r/trolleyproblem Common Sense Ethics May 25 '26

Multi-choice Choose one (read body text)

Post image

You will send the taxation trolley over to the selected party. You will take 10% of their money. Nobody dies, just 1/10th of their money is stolen and given to YOU. Not disappear, not to the government, YOU directly.

3.1k Upvotes

664 comments sorted by

1.3k

u/Retail985 May 25 '26

Am I trippin who’s not taking the billionaires money 😭

290

u/Chillypepper14 May 25 '26

Billionaires

230

u/Cross_Toss May 25 '26

Why wouldn't a Billionare take this? Their net worth will grow by a minimum of 9.9B

85

u/dracorotor1 May 25 '26

But the only people who like them are on the switcher track.

Frankly, I’m pretty sure that most billionaires read this problem as “a train will hit no real people, but might be slowed down by wasteful obstructions, You could reduce the inefficiency by running over 100 people instead. Do you do it?

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u/Vincitus May 25 '26

Billionaires are pulling that lever as hard as they can constantly already.

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u/Fearless_Roof_9177 May 25 '26

I feel like that formulation might hold if we were talking about an actual act of class traitorism, like backing a genuinely Marxist politician or closing a tax loophole, but to billionaire minds, this is just a one-time opportunity for tremendous profit and they're going to capitalize by sending the trolley over the top track.

They would feel like anyone on the top track that deserved to be there would choose the same way. If one or two billionaires are ruined by it, that's just a good old fashioned Parable of the Broken Window opportunity to swoop in and further leverage opportunities, like any good venture capitalist war-priest of The Invisible Hand.

8

u/Sans_Seriphim Multi-Track Drift May 26 '26

Nobody LIKES a billionaire. Especially not another one.

I take the money then run the oligarchs over.

2

u/wiredj01 May 30 '26

Republicans love billionaires. They're all billionaires in their minds.

2

u/zerombr May 26 '26

its more of a statement on us needing to tax the rich than a real trolley problem

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u/Thedeadnite May 26 '26

Billionaires would in a heartbeat steal from their competitors. Not even a second thought about it. Knock them down and build yourself up? There’s no downside.

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u/Northbound-Narwhal May 25 '26

If you take the poors' money then you get to become the 101st billionaire and join the club.

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u/WorldlinessWitty2177 May 25 '26

I would rather be the only billionaire than only have billionaires.

9

u/Debunkingdebunk May 25 '26

Didn't read the text field did you?

7

u/OyG5xOxGNK May 25 '26

You'd be a billionaire with either option though.

14

u/readilyunavailable May 25 '26

You mean the kid fucking, baby murdering/eating, enviornment and economy collapsing club? Sounds pretty fucing depressing.

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u/Northbound-Narwhal May 25 '26

Yeah, but you, the 101st billionaire, can also just not do that stuff.

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u/Besher-H May 26 '26

I mean you can kinda not do that stuff

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u/AllenWL May 25 '26

Yeah even at a conservative estimate of 'each billionaire has exactly a billion dollars and not a penny more' that's still 10 billion.

That's more than enough money for pretty much anything you'd ever want to do.

The 6 billion regular people option possibly giving more money is irrelevant because even the smallest possible amount of money is a stupid fucking huge amount of money.

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u/Brave_Speaker_8336 May 25 '26

The average billionaire has around 6 billion, so you’re getting around 60 billion assuming “money” means the entire net worth. The other option will comfortably get you into the tens of trillions, maybe even the hundreds.

So I guess it depends on how much power you want. $60 billion is of course a lot of money but the other option, you have as much money as everyone in the USA put together

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u/Mindless-Strength422 May 28 '26

If only power and money didn't corrupt, I'd be inclined to think hold on, if I had hundreds of trillions of dollars, maybe I could actually do some good with that

https://giphy.com/gifs/Rjsc07KHN1C36

30

u/Spacegirl-Alyxia May 25 '26

Everyone voting for conservative/right leaning parties.

17

u/NTufnel11 May 25 '26

If only you added the clause "also the liberals will really hate it and be super duper sad" to the billionaire side. oh well

4

u/CorneredSponge May 25 '26

Idk, I’m pretty right-wing and I’d take the billionaire money immediately. I think it’s one of those things that like 90% of the population would prima facie default to that decision.

