Michael Porter Jr. and Lonzo Ball say they would press a button that causes one random person to die for $1 billion
They already make millions and don’t change anyone’s lives but if you gave them a billion then they would definitely help people lmao
The random person could be anyone, they could even be miserable!
I mean there’s a chance it’s a pedophile or smthing.
Or 90 yo with cancer.
It could also be a 5 yo kid.
Lo and behold, that 5 yo would grow to become a cancer ridden 90 yo pedophile!
Mpj saved us from that 5yo
michael porter jr, a multi millionaire who has a problem with tipping wants me to believe he’s going to help others with his billion.
i’m not advocating for tipping or saying it’s directly correlated. but i find it hard to believe a multi millionaire who complains about tipping on a $3000 dinner would help others with their money
That is why I’m pretty sure this happens to him. 😂 Having to wait out on line as Brunson walks right in from a car to the club with his wife… https://youtube.com/shorts/oSxrKeXtzC4?is=nY7M8iANe3n_2QE2
Idk about MPJ but Lonzo comes from an already wealthy family too. You would think he would be a bit less money driven since he has lived in wealth his whole life. Shitty people gon be shit I guess
Lavar fucked all of his sons up mentally. Failed them there, but hey, 2⁄3 got to play in the nba for a little.
And the one that didn’t, ruined his chances by stealing sun glasses while on a UCLA school trip in China (and never even played for them after getting expelled).
That third ball was never going to make the league regardless of the sun glasses thing
The NBA has a very clear “Two Balls only” policy.
It’s never enough for them. To you, they look exceedingly wealthy, but to them all they see is the next guy up the ladder. They might have a couple sports cars and a mansion, but they’re looking at the guy with a garage of Ferraris and an ocean sailing yacht.
Yep. There’s never enough power or Money to really pivot and start helping. They just need some more and then they’ll do it but they can’t yet until .. Tomorrow they will run faster, stretch out their their arms farther … and then one fine morning -
MPJ is just looking for that glory of giving away 300 million. this is just another exercise in clout chasing for him. this should be the same argument as the death penalty when it comes to humans enabling the state with the power to murder people. it’s a violation of human rights, but i guess anything goes for more instagram followers
I’m not listening to this shit, but please don’t tell me that was their argument? That they’d help people. Because how deaf could you be saying that while worth hundreds of millions.
That is indeed MPJ’s argument.
Lonzo is at least honest and admits he doesn’t care about some random person dying and wants a billion dollars.
Wanna know how I know Lonzo is a POS?
To be fair to MPJ, he turns the question into a trolley problem: “if I got the billion dollars from killing 1 person, I would use 300 million to better the lives of many more than that”.
He doesn’t make the argument that he wants to do good in the world and he needs the billion to do so, simply that he would justify his killing by saving some people, which, in the context of this thought experiment is actually a pretty reasonable answer.
And after causing the death of someone, lol.
Oh I’d do so much good with that 3-400 hundred million.
Definitely not doing it so I can keep 600 fucking million to myself. Sickening.
This was a, I think, Twilight Zone episode.. A couple was given a box with a button and told that if they pressed the button they would get a 200 thousand dollars but that ‘someone YOU don’t KNOW’ would die..
They fight about it, throw the box in the garbage, get it out, open it up (it’s empty), and then, finally, press the button. There is a knock on the door and a man comes to get the box and give them the money. They ask what is going to happen to the box and the guy says simple ‘someone who doesn’t KNOW YOU will get it and be given the same choice.’ The implication that the next people who were given that box would kill them if they pressed the button, too.
The Twilight Zone has been, is and forever will be legendary.
I think everybody should watch that show. Maybe a remake or something since it was filmed so long ago.
The only reason why I know about it is cause my model-esque, 6’4 semipro cycling English teacher in 8th grade made us watch an episode a week 😂
If you aren’t watching the original Rod Serling episodes, you’re wasting your time
And they’re free on Tubi
Tubi gets alot of shit but its actually pretty awesome considering its free. They have an extremely large library.
Tubi rocks. I have or have had every major streaming service and every time I get Tubi rolling, I wonder why I pay for anything else.
The original is the best science fiction show of all time (this coming from a big Trek fan) and one of the best tv shows ever period. It’s still very rewatchable.
Less than 1⁄3 of the episodes are science fiction. Most of them are fantasy/horror/supernatural.
But yes one of the best TV shows ever. “its a good life” haunts me.
Jordan peele did do a remake of it a few years ago, and even as the massive twilight fan I am, remember it being disappointing .
Something about the timelessness of that original , or the era and context it’s made in makes it not seem condescending or somehow more novel
Iirc, peele was just the presenter, didn’t direct the show though.
Twilight was great at its time, but black mirror was just a lot better adapted to today’s time.
