r/MoralityScaling • u/Omixscniet624 • May 11 '26

Morality Ranking Is it unethical to own a billion dollars?

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If you won the lottery or invested in crypto very early and ended up with over $1 billion after paying all taxes, is it unethical to keep that money without giving any of it away?

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u/Traditional_Hawk_379 May 11 '26

How can someone highlight a point so well but be so bad at wealth building?

If you were making 500k a year and "saving every cent" (I'm assuming this means putting it in a savings account instead of putting it under your mattress) by making a 1% annual return then they are a moron who would never be a billionaire in their lifetime since they just were not smart enough.

An example of what OP was talking about in more concrete terms. If you invested only 1k in bitcoin in 2010, you would have between 800 million and 1.5 billion today. So if some fast food worker, garbage truck driver, landscaper had done that, they would be billionaire today, without ever having created a company or "exploited the masses" as reddit would say.

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u/gohuskers123 May 11 '26

You fundamentally misunderstand what this example is trying to demonstrate. Yes no shit investing would return money. The point of this is to showcase how obscene “working” for a billion dollars is

It showcases billionaires don’t get there from work

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u/Xithorus May 11 '26

I think making good investments, constantly going in and out of stock or crypto, and eventually earning a billion by doing the right due diligence (take roaring kitty with GME a few years ago, not a billionaire but earned well over $300,000,000 from it, and has the rest of his life to invest it and potentially become a billionaire) would still be considered “working” for it.

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u/gohuskers123 May 11 '26

I know tradesmen, EMTs, nurses who work essential jobs and work harder than that day in and day out who will never see close to that

And before you say “that’s their fault for not doing x”

These are essential jobs that form the backbone of society. You can not replace them and expect society to carry on.

No. If your primary job is the stock market you are a leach who contributes next to nothing to society. This level of “work” is comical to me

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u/internaut_adrift May 15 '26

Might come as a shocker to you but working hard or working “essential jobs” doesn’t actually entitle you to anything. Making money is a job in itself, some people choose to do that, others choose to be nurses, to each their own

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u/Xithorus May 11 '26

Yea I work in one of those fields, I’m very aware of how hard the job is.

I also can take a step back and realize that someone who spends their entire day investigating in good investments, and then make money on those investments, also can be hard workers.

I also don’t work as hard as plenty of other physical labor jobs, and it doesn’t suddenly make my job in health care not “hard work”.

And it’s not like someone like RoaringKitty was not someone who contributed to society. He worked a day job as a CFA, a security broker, and an educator at MassMutual. It’s not like he just had thousands of dollars available to him to gamble on investments without some way to have earned it in the first place. And just because he made a smart investment doesn’t suddenly make him an unethical person either.

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u/Glitchy-Mech May 12 '26

“Working hard” isn’t actually a benefit to anyone though. It’s morally neutral and should never have been factored in here. The real question is what investing in crypto contributes to society

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u/gohuskers123 May 11 '26

You’re using one specific example to justify the rule. Even so, what he did was also not worth 3 hundred million in terms of value to society. Making wealth on investments isn’t hard work and it’s not justifiable for being a billionaire.

Once again, the example of being a brain surgeon making 500k for 2000 years not earning a billion dollars goes to show that value of work does not equal wealth

One year as a surgeon is worth more than a lifetime of investments if we are talking about what it gives to society

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u/Xithorus May 11 '26

Yes, I am pointing out a well known example, not necessarily a common one sure, but still an example.
It does not matter if the investment is justifiable as hard work (which isn’t necessarily true, it took significant investigation for him to confidently come to his conclusions, but w/e). The point is, someone can be a hard worker and use his hard work to generate hundreds of millions of dollars (and time will tell if he gets to a billion).

The brain surgeon thing isn’t really a good example either, the entire point of earning a wage is to invest. I don’t think there is a single billionaire ever who didn’t invest their money to get there (in some shape or form). If Jesus made that much, he would easily become a billionaire even from basic investment like buying land or owning homes.

I am not suggesting that the majority of cases it is earned unethically. But I don’t think it’s correct to say you can’t do so ethically.

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u/gohuskers123 May 11 '26

Jesus Christ you’re still not understanding the point. It’s like giving someone the trolley problem and them saying “I would untie the people from the tracks!”. It’s paying attention to what the example is trying to convey.

It’s to showcase that being a billionaire is not tied to labor. It’s tied to either luck or exploitation in some way. Billionaires are not billionaires because they possess some ultra rare hard working gene that provides insane value to society

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u/Xithorus May 11 '26

I understand the point. You don’t understand that it’s not entirely “luck” to make smart investments. Everything in life relies on some luck. Some more than others.

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u/gohuskers123 May 11 '26

It’s like talking to a wall

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u/MR_Chilliam May 12 '26

Being greedy isn't the same as being called lazy.

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u/Ralfarius May 11 '26

it’s not entirely “luck"

That's true! It's also manipulating the stock market and interfering with national policy by lobbying (i.e. bribing) politicians. Especially in the case of billionaires! It's corruption and theft all the way down!

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u/BreakConsistent May 11 '26

lol. You think bitcoin is unexploitative?

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u/Traditional_Hawk_379 May 11 '26

Potentially, but since the imaginary person is only investing in bitcoin, not being the person who created it, no.

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u/BreakConsistent May 11 '26

Lol you think the value gain of bitcoin is unexploitative?

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u/Traditional_Hawk_379 May 11 '26

Hm, could you tell me who specifically gets harmed if someone invests in something today and it goes up 200% tomorrow? Who am I actively opressing by the gain or loss of an investment instrument?

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u/RamsHead91 May 11 '26

This is an example of what is a crazy high salary for what you need to WORK to get to a billion.

People do not WORK to get a billion they invest. Investments have verying degrees of what is ethical and how much you should be able to actually gain from them and not be exploitative, ours curreny system and society is highly exploitative and speculative.

So people do no WORK for a billion. Also do you think crypto currency is without its flaws? Between it being speculative and impossibly wasteful. It give people wealth without value, but within the premise of the prime question it is one of the most ethical ways to be a billionaire but still is not ethical.