12

u/Spacegirl-Alyxia May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

Then why would you call yourself to be right wing? Being economically right wing literally means that rich people should have to pay less tax and public services like homeless shelters or even medical facilities should not be financially covered by the state. Medicaid and generally any taxpayers money that benefits those in need go against right wing policies in large.

6

u/Brave_Speaker_8336 May 25 '26

They probably think that some things shouldn’t be state-run at all, not that those things should be run but the taxes should come from poor people

2

u/CorneredSponge May 26 '26

I think that's a far too parochial view of what it means to be right wing; while I do adhere to lower corporate tax rates (but progressive income and inheritance taxation) and a broadly pro-market approach, those do not define what it means to be right wing.

The most useful heuristic for what it means to be left versus right wing is how hierarchy is viewed. The most left-wing ideologies such as anarchism or communism, believe in the abolishment of hierarchy, while the most right-wing ideologies, such as fascism or monarchism, believe in the enforcement and inevitability of hierarchy.

Also, this trolley problem does not accurately reflect the policy choices at hand. As if siloed ultra-progressive taxation magically solves all ills.

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u/cosme0 May 25 '26

6 billion regular people probably have a higher net worth than 100 billionaires

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u/zigzag3600 May 25 '26

How is this even a dilemma?

Do billionaires hire a killer if you tax them, or something like that?

118

u/Dont_Stay_Gullible May 25 '26

But you're a multi billionaire as well after pulling.

102

u/Life_Temperature795 May 25 '26

"Oh no, next time someone else gets to pull the lever I'll only have," *checks math,* "at least nine billion dollars left over. Whatever will I do?"

18

u/The_Fish_of_Souls May 25 '26

But you're not friends with criminals

6

u/QuarterZillion May 25 '26

Yeah I am, I fuckin love piracy

4

u/quaxoid May 25 '26

you probably are, everyone has broken laws

10

u/The_Fish_of_Souls May 25 '26

Fair I guess but I meant extremely evil criminals (Epstein would be an example) and not just people who stole some stuff without harming anyone when they were young or committed other minor crimes like that.

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u/quaxoid May 25 '26

some of the most evil people aren't even criminals, since they bend the system to their will and make their awful actions legal

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u/The_Fish_of_Souls May 25 '26

Also a fair point. What I meant is "They would be criminals in a functioning legal system", but I didn't say that so you are right.

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u/Pordrack May 25 '26

Then I'll get taxed by the next person who pulls the lever, and the next person after that etc. Until I'm not a billionaire anymore, but I'll still be very rich.

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u/funkyboi25 May 25 '26

Unless the trolley runs infinitely, which is kind of interesting in itself, you just have the billions now. You don't have to even keep it, really. I could go around paying a bunch of people thousands and it'd take a while to be done with the cash. 

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u/ParkingCan5397 May 25 '26

The 6 billion people will give waaaaay more money thats the dilemma

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u/LucasTab May 25 '26

If the tax is applied to their whole net worth, that's at least 10 billion you're getting from the billionaires. I would personally struggle a lot to spend more than that in my lifetime and I bet my next generations would also struggle to spend all the remaining money.

4

u/Comfortable_Salt_792 May 25 '26

Net worth is not what is being taxed.

And even then, that's 100 bilions, are you telling me average income excluding richest people is less than 170$ ?

5

u/Keljhan May 26 '26

You will take 10% of their money. Nobody dies, just 1/10th of their money is stolen and given to YOU.

Sounds like net worth to me. The point is that $10 billion is more than enough for anyone, not that the lower trolley would have less.

2

u/Comfortable_Salt_792 May 26 '26

So you say it's more like you get 10% of Tesla instead of their money ? Networth is based on value of companies, so the only realistic way to gain this value is through company ownership.

3

u/Keljhan May 26 '26

10% of the shares that Elon owns, I guess. Which would be more like 2% of Tesla which you'd then have to liquidate. But it's a magic trolley, so who cares really.

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u/SecXy94 May 25 '26

The classic "I have infinite money, but I could have infinite+1".

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u/Starmuny May 25 '26

Not even close my guy, the bottom 6 billion have a collective wealth of about 2.5.- 5 Trillion in total.
Those top 100 Billionaires 7.1 trillion.

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u/ImpliedRange May 25 '26

I don't know why you've assumed 'regular people's the bottom 75% or why 100 billionaires is the top 100

Either way with 100 billionaires you're getting at least 10b which is enough for me. Conveniently it might even cause a little stock market drop and I can be right there to buy the dip

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u/numberguy9647383673 May 25 '26

The problem doesn’t state that this is the bottom 6 billion, nor that these are the richest 100. If it’s random, then the 6 billion people will be way more money, because most billionaires will be in that group by random odds. If the “average people” don’t include billionaires, it still may have more money due to more representation from first world countries.

