Is it not grotesque to give a random person 1.2 billion dollars in a lottery?
Is it not grotesque to give a random person 1.2 billion dollars in a lottery?
It serms incredible to me to give over a billion dollars to a random person.
Not really.
The lottery is paid for by those who all have an equal chance of winning that prize. Also, the profits from lotteries are usually spent on social funds etc.
I feel more conflicted about thr fact that it preys on addiction and those who buy the most lottery tickets are often those who can least afford them. I find that much more grotesque than a random person getting very lucky, but to each their own.
149Half would go to the government no?
8In the US, close to half of the winnings do go to the lottery, plus a portion of each lottery ticket usually goes to fund some government agency. Schools, programs for the impoverished and disenfranchised, etc.
The real question, in my opinion, is if you are willing to spend that much money on a ticket, why aren't you willing to spend that much money on just outright funding government programs? Imagine if 100% of what someone paid for a ticket went to programs for the disenfranchised? That could make real difference.
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Lottery > Casinos for sure
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It’s grotesque for ANYONE to have a billion dollars. Arguably the lottery winner is the only one to achieve that wealth by even sort-of ethical means.
107there are people who have over a billion dollars worth of positive impact on the world.
-5That's not grotesque and that's not wealth. But still a nice thought to keep in mind.
I wish these people were as famous as the loud-ass billionaires we have.
2There certainly have been such people. But none were ever billionaires. Such people do something which creates great value. Billionaires are parasites who do nothing but siphon value away from society.
Albert Einstein, Nikolai Vavilov, Marie Curie, Martin Luther King Jr, Alan Turing, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Faraday, Nelson Mandela, Isaac Newton, Edward Jenner, Harriet Tubman, Louis Pasteur, etc.
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State lotteries are in effect a tax on the uneducated; largely used to fund education.
But part of the reason they exist is that, in their absence, people spontaneously come up with even worse forms of gambling, like the old numbers game that funds the expansion of organized crime.
Most lottery players, especially scratch-ticket players, would be better off sticking that money under their mattresses or in credit-union accounts. However, again, when there are no gambling games around, people spontaneously invent them; abolishing state lotteries would not cause that money to go under mattresses or into credit unions.
54Wait til you find out about inheritance
53It is a deep and philosophical question that must be looked at from all sides. But after much debate and consideration among our greatest scholars the universal truth is a question in of itself. Am I the random person?
47if you buy a ticket, you just might be !
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If someone inherits a billion dollar, how is that not just given to a random person?
39If their family is that rich, they usually have gotten some money of it before the other died.
7Chances are the person who inherits a billion dollars is already used to dealing with large amounts of money, and likely has the support structure of accountants and advisors that will help them deal with it.
A lottery winner is usually middle-class or lower, the type of person whose life would be changed by a few thousand dollars, and likely has no idea how to manage wealth of that size.
4
It's not as grotesque as the mundane realities that we accept as normal under capitalism
35Far better than the shitheads that add nothing to the world and become billionaires through financial manipulation and employee exploitation.
26Seriously, 1.2b a drop in the ocean compared to generationally wealthy who leech off of society paying almost no tax by extending tax liability to infinity through gifting and buying politicians who create loopholes for them.
6I can't think of a single person who became a billionaire, yet added nothing of a value to the world. Sure they may have manipulated and exploited while at it, but there's still usually a product of some sort in the end, and the fact that they became wealthy indicates there was demand for said product.
-2If someone adds value to the world, but does so through exploitation of the workforce, scamming their customers, or tax evasion. They didn't actually add anything to the world. They are net negative.
4Net negative matters.
I could, for example, kill every animal in the forest then claim how good it is that the plants grew so much that year without so many things eating them. In the long run, it's very negative however.
Same for billionaires. You could say how great it is that we have electric cars, but who gets hurt and could it have been done without harm to people or society?
0That’s an argument for the product, but the system still promotes shitheads to the heads of the companies that deliver said products.
And that still means shitheads are shitheads, regardless of the amount of money they have.
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First of all, they are not getting $1.2B. The lump sum cash value is $551.7M. The usually reported jackpots are presented in terms of the value of a 30 year annuity.
Second, those winnings are before taxes. After taxes, depending on the state, the person will walk away with $280m-350m.
Now, sure, that is still an absurd amount, but still like 1/4th the stated jackpot.
21I think it's somewhat charming tbh. Everyone gets a tiny, miniscule chance of never having to work again. I rarely buy a ticket, but when I do I spend all week imagining all the fun things I'd do with the money.
As the other poster said, though, it's sad when folks get addicted to it.
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18It's because most people who win don't have good habits with money, and they don't know how to keep their mouth shut. They tell people, and they spend it frivolously.
You find out fast if your friends or family love you or not.
15I mean the very fact that they are spending money on the lottery tells me that chances are they have bad spending habits.
And please, you, yes you, the person that buys lottery tickets and feels the need to explain to me how it's ok, we get it you're built different and aren't addicted or whatever, but there are still so many better things you could be spending it on.
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I may act different if I actually saw half a billion dollars in my account but I would I'd buy a house and car for each family member, save 20mil to live off the interest, and then donate the rest towards projects like spine repair medicine or desalination or something. Or maybe buy a shitload of solar panels for homes.
10it is weird how people say that getting a lot of money, the thing whole world is based on, all humans work every day to get, is the worst thing that happened to them.
Shakespeare - shot by someone who was trying to get his money
David Lee Edwards - was a convict, spent a lot in several years, lost all his money and died.
Jeffree Dampier: was sleeping with his wife's sister, shot and killed by her and her husband.
Urooj Khan: coughs blood and dies the next day of getting his check. Cyanide poisoning.
Michael Karoll: "parties, coke, hookers, cars"
Harrell Jr: spent too much, lent too much, killed himself after his wife left him.
Stories go on and on. Almost all of them can be linked to already unstable, unwell people, their inability to manage the money properly or them not shutting up about the huge cash pile they recently sat on, to the trashy, money crazed people around them.
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They should split it up into $100,000 increments. Yeah, that's not a billion, but that could still be life-changing for thousands of families.
15That's not how lotteries work.
5In the UK, you can take a lump sum or instalments just like this . Infact your get more if you take the instalments.
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Then you'll feel better knowing that in the US that whomever wins that Powerball will end up with less than half the amount they won. Taxes will eat up about 60% of the winnings .
10And then, statistically, their life will be ruined so... Grotesque indeed
8I would be willing to fall on that sword for the unlucky soul that wins that lottery. I actually knew someone that won the 10 million publishers clearance house back in the 1980's. Classic story of they were dirt poor before the win and dirt poorer about 5 years after the win. Banks lined up to give them loans and they took them all since the prize didn't pay out in a lump sum. After the interest their yearly checks and more were gone... But they had "stuff" for awhile.
8
And of course the US government only does cool and awesome things with that money that everybody in the country benefits from.
1
The entire idea of a statewide lottery seems awful to me. I think there should be a cap on the size and reach of any one lottery. It's been shown to be more harmful than helpful to dump millions of dollars on one person's bank account.
9Considering how many of their lives go off the rails, yes.
2The public opinions on Lemmy are fucking daffy. So on top of everything else, yall are cool with predatory gambling system that randomly ruins one person's life?
0By saying you're not "cool" with the lottery, does that mean you want it abolished? I don't like the lottery. I don't think it should be outlawed. Would you classify me as either cool with it or daffy?
5Certainly less daffy than the people playing it or praising it. I don't know your reason why you think a state function that harms people for money should be allowed to exist, but I'm guessing it's not a very rational one.
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There should be a cap on maximum wealth / revenu
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