If you could guarantee that one action you undertake would be successful, what would it be?
We're talking actions limited to something one human could achieve - so not wishes, but could be something amazing or rare like "become president"
Honestly? Petition the government to establish a tax function that starts at 0% and approaches 100% the more income you make. So by the time you’re making like 5 million a year, that 5 millionth dollar is taxed at like 99.9%. And make that a fucking constitutional amendment, so rich assholes couldn't change it. And make it illegal to use your stock as collateral for a loan, or just consider loans as income. And capital gains count. Basically guarantee that the 1% actually pay into the system they take so much from.
I would petition the government to make lobbyism illegal. Maybe this could be the start for cracking down on corruption more successfully...
One of the big issues I see with that proposal is that at some point, due to inflation an annual income in the ball park of 5 million dollars a year will be considered 'middle class'. And then the average person will be hit with substantial taxes from a then archaic tax law.
At that point you'll need a constitutional amendment to shift the goal post which is nearly impossible to do such. (At least at this moment in time it is.)
At that point the budget would likely have finally balanced itself out due to the higher tax rates. So of course there will probably be politicians arguing against making this change as it will effectively kill the federal budget, because shifting the tax laws will mean the government will be taking in substantially less.
It's a super well intentioned idea at the moment but it's really a disaster in the making for a future generation.
You could tie it to a defined benchmark like X multiples of the current cost of living.
In the Mondragon cooperative (last I knew) compensation per role is defined as a multiple of some common base rate, and the chief executive will never make more than a certain amount over the lowest paid employee.
Progressive tax is normal in most functional countries, it's not rocket science.
Basically you define X as a base sum that needs to be controlled for inflation. Minimum wage can be 2X, whereas 100% taxation might be reached at an income of 300X. In this scenario, nobody could earn more than 150 times minimum wage, and manipulating the calculation of X to make the rich richer would also benefit everyone else.
A bigger challenge is that billionaire scum tend not to have income, only loans, so they don't pay tax at all. But that's also easily fixed if there's political will.
I'm about to participate in a medical study. Hopefully the treatment is so successful that it cures me and everyone else suffering the same and similar conditions. And hopefully I'm not part of the control group.
Win the lottery. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can solve a lot of problems and make life easier and more comfortable.
It can buy me a boat. It can buy me a truck to pull it.
Money can buy happiness if it is so much money that you don't ever have to work to earn money again. Lower than that, difficult; if I won (say) 20000 euros I wouldn't really know what to do with them because I would still have to work.
I would do the same thing I do with rare, single use items in video games (Think the Master Ball). I would save it indefinitely in case there is a time that I really need it in the future. I would die having never used it.
I would win the lottery jackpot, of course.
Congratulations! You win one million, but only 400k after tax. Your relatives and friends won't stop sounding you now.
You can set up a trust and have a lawyer accept it to keep you anonymous, even in public winner states. Obviously you buy the ticket when it’s at 1 billion+. Now you invest it after taxes and live off 20 mill+ yearly yield.
You start a hands off small business to launder your own legal money. This is how you explain to your family that you were able to build a small modest home at least an hour away - just far enough to be inconvenient but not impossible for family to visit. Your real home is a custom built stone castle just over the hill in your back yard. You build a tunnel connecting them in case family drops in unannounced.
Or just do the first part and fake your own death. Depends on your relationship with family and friends.
Yeah that works for me. You can DM me for payment information
Sometimes it's 30 mio around here, and a lottery win goes tax free.
Become governor and Make Florida Freaky Again. Unwind the gerrymandering. Install my cabinet of freaky progressive politicians who want the state to have clean beaches, public transportation and less need to drive. More tax money to clean up our mess, and stop fighting people who just want to be themselves. Expand Medicare. Just work to bring balance to the force in general.
Get those MaFFA hats ready
Raise healthy, emphatic and intelligent kids.
If I manage that, everything else can go to hell, and I would still be happy and content in life.
If everything else goes to Hell then that's the world you let your kids live in after raising them to be great people... Not very healthy for them, not very empathetic or intelligent on your part.
Locus of control
To pass away gently, naturally, and not inconvenience anyone.
There are a select couple I would like to inconvenience, but it is highly unlikely they will care about my death at all.
Well I've never done a single thing toward this effort, but when I was a kid I wanted to have a unit of measure named after me. Like James Watt, Alessandro Volta, or Ted Megabyte.
Don't forget the smoot!
Named after a man who went on to chair ANSI and be president of ISO. That's a dude all about measuring things.
Or the Katie Couric!
I'd like to be able to donate liver to my dad.
Have you looked into donation chains? Often a ton of people who are willing to donate to somebody but can't will queue up and wait until a compatible match enters the queue and potentially set off a chain reaction of donations.
It's him unfortunately. He started feeling unwell 3 weeks ago, had a heart attack like event last week, turns out undetected terminal liver cancer, too unwell for any treatment. It sucks, but every day he has left is a gift.
lead an anarcho-communistic revolution
too bad you didn't wish for successful governance!
No wishing for extra accomplishments
Ditto
I would like to succeed in choosing the correct lottery number on a record high lottery.
Humanely overthrow the bourgeoisie and do an international proletarian revolution
Winning the lottery
Curing all my medical conditions.
Write a death metal song that brings peace and unity among all people and governments in the world, that every single person on the planet wholeheartedly loves to sing and dance/headbang to.
I hope my bussiness succeeds and that I don't ever need to go back working to someone else. Only been one month so far so too early to tell.
Build aligned seed AI.
To have one job I find enjoyable, creative, and slightly challenging that gives me enough income that I can enjoy a stress-less life.
Win 100million in the lottery obviously
Any cause I desire to see go through, will go through and we'll have a positive change in the world from it.
Make my family happy.
Establish world peace and universal economic stability
oh darn. reading the title I thought it was one thing you could repeat that would always succeed. Like always hit the bullseye in darts or such.
That's a good idea too. Probably would be a lot of gambling related answers to that one as well, like how everyone here wants to win the lottery.
I was actually asking the question more to reframe how we think about our one shot to live our lives. How should I be spending my time if I could get my shit together? And I think the repeatable question has a similar value: if there's one thing you should be practicing and investing time in, what should it be?
I have actually thought of that from that perspective sorta. I mean my answer would be a gamblng one but I knew this woman whos father made her and her sister get hair cutting certs when they were in high school and then in college she cut hair for cash and did it every so often throughout her life including her kids. It made we kinda wonder if it would be good to get a varitey of things like that when young. massage therapy, hair dressing, know an instrument or sing and such.
This decision.
Encouraging other people to contribute to my favorite charity. I'm going to visit them again, and I will of course lavish them but they can't really succeed with just me.
Conquer most of the known world, become MisterNeon the Great.
Since it is only 1 successful action, they are going to conquer back soon, and your life will be short...
I'm fully aware of that.