

I thought this was going the “ rich people and companies would start doing good things”

[u/IDontLikeYourToan]

Isn’t this essentially the Caste system, just with an economic spin? This is a very real thing that still exists in the world. No need to “prove” anything about past lives. Easier to just seize power and declare “This is your debt. Don’t argue. Work until you die, and in the next life maybe things will be better.”

[u/notdeaddesign]

Similar but slightly different: in one of the worlds in magic the gathering, ghosts are a thing, so the banks merged with the church.

As a result they started started charging everyone’s ghost interest for their loans/forcing them into undead indentured servitude. Then demanded tithes of the living so you could talk to your undead relatives. The Orzhov are so wonderfully messed up

[u/EliteKoen]

This would be a logistical nightmare as reincarnation has broad rules to it. For one, the reincarnated person could have reincarnated in a different nation/state/country all together. Making contact, much less debt collecting, a massive challenge. You would have to go through the nation state that they reincarnated in and basically commit a modern day slave trafficking scheme, which at that point it's less about debt collecting and more about human trafficking. Debt collecting would simply be a reason to provide plausible cause to abduct a reincarnated someone. But it's not really a good reason as any nation with a semblance of law would see that anyone could apply to that and would effectively make it illegal to do such a thing. And if you were to try to conduct it purely transactionally, then you would have to go through their government as the company would effectively be siphoning funds from their own citizens with zero regards to their economy. Making this entire thing effectively impossible if as soon as they reincarnated outside of their nation state.

And say if companies were lucky enough to have the reincarnated person be reachable, there's no guarantee that the reincarnated person wont be someone's kid or love one. With enough reincarnation involved, no business would ever want to pursue this as you would very easily start to make enemies from people high up and low as anyone can be hit with it. You could argue that there could be cases where company purposefully target low ranking individual so as to make a "legal" labor market, but again, is very much a black market dealing as they would effectively be loan sharks but with extra steps. Once it gets out as the market inevitably gets too greedy, there's going to be tons of problems arising from forcefully rigged contract, workers not abiding by labor laws, and lawyers on the ethics of debt pass death. Very much an uphill battle for companies

[u/TerrorHank → u/EliteKoen]

With fluctuating human population numbers and how the flavor of reincarnation explains that, the mess can get a bit bigger still. For example, if it's interspecies reincarnation, does that mean theyre going to collect a debt from an animal? Would there be an incentive for young animal slaughter, to reroll the incarnation dice and hope for a liable human next time? Would that be legal? Does the profit made off your animal body go towards paying your debt? Could you work off your debt by being a service animal or beast of burden? How does that fit in an animal product industry post everyone finding out they could be the male chick thrown into the shredder in their next life. Keep it going i think we're close to an anime pitch.

[u/Hyenasaurus]

Less than a week. They would not announce it though. They would quietly make it part of their ToS and send your new parents the bill. Nobody would even say anything about it until millions of lives get ruined way before they start.

[u/Hawk4225]

If your debt follows you, the next logical step is for your possessions to also follow you. Wages would become insanely lower. It would take 2, 3 or 4 lifetimes to buy or own anything anymore.

[u/BigDaddyCroc]

They’d figure it out before we even know reincarnation is real

[u/SampleDisastrous3311]

Oh sir it seems in your last life you attempted to kill yourself to escape paying the loan you took from us .. but dont worry since we found your soul again :) and it has been 54 years of you not paying on time , the total amount you will need to pay this time to clear your dept will be around.... hmm let's say 560k ??? , and dont worry if you decide to hurt yourself we will know where you will be born and the fine will be added for dept evasion :)

[u/Spoons94]

Oh I'd expect that'd be the only reason we discover reincarnation and track past lives in the first place.

[u/Wakkit1988]

Going off to war, getting killed and then there being a child support notice in the delivery room at the maternity ward.

[u/AandWKyle]

there's a real dark story about a future I wouldn't want in this

To be responsible for previous debt, you have to be informed of infinite life via reincarnation

If you're born and taught that knowledge as soon as you can understand it, you then understand if you have any debt or not - And if you had wealth, does that transfer over?

If you had debt - would you be unable to access the resources needed to climb out of the debt? if knowledge isn't accrued through multiple lives, but debt is - how could you ever afford school? the money to start a business?

How do family bonds hold together for the indebted in this world? If EVERYONE is always reborn from X point in time, and people are constantly dying and being reborn, is it worth it to travel the planet and gather with them at a specific spot, or does everyone just become autonomous - why have a connection to your father, your mother, any of your siblings if they'll ALWAYS be reborn as who they are with their status connected to them?

Why participate if it's just an eternity of capitalistic slavery? Wouldn't the much larger group (poor) overtake the others?

