this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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i think super rich people do fucked up shit because:
if i already have 'infinite' money, why would i want more, and since i'm getting this via magic or something, there's no incentive to be evil in order to become or remain mega-rich. in short, yeah, i reckon i'd be alright, and we'd all be better off in the long run.
People have become billionaires by literal lottery. They're not evil geniuses; don't flatter them by suggesting so.
Itβs actually really hard to get a billion dollars directly from the lottery.
You pay like 60% (or more maybe?) taxes if you take it as a lump sum. And still lots of taxes if you annuitize it, and then it will take too long to be a billionaire unless you win it in your 20s maybe.
You also have to win a full billion in the first place, and someone else pointed out the highest winnings are actually juust short. So, technically I was wrong, although the point still stands.
There's been several winning jackpots over a billion now. There was one a couple weeks ago.
~~Yeah, but apparently they've all been split a few ways.~~
It's a distinction without a difference, but there you go.
Are you saying the jackpot, or the one time cash out value which is always less than the annuity value? Because those are different things. And there's several jackpot values that were single tickets above 1 bln
Ah shit, you're right. I was reading the table wrong.
Okay, so the top one is actually a two billion jackpot that came out to just below a billion due to the way the cash is awarded.
Lottery winners don't often stay wealthy forever though
True. Then again, you don't hear a lot about the Carnegies anymore either. Social mobility just works in both directions, and about as often.
Yeah, no, that's a massive streaming pile of self soothing bullshit that isn't convincing anyone but you.
You want to have a look at the hard numbers? Give me a moment to gather sources. Basically, it's a random walk, and the ever-worse inequality is induced by the upper end "spreading out".
I'm below the poverty line myself, BTW. I am not one of the winners who would need to self-sooth.
according to this list, nobody has gotten a billion from a lottery, yet. but sure, i guess that is the way to get rich, without having to exploit others. i also feel like i ought to point out that i never accused anyone of being evil geniuses, just evil.
edit: fixed link
Ah, just $997.6m. My bad, I guess.
Yeah, but there's plenty of nasty mean poor people, too. If you put that incomprehensible wealth on a lack of morals you're basically painting them as a Lex Luthor figure who can just choose to outmaneuver everyone else. Meanwhile, there's pretty strong statistical evidence the ones that didn't win literal lotteries just won figurative ones.
You don't become a billionaire by pure luck though, you need to seek out situations that could make you rich and then you need to get incredibly lucky (unless you are born into money of course).
Being the type of person that seeks out becoming that rich is going to have to do it at the expense of others.
It's true, if you don't play you can't win. That being said, if you go through these people's life stories they come across as very similar to the legions of entrepreneurs that didn't strike it big.
Maybe what you're saying is that everyone who's tried to make big money is a bastard. I guess you could do that, but that's not really the impression I've gotten of the startup dorks I've met.
that doesn't typically end well for most of them either