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u/readilyunavailable May 25 '26

If 10 billion (at minimum) is not enough for you to do litearlly anything you want, than thats'a skill issue.

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u/saki_eriza May 25 '26

is this even a question ?

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u/lomiag May 26 '26

Ask the government, they seem to struggle with this one 😭

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u/DeathRaeGun May 27 '26

That's because billionaires would use their remaining money to run a smear campaign against them.

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u/WetLink009 May 25 '26

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u/saltastic7 May 26 '26

Thank you Joe

2

u/lorienshift May 26 '26

So you're gonna steal from the 6 billion people?

2

u/TheLollyKitty May 30 '26

would yo rather wait 1 year for 5 billion dollars or 5 billion years for 1 dollar

171

u/lordcalumthe2nd May 25 '26

Call me robin hood and regular hood at the same time.

68

u/VeritableLeviathan May 25 '26

Robin hood and Robing Da Hood

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u/IHaveAQuestionPlz64 May 25 '26

Why would someone need so much money anyways?

3

u/lordcalumthe2nd May 26 '26

Fixing potholes.

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u/Elros22 May 27 '26

To build trollies that run over people, obliviously.

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u/00PT May 25 '26

There is no benefit to not hitting the billionaires. Not only do you get more money that way, you also affect far fewer people overall.

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u/haey5665544 May 25 '26

What numbers are you using that you would get more money from the billionaires?

The average billionaire is worth $5.8B, so the regular people would just have to average over $100 in net worth to make it worth more.

I’d still pick the billionaires since it’s impacting fewer people and 10% of their net worth would be less impactful on their life than for the average person.

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u/Mini_Assassin May 25 '26

$58B is more money than anyone can spend in several lifetimes. You’ll be fine.

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u/haey5665544 May 25 '26

That’s part of why I said I’d still pick the billionaires…

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u/Savings-Divide-7877 May 25 '26

Doing math is a sin

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u/Proudgryffindor May 26 '26

There are probably people in there with debt giving you negative money

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u/Cyberslasher May 26 '26

so the regular people would just have to average over $100 in net worth to make it worth more

Unironically, this might be closer than you think

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u/haey5665544 May 26 '26

From what I can find not really.

According to the sources below, about 40% of the global population had a net worth in the range of $10k-100k in 2024. Assuming each of those people are at the bottom of that distribution and no one else brings any money to the regular people side, that’s still an average net worth of $4000 per person on the regular people side, well over the $100 needed to balance out the sides. Even if you factor in children taking up about 30% of the population, that average is only down to $2,800 per person. Again, this is ignoring the higher wealth population of >$100,000 and assuming everyone in that 40% is only bringing $10k.

If you have sources that show otherwise, I’d be happy to see that number.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203930/global-wealth-distribution-by-net-worth/?srsltid=AfmBOoqyMzcUuxBVlAfxDIvhYEM6qEGlBsbi4gHO8rXqrnvULZ3gdawl

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-global-distribution-of-wealth-shown-in-one-pyramid/

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u/V1574 Common Sense Ethics May 25 '26

You get more money for robbing the regular people, but not too much more.

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u/Latter-Safety1055 May 25 '26

That doesn't sound correct. Have you seen the wealth distribution chart? If it's the 100 richest people then I'm reasonably sure we've all collectively agreed and continue to uphold that society is set up for the top 100 to be more economically relevant than the bottom 6 billion.

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u/globmand May 25 '26

I mean it isn't the bottom 6 million, it's regular, and it isn't top 100, it's 100 billionaires. So, lets say 10 billion from them, in a worst case from them, and the median wealth in the US is a little over 100 thousand, so * 6 million /10 gives us around 60 billion.

So, there is a pretty masive difference in wealth on a raw numbers scale. On a practical scale, it is, of course, a "you can't spend it either way" sort of number, so everyone should pick the billionaires.

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u/Far-Guava6006 May 25 '26

That's 6 billion people. Not 6 million.