The Sy-Fy channel always does a Twilight Zone marathon on New Years Eve and into New Years Day. Some of my favorite New Years memories are staying up until midnight watching Twilight Zone with my stepdad. His favorite episode was “To Serve Man” and mine was the one where the sun is getting closer to Earth (the terrible acting when a character faints gets me every time).
I still always watch a few episodes on New Years with my wife, the same marathon is still on the Sy-Fy channel. She gets bored quickly though because they do tend to follow a similar structure of “people are in weird situation. Weird situation has something to do with Aliens”. But some episodes are absolutely golden
It’s an interesting actual moral dilemma for normal people who are struggling but for two millionaires with generational wealth it’s just straight up evil
20% of the world population doesn’t have clean water to drink. Americans’ view of what constitutes struggling is hilarious. It isn’t a moral dilemma. The decision is evil no matter who it is.
Suffering in one place doesn’t negate suffering in another place. Unless those 20% without clean water are hilarious for thinking they are suffering when there are people with no water whatsoever? And those people are hilarious…yada yada?
It’s the natural endpoint of “there are starving children in Africa!” guilt shaming.
No suffering is valid unless it’s the most suffering in the world.
Yea agreed. I’ve heard it referred to as the Suffering Olympics. Gotta be the biggest sufferer or you better shut your mouth lil Timmy.
Idk what if you use that billion to save 5 people? Now it’s just a trolley problem
There’s a real life version of that playing out in a lot of wildlife preservaton programs. They allow for limited hunting of big game animals, then use the funds from those hunts to protect large amounts of those same animals.
And it’s not just “Ok go shoot a lion” it’s “OK go shoot this specific lion that is old and close to death anyways / causing problems for the herd / etc” and then they let the hunters keep the trophy while the locals keep the meat. Yes it’s sad, yes I don’t understand the desire to do this, yes it would be great if trophy hunting didn’t exist. But the world doesn’t run on emotions. Remote African tribes have very, very few sources of income to do anything - take care of themselves or take care of their animals. The safari market is mostly concentrated in a few areas and doesn’t have much room to grow. But if some rich American is willing to spend $50k to shoot a lion that’s gonna die within the year anyways? You take it when you’re in their shoes and do good with the money rather than not taking it because it’s sad the lion has to die a bit early as you have no other way to earn that kind of money
A lot of it funds mercenaries who were former US Marines and stuff too. They get paid by the proceeds of these game reserves to protect the game reserves - aka shoot poachers who don’t have permission to hunt these animals. The local tribes don’t have the combat skills or access to weapons to do it themselves. World’s a messed up place and some places got dealt terrible geographic hands, they do the best they can in Africa
It’s all relative.
People struggle in different places for different reasons. Life is hard for a lot of people.
The idea that people can’t struggle in America is lazy and will lead to nothing ever getting better if everyone embraces the mentality.
This argument is used to deligitimize people’s demands for improvements to their lives. You want better working conditions? Well there are people outside of the US with worse conditions, be grateful and stfu.
I think those 20% would have an even better argument!
It’s a movie based on a short story
The movie (the Box, 2009) came out long after the Twilight Zone episode (80s) (where I first saw it) but it was based on the same story - Button Button - from the 70s.
Which was an adaptation of a short story called Button Button.
Monkeys paw, the person dying is you.
[removed]
The collective average IQ of humanity would increase at least 10 points if it was one of these guys.
lmao
And Zo is the smartest ball by far.
and shockingly, MPJ is the smartest Porter lmao.
Spoiler alert for an episode that’s over 40 years old…
In the Twilight Zone episode of this scenario, it’s the next person who gets to press the button that’ll kill you.
Also, they made this into a movie too; it’s called The Box, and it stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden.
Spoiler alert after the spoiler lol
Spoiler debriefing
Yup or someone you love
Always someone you love the most.
that would defeat the “random” component would it not?
If the randomness was done before asking the person, then no.
Pick a random person, even from a limited selection, give them the choice to kill the “random person” chosen, ie themself.
1 in 8 billion chance, I like my odds.
It doesn’t say the pool is everyone, just implies it. It could be r/NBA subscribers with a username starting with L.
I assure you, it’s someone you don’t know
Somebody’s read Button, Button
Fun fact, that story was first published in Playboy of all places
A necessary low risk high reward podcast topic for rich athletes to discuss
“I NEED the Billie”
Lonzo is out the league and may not have great spending habits, not shocking that he’s desperate for the money.
He is already out of the league, but for what it’s worth he always seemed like the most level headed of the 3 (maybe damning with faint praise now that i type it out lol)
Tbh the only saving grace is that Lavar has good financial literacy. He was able to provide his 3 children with very comfortable lives as they were growing up, so it appears that he’s pretty good with money. Plus, he clearly has an entrepreneurial spirit so he may have numerous streams of income. Hopefully that rubbed off on Lonzo.