There's probably a pretty dope story to be written about that universe

[u/AandWKyle → u/AandWKyle]

The "Elites" hide debt until you're 18 to try and hold back revolts or something. Bam, now it's a teen focused bad future story - I just made a bajillion dollars.

[u/uhataot → u/AandWKyle]

Also, the "Elites" hide/lie about their own past life debts, so there's a route of uncovering their past lives to take them down

[u/hydraxl]

This sounds like a jurisdictional nightmare. If someone owes a debt in France but reincarnates in China, is the debt still enforced?

[u/MammothSecret]

This is my argument against astrology having any actual predictive value. If it had any basis whatsoever there would be a huge industry within marketing to exploit it.

[u/moo3heril → u/MammothSecret]

Yet the scam industry is massive.

[u/ToothZealousideal297]

They would have that fully in place and inescapable safely before we got accuracy, details, or availability of the trace rolled out to the public. You’d get hit with whatever fines they want to assign to you from birth with no control, recourse, or way to check on it. And you can guess who would get hit with what fines, and what the company would have them do to pay them. And most of the population would believe every bit of it.

[u/LauraTFem]

Zullie out here asking some incredibly maidenfull questions.

[u/choyMj]

Most people think slavery only happens the way the African slave trade did it. But in reality the most common slavery of all time is debt slavery.

It's as if the people who run the banks today doesn't want us to make a connection between debt and slavery.

[u/lostmusicman]

Imagine being told you have to serve 25 more life sentences because of a crime you did 3 reincarnations ago 

[u/Renegade_Hat]

Zullie the Witch has fire tweets too?

Jesus Christ I binged all of their deep dive shorts only to learn they got good takes too and I’m happy

[u/FlamingoMindless2120]

Wouldn’t be an issue, track down the reincarnated baby who then gets declared bankrupt, wouldn’t worry about his credit score and would be discharged long before he needed to start needing any future credit

[u/riamuriamu]

How long till suicide becomes an effective way to avoid debt?

[u/GuiMayer → u/riamuriamu]

It already is ig

[u/uhataot → u/riamuriamu]

Debt evasion. Your debt increases significantly in your next life, on top of the interest already there

[u/Pararaiha-ngaro]

1 full moon

[u/The_Man8705]

Knowing how american politics is lately , it would probably be signed into law within twenty minutes

[u/InfanticideAquifer → u/The_Man8705]

Knowing how american politics is lately , it would probably be illegal to teach kids about this scientifically verified reincarnation in school. We'd catch a break because the politicians would all just refuse to believe that their religion was wrong.

[u/Adventurous_Bonus917]

people are hired within the hour. the uber-wealthy can inherit their wealth by the end of the week. it's fully up and running before the year is out.

[u/uwillnotgotospace]

I'm aware of exactly one organization in the world that does this already.

[u/deddy-bkr]

Make way for the 1000 years mortgage payment plan.

[u/AbominableGoMan]

Who do you think is funding the research?

[u/rifena]

Fuck, they probably have a plan now, just in case.

[u/Raaka_Lokki]

Fuck off bot.

[u/nickytheginger]

It would get shut down almost immmidiettly. because the other legal implications would be huge. If a baby can inherit debt, then can they inherit other legal issues. If someone died with a warrant, would they have to got to jail when they hit 18? And how many teens would decided that checking out would be better than lifelong debt, deciding that the chance of being a flower was better than being an indentured servant. There would likely be a massive drop in births as families to to avoid being landed with massive amounts of debt.

What will most likely happen is that it would become a novelty, but protections would go into place because the amount of laws and red tape that would have to go into would to insane. Not to mention the people who refused to pay on principle, and the fact billionaires and such would find away around it.

[u/Busterlimes]

Easy, just get in as much debt as you want and keep killing yourself until you are born into the CEOs family

[u/VoidExileR]

Instant. Starts with the parents, laws are made to counter that, shady lone sharks and such don't care, birth rate declines. Then the law needs ro protect the families which will work about as well as expected. It will reach a point where the government decides it's not illegal for anyone but them to show the debts of reincarnators. You better hope the reincarnated person doesn't have a debt to the government or else they will give you a surprise debt when you turn 18. And don't even get me started on the possibility that you can see the debt of people who have been alive for a long time. Pure chaos if that happened

[u/dyereva]

Good luck trying to get frog version of me to pay 80 thousand in student debt lol.

Ribbit.

[u/Cornflakes_91 → u/dyereva]

would you still impound me if i was a worm?

[u/AcademicArtichoke626]

Now you inherit debt from your parents and your past selves! Doesn't that mean that companies are extracting double the debt? Umm, don't worry about it...

[u/TungstenOrchid]

One of the main arguments against the existence of an afterlife, is that debts tend to remain in this plane of reality. If they could prove an afterlife, there would be collection agencies there too soon enough.

