[ExI] thought experiment part 3

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
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>…John, Adrian, the rest of yas, it’s just a game or fun exercise, estimate … {your net worth} (US $20s (as preparation for the next part.))))))  spike

 

 

OK, cool, how many of you are worth your weight in $20s?  Good for you.

 

Now consider how you sometimes see Musk (or sometimes Larry Ellison) mentioned as the world’s richest man, almost as if that is a bad thing.  I don’t see why it should be.  If someone is the world’s tallest, or the heaviest (OK that one is bad for his heath, but doesn’t harm me) or the world’s smartest or the world’s fastest or the world’s anything-est, it isn’t a bad thing, not necessarily, but most superlatives on this planet would be positive: smartest, fastest, nicest, and so on.  Well, rich is nice, it usually is associated with smart, it enables fast, it is associated with plenty of good things, and that which I offered is a list are good things, so being the world’s richest is a good thing by that reasoning.

 

OK then, what is that guy’s weight in $20s?  

 

I don’t know what Musk’s net worth is (nor does anyone) but we can use $400 billion I think I heard somewhere, 4E11 bucks.  Knock off four digits, 4E7 pounds (weight not British money) or 2E4 tons of American $20s.

 

An 18 wheeler can haul about 20 to 25 tons, so about a thousand of those 18 wheel rigs you see out on the freeway will haul that one guy’s money in $20s.  

 

A thousand of those trucks will be about 15 miles long, or about 30 km if you think metric.  That’s a lotta cash.

 

OK cool, now let’s think about the extreme case where one guy somehow ends up with all the damn money in the world.  He somehow ended up with Elon’s string of money-haulers, and all of Larry’s and Bill’s and all the other biggies whose money is heavy enough you know who I am talking about with just a first name.  One guy has it all, along with all the rest of the money, one guy.

 

Naturally most of the humanity starves within a few days for they have no wherewithal to purchase food.  Some can forage, so they take longer to starve, but if one guy owns everything, then he can stop all commerce if he wishes, and nearly everyone dies.

 

Is that really what happens?

 

Think about it before you answer.  If one guy owned all the damn money in the world, does he go all Doctor Evil on us nouveau paupAIRS and let humanity starve? 

 

Aside: I know the term for new rich, but I don’t know the French word for the opposite, so I must borrow the American term and spell it with a French accent, the way they accent the second syllable kinda, so the newly impoverished are the nouveau paupAIRS.

 

Does the guy who owns all the money in the world wish to slay all of humanity, the nouveau paupAIRS?  Why or why not? 

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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