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| Weather radar showing rain very specifically avoiding us. |
How much would you need to be paid so that you – and everyone you love – permanently give up access to and can never benefit from each individual item listed below?
Please come up with an actual dollar (or peso or euro) amount for each, then sum up the 30 numbers.
- Modern grocery stores (e.g., since 1916)
- Legal interracial marriage
- Legal LGBTQ relationships
- Legal gay marriage
- Ability to buy a house and have a credit card (denied to half the US until 1974)
- Smart phones
- Streaming entertainment (movies & TV shows, audiobooks, eBooks, songs)
- Internet (online shopping, banking, comparisons, remote work, email, instant access to ~all knowledge, etc.)
- Online maps
- GPS
- Modern weather forecasts / satellite imagery / hurricane predictions
- Air conditioning (see Europe for counter-example)
- Non-fireplace central heating
- Washing machines
- Safe and reliable lighting
- Safe and unlimited access to clean water
- Indoor plumbing (especially flush toilets)
- Modern sewage systems
- Electricity
- Refrigeration
- Blood transfusions
- Contraception
- Very low chance of maternal and child mortality
- Vaccines
- Current average lifespan (e.g., living 6+ years less than you would today)
- Modern dentistry
- Antibiotics
- Morphine / modern pain relief
- Emergency medicine
- General anesthesia
Nearly everyone we know has access to these priceless miracles. The ubiquity of these miracles makes them invisible.
We don’t feel rich because evolution has programmed us to judge our lives against the lives of others. Our underlying nature is to always want more.
But everyone reading this has won a lottery beyond imagining. Our wealth is far beyond every king and queen and emperor and titan throughout history.
Recognizing how much modernity has given us should not make us complacent about those who are suffering. Just the opposite: Having won the lottery should make the cruelty and deprivation others face even less acceptable.
Morally and practically, we need to overcome our programming. It doesn’t matter that others have more. Every single day, we should thank our lucky stars for our infinite net worth.
And then we should focus our efforts on helping the many who, right now, don’t have access to these incredible everyday miracles. Specifically, the countless sentient beings needlessly experiencing extreme suffering.
We already know how to produce extraordinary abundance, safety, and freedom. The issue isn’t that some have more than we do. The issue is that many can’t access the priceless everyday miracles we take for granted.
It is immoral to waste our time on jealousy and envy. We can each use our infinite wealth to make the world better for those who haven’t won the lottery we have.
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