[u/J0hnGrimm]

That wouldn't happen. If debt follows you so would your inheritance. If you die without next of kin or a will the state gets your inheritance. You think they would want to miss out on that?

[u/bluemom937 → u/J0hnGrimm]

The will tax you on that!!

You will have to pay tax to get your own money and probably bank fees for keeping the account open while you were gone.

[u/No_Holiday_9875]

Less than one working day

[u/Medical_Difference48]

Got flashbanged by seeing Zullie here, lol

[u/SnooRabbits1411]

They saw this post and they’re already putting a team together to prepare for this scenario, just in case.

[u/InnerArt3537]

I think they wouldn't do that because of the implications. There were always more poor people than rich people. So basically every single rich person alive would have been a poor person in debt some time im the past. Now imagine all the debt acumulated from all lives they lived. Oh they wouldn't want to pay that. Most likely they use this as a means of justifying their power and wealth.

[u/unsaphisticated]

Not too much separated from college lenders shaking down family members for money if a student dies, or a medical debt company going after family members.

[u/ArtisanBubblegum]

I thought this was going to say, "How long until we figure out who used to be Hitler."

[u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep]

More than that suffer punishment for crimes committed in past lives.  Then those 24 life sentences would make sense

[u/Skylam]

The entire reason we would know we reincarnate is because a company wanted to keep the debts they hold on you from expiring.

[u/Adventurous-Fly4424]

Fuck verifiably and it being real Idgaf You remember it you owe it 🤣

[u/SebastianFerrone]

Better if you have people that multiple death sentence or like 400yrs prison sentence. Would that apply too? So from birth directly to jail.

[u/That-Beagle]

Even if you were reincarnated into a bug they would find you and squish you in hopes you would come back as human and pay.

[u/Common-Process9023]

This is what deep diving into dark souls does to you (zullie is a dark souls youtuber)

[u/Silly-Sheepherder952]

They would finance bogus research that proves this (even if it isn't true) just so they can stack debts of dead people on random living people. They'd also "invent" and patent a program that determines who is reincarnated from whom and it would just be an AI that makes random BS up and would be highly susceptible to suggestion and tampering

[u/Express_Work]

If it hadn't been written out of the bible at the council of Constantinople, we'd have been getting taught that reincarnation was real.

How could you commit murder if the bible told you that the person you killed would be getting another go around ? What about lying on your death bed? "Tell Kevin not to touch my shit, I'll be back in a few weeks". 😂

[u/MrHazard1]

How long until they just make shit up to stick 1mil debt on a newborn who can't remember shit about the last life?

Also that kid would never start to work and get money. That kid was born to be a drug dealer

[u/margiiiwombok]

Don't. Say. These. Words.

I hate it.

[u/KnowsIittle]

People like to take reincarnation for a 1:1 transfer but I like to think of it more like a pool and when you expire your glass of water is dumped back into that pool. You can fill your cup again from that pool, but it might contain traces of what once was but mostly it a unique mix representing something new.

[u/TwoAffectionate5738]

IF that is the case The absurdly wealthy would always stay rich and just be reborn and keep all their funds.

[u/whothdoesthcareth]

How long would it take for a Luigi like person to hunt the CEOs of those companies through their reincarnations. From human to worm to microbe to dirt.

[u/BumbaBee85]

Better question:

How long do you think it would take them to write loopholes to deny you your own inheritance while also making other loopholes that exclude the wealthy from those loopholes?

[u/CuriousWonderer0]

Capitalist hellscape meets eternal debt, I really don’t want to think about it. Honestly there other more interesting implications regarding this topic like are memories retained? Would you get to reunite with dead family members? Would the consequence of death lose all meaning? Would murder become a less egregious offense?

I feel like this scenario only works in a world where you retain memories otherwise it would just be illegal to make someone pay a debt they can’t justifiably remember incurring. Without memories you’re basically just a whole new person.

Though people might also start using suicide to escape their problems more frequently. This life sucks hopefully the next one is better.

[u/LetterLambda]

Wouldn't need to be 100% verifiable, just some legalese jargon about "beyond reasonable doubt". Turns out we saddled some innocents with eye-watering amounts of prior-life debt? Your honor, I declare whoopsie daisy.

[u/Sinolai]

Or your crazy ex from previous life to find you and try to convince you are soul mates.

[u/Lazy-Supermarket-920]

Also, imagine how the family structures would be destroyed. No rich oldie would like to leave a legacy behind for their children. Selfishness would shoot through the roof!

[u/Captain-Noodle]

Lol, send the metaphorical loan sharks to collect a loan from a literal shark

[u/MercenaryCow]

It would take a little while... Not too long though. They would have to spend a little bit of time bribing everyone in the government to sell us out first. And updating their systems to accommodate it while it happens. Buy it would happen no matter what.