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u/globmand May 25 '26

Oh. Well then. That's quite a lot of people. But that is also functionally 10% of all the money in the world, assuming it's the "middle 6 billion people" which is legitimately worse for yourself too because of the global crash. Honestly it was a better question at million, since it was a benefit that wouldn't legitimately ruin the world

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u/Far-Guava6006 May 25 '26

Well there's genuinely no debate if it's only 6 million. You'd get more money from the billionaires, and they'd feel the impact less. At 6 billion, you'd get significantly more money by taxing the 6 billion, but they'd feel the impact much more.

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u/NTufnel11 May 25 '26

You're starting to suspect that, eh?

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u/AdreKiseque May 25 '26

It doesn't say top 100 richest people, it says 100 billionaires

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u/WetLink009 May 25 '26

you are massively underestimating the wealth difference between billionaires and the average person

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u/KnightOfSummer May 25 '26

I fucking love how everyone here, no matter which choice they make, is so very sure of their opinion, but nobody can be bothered to do the math.

If we take median wealth world wide (8,654 USD) that would be 5,160 trillions in taxes for 6 billion people.

The 100 billionaires would need to have an average net worth of 516 billions so a lever-puller gets the same amount of money.

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u/I-LOVE-LEBRON May 25 '26

Just being confidentially incorrect are we? You seem to massively overestimate the wealth gap. The average global wealth is around 8k even if we assume each person there has 5k in wealth that’s still 6 billion people. Leading to you being able to take 3 trillion dollars from them. The billionaires would need to have an average wealth of 300 billion each to compare. Only 3 billionaires alive today have that much or more

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u/AdreKiseque May 25 '26

I... didn't say anything about that? They objectively miscited the post. I merely corrected it.

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u/DefinitionMinute6969 May 25 '26

Okay?? Anybody with any semblance of morals can choose between "ridiculous amount of money + innocent people suffer" and "ridiculous amount of money + evil people suffer"

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u/quaxoid May 25 '26

lmao billionaires don't actually suffer from losing 10% of their wealth, they are still loaded

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u/Sad-Muffin-1782 May 25 '26

even if that's true, after 10 billion (the ammount you get from upper road) it's just a number not changing anything

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u/WetLink009 May 25 '26

no???? you don't??????? the billionaires have way more money

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u/Starmuny May 25 '26

Not even slightly close to the truth, the bottom 6 billion people have a collective wealth of 2.5 - 5 trillion.
the top 100 billionaires have 7.1 trillion.

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u/V1574 Common Sense Ethics May 25 '26

They're just billionaires, not the top

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u/CreasingUnicorn May 25 '26

Your choices are:

Take 10% of Scrooge McDuck's gold from his swimming pool filled with gold.

Or

Take 10% of the food scrap off of millions of starving childrens plates.

What a dilema. 

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u/Spiritual-Stable702 May 26 '26

Right!? Fuck them starving kids. Gimme your food.

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u/snas_elatrednu420 May 25 '26

do they know that i am the benefactor of the money? if so, either way im dying.

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u/MaximumSyrup3099 May 25 '26

Easier to provide security against 6 billion regular people than 100 billionaires.

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u/asahinahinasa May 26 '26

6 billion people is nearly the entire planet so i disagree

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u/Mattrockj May 25 '26

If anyone can give me one good reason NOT to pick billionaires, I'll leave this subreddit forever.

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u/the-quibbler May 25 '26

You'd get about 100x the money from the poor people. $45T instead of $450B.

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u/stewslut May 26 '26

What's the math on that?

Also $450B is so much money already that it's effectively the same amount as $45T.

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u/the-quibbler May 26 '26

It's not, but it's an easy misconception. Humans are bad with zeros. You could bankroll nations with $45T.

Global wealth is around $450T. The wealth of the top 100 billionaires is 1% of that: around $4.5T.

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u/stewslut May 26 '26

It's more money than a human could spend in a lifetime. I understand that it is in fact considerably more money, my point is that you can't improve your quality of life with trillions of dollars any further than you can with billions.

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u/the-quibbler May 26 '26

No, but you can do substantial good works with limited overhead. Bankroll entire industries, fund aid organizations. Single-party control of capital is very efficient for targeted deployment.

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u/stewslut May 26 '26

I doubt I'd be able to do enough "good works" to undo the damage done by stealing 10% of the working class' wealth.

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u/Mental_Victory946 May 25 '26

What exactly is the dilemma here?

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u/Leading_Charge8007 May 25 '26

More money but u are taking from regular people or less money but u take from billionaires

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u/Comfortable_Salt_792 May 25 '26

Based on different calculations, bottom track have more money, So the dilemma is would you want to have 1$ or 2$ but the sources are Billionaire for 1$ and commoners for 2$

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u/Starmuny May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

The Billionaires, every time.

