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Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?

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Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?

#31
post #26

You also need to account for exchange rate and processing fees. Some recipients may not receive 1 dollar. Edit0: Also, I just realised, many poor people do not have means to exchange dollar into their local currency. So sending them 1 dollar through post is going to be a waste. Edit1: Most countries will not allow this due to hawala which creates black money.

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Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?

#33

You enter into a contract with each national government. It obviously won't be perfect, but I doubt any other method will be better.

Nice one! Reducing 8 billion problems to 195 problems. Additionally, some further improvements are possible. Eg. Redirecting to the EU, instead of associated countries.

This is the most likely route I can think of which could actually work

Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?

#34
post #15

Drones with cameras and facial recognition. And a “money gun” that shoots a dollar at every new person it sees

Those who are desperate could start swapping wigs and prosthetics to fool the image recognition system. They'd shoot down the drones and take all of the money.

Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?

#35
You should not do this even if it is possible to do so. Many people can't accept "free" money due to their immigration status in countries they are residents of. If you send money to them and they receive it they could be in violation of their entry permit rules.

So by sending money to everyone in the world you would create problems for a huge population of immigrant workers.

Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?

#38

At the risk of been downvoted: you cant. It is impossible. Even if you had $30 billion, and your goal was to guarantee the distribution of only $1 to everyone, it still wouldnt occur with all the excess. When you factor in corruption, fraud, inadequate infrastructure, and vague defining of the parameters. Just think of the edge cases to understand why this couldnt be achieved: 1. A subset of the population will ACTIV…

Not to mention having to keep going because babies are born and the money can't be delivered instantaneously...

Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?

#39
It's probably not possible to get everyone a dollar. But maybe add an incentive on top to get local community involvement with assisting you? Create multiple million dollar lottos per region. To enter the lotto, proof of receipt of the dollar is necessary. How that's figured out is another issue. Even with this you still won't reach everyone on Earth. Getting past terrorist leaders, or anyone who doesn't want their people to claim a dollar will be a big hurdle. But adding incentives to accept the dollar might get you the most recipients.

Also once you achieve your goal, global chaos will ensue.

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