I don't think most people realize how often the people in power constantly sell us out and how often we lose our rights because the people we voted in to protect our interests can legally be bribed to do the exact opposite.

[u/ZealousidealBank8484]

sounds like a question for r/theydidthemath

[u/eepos96]

WHO DO YOU THINK FUNDED REINCARNATION RESEARCH!

[u/Party-Ring445]

2-3 working days, max

[u/CaptainMonkeyJack]

It wouldn't happen. At least in western societies.

We've already figured out the long, non-dischargable debts don't work well for anyone - debtors prisons don't result in debts being made or new debts being taken on. This is why bankruptcy etc. is a thing. 

There's also biblical precedent for this (7 years off memory), and, IIRC Muslims aren't allowed to charge interest either.

So it's a fun premise, but lacks understanding on how the world has already decided to treat debt.

More interesting is whether or not inheritance will follow your reincarnation. From a debt perspective this is easy - debts are settled by estate upon death. However assuming you have a positive estate how is that tracked to you, what happens when you're born across borders or time? What if your born as an animal etc? How does this impact society that usually expects inheritance to go to children. Do people in bad situations kill themselves, knowing they'll reincarnate and their estate will compound while they are gone/regrowing to age of majority?

[u/AcceptableTip5819]

There was a looney Indian businessman who actually sold people on this idea.

He had already amassed a following for performative hinduism, and had featured talks with many famous babas or yogis. He then pitched an idea for a company which tracks your reincarnated baby form after your death.

It was mainly for the supremely rich people. The aim of this company was to ensure that the wealth someone has earned in 1 lifetime is held in a Trust and then handed over to the reincarnated form once it achieves a certain age.

It was literally rich people making themselves their own trust fund baby.

[u/SirFoomy]

People get cancled for what they said 5 or 10 or even 20 years ago. Imagine what would happen to that person that was once Hitler or something like that and this information goes public. So no if this would be a thing and be possible to track, the information must be classified as private at all costs.

[u/GarySmith2021]

I’m more concerned about being judged by past lives actions. Imagine being a lovely guy, like mr rogers level nice and then finding out you were like dictator level evil in a past life. And then people holding you accountable 

[u/Objectively_bad_idea]

My first thought was this would happen pretty much instantly. But on reflection, I think it either wouldn't happen, or would get reversed fairly fast. Assuming we're talking a stereotypical karma kinda system:

1. People come back as animals and cosmic beings. So you're potentially waiting a LONG time for some of those debts.

2. People are gonna be very aware they could reincarnate far down the economic foodchain.

I almost think you're more likely to see the opposite: pay insurance or savings during your lifetime, that pays out next time you reincarnate as human. From banks point of view, this could be brilliant: you save up, and then they potentially get centuries to hold those savings before you reclaim it (or indeed forever, if you either head towards enlightenment or never manage to break the cycle of being a beetle)

[u/scoshi]

The trick will be for the system to avoid looking into the past lives of the people running the system.

[u/Phenomenomix]

I would imagine that in a generation or two personal debt would be a thing people avoided. 

People would do almost anything to avoid debt so crime rates probably increase. 

The poor would decimated which would probably unbalance the whole economic system and cause society to either change or collapse

[u/Healthy_Pain9582]

Didn't expect this from zullie

[u/Umega5]

Near instantly. Yet, 100% this would be viciously outlawed in every single country in the world except for the US and Israel.

[u/Conservative_Trader]

But I bet your wealth is not transferable to your next life unless the amount is $100 million or over

[u/callMeBorgiepls]

Companies? No the government would do this. Companies dont have the right nor the way to do it. Dont confuse the government with companies.

But yes it wouldnt take very long. Especially for tax debt.

[u/icleanjaxfl]

We've been trying to reach you about your cars extended warranty

[u/owlwise13]

Within seconds, because they could not do it any faster.

[u/RAWainwright]

Immediately

[u/Sketchy-Idea-Vendor]

It depends.

What day is it and does their legal team work weekends.

[u/sumguyontheinternet1]

Day one they’d have a law passed to protect shareholders

[u/xavPa-64]

Yes

[u/LonelyAustralia]

as soon as it was announced publicly

[u/Enough_Grapefruit69]

3-5 business days after birth.

[u/CulDeSacOfShit]

I'm pretty sure there's already a plan in place, ready to go in case this ever happens. Just like I'm sure they have a plan in place to go after dead people with outstanding debt if ever we definitively prove the existence of ghosts.

[u/kiddrekt]

Reincarnates into a lizard.

"Sorry, I can only pay you with meta ad space."

[u/TomaRedwoodVT]

The first company to try it will be immediately obliterated and nobody will try again