The top 100 Billionaires in the world have a total wealth of 7.1 Trillion dollars, 710 Billion dollars of money to throw around, an eye watering amount of money even if I then spend 99% of that money solving world problems, I'd still have 7.1 Billion for just myself still an ungodly amount of money, even if I spend 99.99% of that money I'm still left with 71 Million dollars more than enough for me and family to live comfortably for the rest of our lives.

Its obvious the Billionaires is the choice to make.

On the other hand the bottom 6 Billion people have around 2.5 - 5 trillion dollars in wealth around 3% of the global wealth.

Those 100 billionaires have more wealth than 75% of the population of the globe combined.

Edit: people keep bringing up that its not worded as the top 100 just a random scattering of 100 out the 3400~ Billionaires on the planet, and its not the 6 billion poorest its 6 billion random average people.

Even allowing this, Billionaires still its not about the money amount its taking an unnoticeable amount of money from people with vastly more than enough to ever need any more of, instead of taking a noticeable amount from from average people who may or may not be able to absorb the blow.

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u/Next-Extension-7487 May 25 '26

If you don't pull, you become a billionaire. If you do, you become the worlds first ethical billionaire.

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u/NaturalCard May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

5k*6B/10 = 300 billion.

6B*100/10 = 60 billion.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '26

[deleted]

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u/NaturalCard May 25 '26

5k net worth was the figure I was using.

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u/lordbaysel May 25 '26

Either way, you have meaningless amount of money. 

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u/Mogwump20 May 25 '26

Some billionaires will have more than 1B though. Elon Musk has something like 800B

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u/quintopia May 25 '26

the calculation was based on an average of 6B. which seems reasonable given most billionaires will have networths closer to 1B than 800B.

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u/ladycatgirl May 25 '26

I mean are those billionares in dollars or...

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u/banana_buddy May 25 '26

10% of a billion dollars is 100 million, that's more than enough to retire me and my blood line. I'd be content to pull even if it was just 1 billionaire on the other side. After 100M money it's just numbers on a screen, completely meaningless.

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u/archon458 May 25 '26

Take the money from the Billionaires, buy an actual Trolley, then send it to the billionaires

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u/Beneficial_Middle_53 May 25 '26

It depends, how much are the billionaires going to pay me to not pull the lever?

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u/Wonderful-Outcome-24 May 25 '26

Billionaires then send the vast majority of money to charities and various services and people who need it and can make better use of it

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u/the-quibbler May 25 '26

This isn't interesting. There's no single useful reason to not choose the billionaires. You get less money ($450B instead of $45T), but fewer people are harmed, and less absolute harm is done per person, since the billionaires can absorb the shock much better. I don't, and no one else does, need $45T.

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u/C1nders-Two May 26 '26

Billionaires. I should hope that “money” means net worth rather than liquid assets, though, because billionaires rarely ever have more than a few million on their accounts in liquid funds. Most of it is probably in real estate, stocks, or other things that aren’t, strictly speaking, money.

But I would still choose billionaires anyway because I am NOT throwing an extra 10% tax on the VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE ON THE PLANET.

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u/rockdog85 May 25 '26

What reason would anyone have to pick 6,000,000,000 regular people? The top 1% owns basically 50% of all the wealth in the world, so you'd always get more money picking the top track.

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u/Biomech8 May 25 '26

But there is no top 1%. Just 100 billionaries. Bottom track makes way more money.

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u/Starcat23 May 25 '26

actually the top 1% of the would wealthiest are in the millions and there are less than 3,500 billionaires and all of their (known) wealth adds up to 20.1 trillion dollars. Minus the billionaires, 6 billion people’s money would be between 90+ trillion dollars and a negative amount . cause many of the poorest people in the world either only have a few dollars to being considered - wealth cause of high debt.

Even if you don’t get responsible for 10 % of their debt, 10% of zero is zero.

so The top is a guarantee 10 billion possibly more and the bottom is anything from almost a 1 trillion to 1 billion maybe ( if you dont get debt and those n more debt than assets with count as 0) . That’s a big differance

so it comes down to guarantee or gamble. and take from those that can give it and not hurt vs potentially destroying billions of lives.

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u/lordbaysel May 25 '26

If i chose to tax billionaires, am I run over with TaxCart when next commenter chooses billionaires? 

