Remove $8B worth of carbon from the atmosphere.
That will not be an equal distribution as the rich and the old won’t gain as much benefit as a poor child
Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
41–50 of 106 posts
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
There are some countries for which it might conceivably work (presuming you also pay a lot extra to cover the costs of the project), many for which it might nearly work, and several for which it absolutely won't.
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#43Do something that increases the absolute wealth of every person on the
planet by at least one dollar.
You could invent something.
Perhaps it is just something you say that brings wealth to the world. Ideas can (rarely) have bare value, and can travel around the world in a day.
If you make "improving the lot of every single person by a dollar" the centre of your life philosophy, you'll reap that back many times over.
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#44A bit off-topic, but giving everybody one dollar wouldn't change a thing in the world. However, investing that $8bn in a project/org that's effective at improving the world, would change a lot. Not sure where I'm going with this, just an interesting thought..
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#45This cannot be done for anywhere near your $8b. You need many times that amount of money just to handle some of the problems. If you are willing to miss some people this is likely the best solution possible. Establish a very large NGO with offices in every country in the world. You'll need enough people to cover the entire planet at the same time - and then setup desks where everyone can come in, get their dollar, an…
“Establish a very large NGO with offices in every country in the world”
This reminded me of what the non profit Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is trying to do with Anchors around the world.
https://stellar.org/blog/stellar-anchor-basics-webinar-recap
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#46You 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.
The problem then becomes that some of those dollars end up going to one person rather than 10 million people, and government effectiveness at distributing the money across their population is inversely correlated with where the people that would benefit most from receiving a dollar live (this correlation exists within populations of countries with good banking systems too: your working person that wouldn't pick a dollar up if they saw it on the street probably gets a dollar automatically paid to them via the same system they receive tax rebates from, but many homeless people don't)
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#47Drones 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.
I think I saw that movie.
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#48100 years ago, you could have just set the money on fire and had a pretty similar net effect (reduce the money supply, increase the value of the remaining money for everyone else). There are some caveats. Money burning benefits aren't distributed evenly - rich people gain more than poor people since they have more of the remaining money. You also have to already have at least some money to benefit from it.
Still, it's possible the low overhead and fraud risks of burning money compared to distributing it might make it a more cost effective way to equitably distribute the $8 billion globally than any other route.
Modern finance is unfortunately more complicated. Burning money doesn't necessarily have any impact on the value of money.
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#49I'd say destroy your $8b and take it out of the money supply, making everyone else's money slightly more valuable. No overhead.
Except it wouldn't evenly distribute the value and most of it would go to rich people.
Re: Ask HN: How would I send 1 dollar to everyone on Earth?
#50This sounds like a similar challenge to the one The World Food Programme faces[0]. In their case, they pick from a number of disbursement mechanisms on a case by case basis. Sometimes they physically deliver food or arrange in-kind aid via vouchers, sometimes it's direct bank account or Western Union transfers to individuals.