The 10% stacks additively, each time you do the deal, this status is applied to a different 10%. If you sacrifice 10 fingers, the entire world is guaranteed basic human needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, healthcate, etc…)
Nobody knows you saved them. Would you do it?
If everyone knows about the fact that you can do this deal, would that change your mind?
If everybody has their basic needs met, the odds of getting prosthetic fingers dramatically increases. I’d be OK with that swap. Bonus: Robot Fingers.
Yeah, I feel like that’s a good deal. Especially if I get credit. I mean, I’d still do it if it was anonymous, but can you imagine the popularity of being the guy who cut off his fingers for world peace? Frankly you’d be kind of a monster not to do it. So many people lose hands for nothing at all. But being the guy with the robot fingers who gave the world peace and joy? Sure, sign me up. Sounds rad af.
You could have more than 10 fingers, and with updates, they will get better every year.
All 10 even if they have to be taken off with a hacksaw. I would be concerned about the being who could so easily do this, but has a sick desire to maim me first though.
Falls in line with the ethics of basically all known gods.
Yup.
You mean, human created stories. It’s not like these beings are likely to exist.
That’s kind’ve the point. Very few of these imagined deities are even worthy of worship despite being fabricated as the “ultimate” being.
Maybe it’s not a being, maybe you have some generic abnormality that can be exploited somehow. Bonus points if the abnormality is regeneration.
Of course I’d do it. Lack of fingers would be an inconvience, sure, but there’s cool technology like 3d printing that I could use to get by okay. The inconvience is more than worth it for people to have basic human needs. Plus, with everyone having basic needs they’d be able to spend their time doing things that they enjoy and are passionate about. In all the population of the earth there are definitely gonna be people whose mission is to get people functioning bionic fingers that work like the real deal. I don’t care about people knowing. It would be more annoying if they did because then people would constantly be thanking me and receiving compliments is awkward.
Depends: for how long? 1 finger = 10% of humanity has all of their basic survival needs met forever? Done and done, take all 10. Seems like an extremely tiny price to pay to alleviate a colossal amount of suffering in the world forever, and without all those people being distracted by meeting their basic needs odds are technology is going to advance even more rapidly, along with the quality of things like medical prosthetics and neural interfaces and shit. So, yes please bring on the cyberpunk without the dystopia.
All 10 of course. Rather keep it discreet though, don’t want anybody asking awkward questions about why I carry around bags of fingers, whose fingers they are, that sort of thing.
I wouldn’t mind losing all my fingers if it would make the world better. It’s a small price to pay for so much.
If I help 100% of people that means that science will advance super fast and I can get those gnarly hands from Ghost in the Shell that split into even smaller fingers and allows me to type at 7,000WPM.
Boss
Can I get 8 fingers removed and leave the top 20% wealth people out in the cold. I would rather give them the remaining fingers(middle).
Well they wouldn’t be middle fingers anymore but we understand the sentiment
Hey—so uh—you didn’t say whose fingers were have to sacrifice. This is a no brainier.
Ah shit, you found the loophole 😁
Hey leave my Okra plants alone!
As long as I’m not losing fingers for a “Monkey’s Paw” or genie-style “You get your wish but with a twist” kinda thing, take 'em all.
More thought would need to be invested if there was a twist.
It seems like the twist is you lose fingers
OP, are you a billionaire trying to reframe global poverty as me being unwilling to chop my fingers off rather than you being unwilling to share your enormous wealth?
Fuck, how do these plebs keep finding out my scheme.
And the billionaires have an AI number of fingers.
I’ll be honest: none. I’m not making shady deals like that. Besides, shortcuts always come with giant caveats that you don’t know in advance. Like: how long is this guaranteed for? Will it magically prevent people from depriving others of their needs (murder, arson, imprisonment, torture, etc.)? How will it be sustained, and how would it affect the rest of life on Earth?
No no no, count me out. I’m not taking that deal just to find out it only applies for 1 month or some crap like that and people can still kill each other.
Plus, I like my fingers. I use them every day!
how long is this guaranteed for?
I left the question ambiguous for a reason. I’m glad someone pointed that out. 😉
1 month of universal basic needs met for every human alive could easily be world-reshaping
This is what I think when characters in fiction want achieve inmortality. Yeah dude, inmortality is one thing, but good health is other thing. You can get disabled, unable to walk, even worse, been in a vegetal state, but hey, you are inmortal.
If I have the chance to do something helpful or even remotely worthwhile with my life I’m gonna take it. All ten, let’s go.
I would need more specificity around “basic human needs”. It could be that only 1-30% of the world’s population don’t currently meet that threshold, so sure, easy call to lop off pinky thru middle finger on my non-dominant hand to help them. I mean, ask “would you cut off your pinky finger to stop the genocide in Gaza?” and that would be a hard, fast yes and that’s way less than 10% of the world affected.
If we’re talking past basic survival to full universal healthcare and universal basic income… I’d consider all ten fingers with more details. I’m super sus of any monkey paw curls, so I want to understand the ins and outs before I say all ten fingers.
Do the needs stay satisfied, or is it going to be like 2 years later we have billionaires and starvation again?
Damn, these earthlings are getting too intelligent with their knowledge of contract laws.