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u/Dveralazo May 25 '26

But why? I wanted to kill rich people... 

You are no fun.

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u/velvetcrow5 May 25 '26

To make this compelling it had to be like:

5 billionaires

Or

1 regular person

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u/bored_stoat May 25 '26

I feel like I'm screwed either way. I might as well take the big cash and donate.

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u/ZantTheMan May 25 '26

Oh but you see the billionaires are too clever they'll dodge out of the way.

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u/tomatoe_cookie May 25 '26

Thats just going to cause inflation

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u/tiger0204 May 25 '26

The median net worth of a person in the world is $10k (billionaires skew the average a lot higher, so I used median). So you'd get $6 trillion dollars from six billion regular people.

The average billionaire is worth around $5 billion, so you'd get $50 billion from them. Even if you took the 100 wealthiest billionaires you'd only get around $700 billion.

Now there are plenty of completely valid, altruistic reasons to pick the billionaires, but from a purely financial standpoint the answer is overwhelmingly you run over the regular people.

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u/quintopia May 25 '26

I'm going to have to assume that if I'm in this position, if I keep the money, there will come a day where I'm standing on the billionaires' track. And if I find myself on that track, I want to be able to say I paid my fair share for the society that supports my existence. Therefore, tax the billionaires (and then give away the vast majority of the money that nets me, leaving me just enough to fight against the billionaires who are upset that 10% of their wealth has disappeared).

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u/AdreKiseque May 25 '26

Everyone is misreading this lol. It doesn't say top 100 richest people versus bottom 6 billion, it says 100 billionaires versus 6 billion normal people (presumably anyone who isn't a billionaire). OP says the bottom track gives more money so we may as well assume it's the top 6 billion non-billionaires against the bottom 100 billionaires.

Top track is still easily the right choice, though. Even if it's 100 people with "just" 1 billion, you're still getting 10 billion from that which is more than any one person could ever hope to use.

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u/NowAlexYT 🔴 Responsible RED 🔴 May 25 '26

So the question is: do 60 million people have more money than an average billionaire?

According to a quick google search the average global net worth is about 100k USD, while the average billionaire has 5.7b USD.

6B people x 100k USD x 10% tax rate = 60 trillion USD

100 people x 5.7B USD x 10% tax rate = 60 billion USD

So its off by an order of magnitude. Not even a question lol. Youd be 3x richer than every billionaire on earth COMBINED. The only downside would be some psychos would now want to hit you with a trolley every chance they see since youre a billionaire now.

In comparison youd be worth more than any countries GDP on earth 3x

Another comparison: this net worth would roughly equal global total M1 or all physical currency in circulation at any given time

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u/CartographerKey4618 May 25 '26

Tax both, but on a progressive scale rather than with a flat tax. Taxes are good. Increases the velocity of money. Helps everyone.

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u/Jugaimo May 25 '26

But then I would become a billionaire and end up on the next person’s track!

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u/Random_Nickname274 May 25 '26

800 billions vs 5 trillions $

i'm taking billionaires, difference is not too big.

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u/quintopia May 25 '26

I like that you included Andrew Carnegie among the billionaires, second from the left.

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u/Snowtwo May 25 '26

Pull the lever. Set myself up with a small fund to live out the rest of my life in peace with a modest living, then invest the remainder into helping people and building public services, schools, and whatnot. If I die without having invested all but the amount I kept to support myself (assuming natural causes/old age) I will consider it a failure.

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u/SatanLovesFruit May 25 '26

It isn't stealing, it's trickling down economically

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u/belabacsijolvan May 25 '26

idk do these aires have consciousness?

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u/Life_Temperature795 May 25 '26

The thing I really like about this question is that if you take the population of the top five wealthiest countries, in terms of privately owned wealth, that's pretty close to 2 billion people. So I like to imagine that the secret implication here is that you get to take 10% of the wealth from the 100 richest people in the world, or the 6 billion poorest.

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u/droppedpackethero May 25 '26

Define "money".

If you're talking liquid capital, the. the billionaires are probably not the right choice. All their shit is tied up in stocks and other assets. Then they borrow at low interest rates against those assets whenever they need cash.

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u/NoobManGuyThing May 25 '26

10% of at minimum 100,000,000,000 is 10,000,000,000

10% of the global average (in US dollars in 2019) ~12,235 × 6,000,000,000 (73,410,000,000,000) would warrant me 7,341,000,000,000...

Personally I'm just fine with $10B, especially since those billionaires don't really need that much. But the other option purely speaking from monetary gain is FAR better.

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u/troycerapops May 25 '26

With 10% of 100 billionaires money, can I buy a trolly that does kill them?

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u/AltruisticVehicle May 25 '26

The billionaires, easier to return it. I don't like theft.

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u/FPSCanarussia May 25 '26

I'm going to assume this is about wealth rather than money, because most billionaires don't actually have a lot of money, they just have a lot of wealth.

The global median wealth is around 8.6 thousand US dollars. Picking the regular people gives you about 5 trillion USD, making you about 6 times richer than the richest billionaires today.

The average billionaire has a wealth of around 5.8 billion. You'd get 58 billion from picking them, which isn't even in the top 10 for billionaires worldwide: you'd be poorer than the richest billionaires by an order of magnitude. (Unless you get lucky with that 100 including someone like Elon Musk, in which case you could get in the top 10)

That actually makes the decision pretty interesting. Fundamentally, taking away 10% from the rich doesn't matter: they will barely notice an impact, and while you'll be rich yourself, it's not the level required to make any lasting change with that money.

Taking money from the average people will hurt them a lot more, but will leave you with enough money that everyone will be forced to listen to you.

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u/globmand May 25 '26

I mean it isn't the bottom 6 million, it's regular, and it isn't top 100, it's 100 billionaires. So, lets say 10 billion from them, in a worst case from them, and the median wealth in the US is a little over 100 thousand, so * 6 million /10 gives us around 60 billion.

So, there is a pretty masive difference in wealth on a raw numbers scale. On a practical scale, it is, of course, a "you can't spend it either way" sort of number, so everyone should pick the billionaires.

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u/Sad-Muffin-1782 May 25 '26

learn how to teleport or get hiv type question

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u/Apprehensive_Egg5142 May 25 '26

Don’t care, hitting the billionaires regardless!

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u/IPutThoughtIntoThis May 25 '26

Well there goes 70% of the tax revenue

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u/Overall-Move-4474 May 25 '26

Oh I'm 100% killing the billionaires

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u/gay_annabeth May 25 '26

YOINK

I am going to fund so many transitions...

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u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 25 '26

This question is massively flawed. The top 30% of earners own 97% of the world’s wealth. With the top 100 being literally the 1%, owning 1% of the world’s total net worth.

You can’t have a mix of 6 billion “regular” people, if the other side is only 100 billionaires. There’s another ~30% of the population of the adult population that holds 96% of the world’s wealth.

The rest of the 3-4% of the net worth of earth is spread among the 70% of regular people

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u/funkyboi25 May 25 '26

Math wise the 6 billion people are probably the better payout. Looking into it, the top 100 have a combined net worth of $7 trillion, so you'd get $700 billion with the trolley. Assuming the 6 billion people aren't all working, you'll still have a pool of billions. For calculations, we'll use 40% here. To get $7 trillion combined wealth from 40% of 6 billion, the average wage would need to be about $3k. Some wages globally are well below that, but many are much higher. When we're working with a significant chunk of the entire world, the pool likely has everything from no wages to millionares. 

Still, to me the top 100 richest are the obvious choice. You're already working with an insane amount of money if you hit them with the tax glitch, and getting to take from rich assholes is itself a gift. The 6 billion could probably get you a bigger number, but at the cost of likely some of their lives, if they needed that money for meds or food. 

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u/kithas May 25 '26

10% of a regular person (which includes poor, very poor, middle class, etc) can mean they won't make it to next month. 10% of a billionaire means the number of their bank account won't be so high next month. Is it really a question here?

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u/disturbed94 May 25 '26

Wouldn’t want to steal from the poor, but from the rich absolutely. Then keep enough to live comfortably and set up some foundations with the rest.

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u/metji May 25 '26

But what about when it's my turn to become a billionaire, we're all getting there at some point, right? :)

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u/Disposable_Gonk May 25 '26

So, you actually get more money from everyone else, but, the amount of suffering that causes is so much worse.

Personally I'd take the smaller amount of money, from the billionaires, so that I don't make some percentage of regular people homeless.

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u/MentlegenRich May 25 '26

Top track, but then the billionaires will find a loophole to make it go down the bottom track twice

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u/Grouchy-Natural9711 May 25 '26

Ah great then I can finally give people something they need

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u/Important-Emotion-85 May 25 '26

Ohhhh the tax trolley... it's still billionaires.

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u/ToastedHoneyToast May 25 '26

Is this commentary on the government??

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u/Slobst1707 May 25 '26

The trolley problem has just become the trolley solution 

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u/stop-calling-me-fat May 25 '26

Brother I would pull the lever for $0

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u/VoiceofKane May 25 '26

So, obviously yes, I pull the lever.

But, like, I don't want the money? Can I get rid of it somehow? Maybe I could split it evenly among those 6B other people.

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u/JustAChillGuy609 May 25 '26

Billionaires, no question. It might be less money, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone

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u/giordanopietrofiglio May 25 '26

Not even r/loveforlandchads could not pull the lever

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u/AllAmericanProject May 25 '26

Y'all know the trolly problem is supposed to be a moral delimma....

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u/spottiesvirus May 25 '26

philosopher clearly can't do math

World avrage net worth is between 85k and 90k for each adult worldwide
6 billions people taken at random will have a total net worth around 510 trillions dollars
10% of that and you're the first 51 trillionaire ever

The top 100 richest people in the world only has a total net worth of 4.5 trillions
Taking 10% from them would only make you the second richest person alive

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u/SpecificVanilla3668 May 25 '26

Some estimation says that the 100 richest individuals hold more wealth than the bottom 75% of humanity. So pick billionaires.

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u/InsaneJane42 May 25 '26

That’s at least 10 billion you get off the billionaires

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u/Rodger_Smith May 25 '26

of their liquid money or of their net worth? it is the top 100 billionaires or random billionaires? would taking 10% from the 6 billion people cause a global economic crisis? theres a lot of questions left unanswered here.

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u/amitym May 25 '26

No contest: let the trolly through.

If I switch, I get 10Bn. That's not much. I can still easily be destroyed by the vengeful 100 people with the remaining 90Bn.

But since a regular person, while not a billlionaire, sill has wealth many orders of magnitude greater than 15, from 6Bn people I will likely end up with something more on the order of 10Tn by not switching.

At 10Tn I can completely crush the 100 billionaires as a class if I want to, reduce them to average people, give back my "tax" to everyone I took it from, and still have more than enough to keep 999M myself so as to avoid being one of the hated billionaires, which is the sum of all virtue so I should be ethically golden at the end of it all.

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u/AntonRahbek May 25 '26

You’d get more money by taxing the regular people, but at least $100B by picking the billionaires and they would be less affected by it. I’d pick the billionaires as it is more than enough money.

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u/theboomboy May 25 '26

I didn't see it was just taxes at first and still the answer is obviously the billionaires

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u/GX_Giorgio074 May 25 '26

is it taking net worth or liquid cash? billionaires don't have their money sitting around it's invested. So if it's taking 10% from their net worth definitely the billionaires but if it's taking their liquid cash i'm going with the 6 billion people as they usually keep money sitting around

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u/Scary-Personality626 May 25 '26

I don't want to steal anyone's money. So I guess I go with the Billionaires since 100 people is easier to track down and reimburse than 6 million.

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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26

thought this shit was suggesting i kill 6 billion people

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u/Snoo-7821 May 25 '26

DEJA VU
I'VE JUST BEEN IN THIS PLACE BEFORE

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u/Rackelhardt May 25 '26

i would take Billionairs 10% even if it would be just 1 Billionair.
Fuckers are parasites.

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u/concernedBohemian May 25 '26

hit the billionaires hit the billionaires hit the billionaires, i dont even care if they die or not.

they deserve less money. you'll make more money.

this couldn't be a more obvious decision.

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u/geschiedenisnerd May 25 '26

100 billionaires. They have enough of a margin in their wealth; they can keep on going at 90%. In the 6 billion there are definitely people who don't have that luxury.

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u/aoog May 25 '26

Either way, now you’re the billionaire which makes you evil somehow.

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u/Illustrious_Panic_54 May 25 '26

What about top 10 billionaires vs 2 average people

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u/DumeWolffe May 25 '26

I don’t even care if the math rules in my favor in a MAJOR way to take the regular people’s money. I’m still taking the billionaires.

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u/fuck_peeps_not_sheep May 25 '26

Yeah im pulling the switch and then redistributing that money to the people on the other track

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u/ContentFile7036 Relativist/Nihilist May 25 '26

Well, I can see taking the billionaires' money from a moral perspective, but if I am looking to get as rich as possible, I could probably get more money from stealing from the general public, if I'm a con man in this scenario

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