Telling my kids this is socrates and aristotle
Telling my kids these player podcasts are all ass
Be excellent.
Not a good look when you’re a millionaire
Hundred millionaire
But haven’t you heard how much they have to pay in taxes?
/s
Billionaires would say it too
But for some perspective, $1bn is still like 7x MPJ’s career earnings to date. It’s a shit ton of money even to them.
It still highlights the greed of society. These guys got numerous homes, cars, personal belongings and they still would kill someone in a heartbeat for more wealth. These guys are at a point that nearly no person reaches financially.
Yeah, the average NBA player is already in the top 3% of global wealth
Edit: I underestimated how terribly global wealth is skewed
Hell, billionaires are already slamming their fist on that button every day. That’s why they’re billionaires. Safety regulations are written in blood and no one should be shocked that as soon as food regulations were rolled back that there’s a sudden spike in food borne illnesses. Billionaires would and do kill people for money all the time. The only difference is that billionaires are deranged people who would still hit the button if it only made them a nickel while no normal person would.
Most billionaires are already billionaires by pushing this metaphorical button hundreds of times per day.
The greed is crazy.
yah but sacrificing your first-born child is a small price to pay
Agamemnon that you?
Hey how else you gonna calm the seas?
We can pretend most people wouldn’t do it
Most people aren’t making $40mil a year playing a game they love living in NYC
I wouldn’t. I have what I need and I’m not greedy, so I’d happily press the button without taking the money.
I’m doing that too lmao
You got $100M to your name rn?
Probably would be the most ethically sourced billion dollars
This is what people are overlooking.
Getting cheated on by Jeff Bezos is #1 and not surprisingly she’s the most generous billionaire as well
She was also a cofounder of Amazon and a key contributer in it’s early days as well as a graduate from Princeton where a Nobel Lauraeate described her as “the best student they’ve ever had”. She also has published two award winning novels.
She probably wouldn’t have been a multi billionaire, but she wasn’t some stay at home trophy wife that just happened to luck into money by doing nothing. She earned it as much as Bezos did by being a cofounder.
She’s also an extreme outlier when it Comes to billionaires
I mean…yeah (shoutout to the deceased)
What if you’re the one random person. Now you can’t collect so your family gets nothing and you’re dead. Shout-out to you.
1 out of 9 billion+ and it happens to be the button presser? I think most would take their chances
Yeah Russian Roulette has worse odds.
If my life ends due to a 8.5 billion to 1 chance so be it
You survive worse odds every day
Don’t threaten me with a good time, baby.
Edit - Just to be clear I would not press the button on the proposed scenario. But if it was press this button and either get a billion dollars or die, I’d have to really consider it.
1 in 8.5 billion chance. Im no math expert but I think those are favorable odds for you.
This whole conversation reads like a boondocks episode with them actually saying shoutout to the deceased
y’all are weirdos
People casually saying that “anyone” would murder for money is so depressing. What a bummer of a thread.
I think most people would click the button assuming it just sort of happens. I think a lot less people click the button if you have to do the murder yourself. Ignorance is bliss after all.
MPJ says he’d use it to save additional lives. So he spent one life to save many. ITS A CONUNDRUM
Couldn’t he do that with the $153m+ he’s already earned?
You know he ain’t doing that.
You must have missed the recent news that these athletes have let us in on…. $150m is actually barely enough to scrape by.
while this does soften the blow a little bit, i’m not sure i believe that he actually would lol
He rapes but he saves!-dave chappelle
That’s cause there’s no stakes. But imagine if you had to watch the person die and then have to see their family mourn them, that’ll cause a lot more people to say “actually nevermind lol”
If you could live with the guilt that you knowingly killed somebod before their time, on purpose, for money, regardless of whether you see that first hand or not, then you’re just a bad person. You shouldn’t need any more stakes with the information present. (Using “you” generally here, not you specifically)
Their pr people must think theyre both absolute morons
Their PR people are the most excited, only because it’s all for clicks. Look at the engagement on this post alone. They’ll package these stats as “views, comments” and sell bigger influencer deals
Their PR people are probably morons themselves. Only way to explain them.
Most people on the planet would
You’d think a hundred millionaire wouldn’t need to
Who said they needed to? Doing it for the love of the game 🙏
Brother, billionaires are killing thousands(maybe even millions) of people every year just to get more money
Would you shoot someone in the head for a billion dollars ?
Would you order the death of someone for a billion dollars?
I get to choose who?
That’s disappointing…
Lavar Ball would press a button that causes LONZO to die for $1 billion 😂
He’d probably negotiate down to $800 Million for Liangelo
These guys have moved on from making videos about how $100m really isn’t that much money, where they teach the general public about taxes (which only pro athletes pay) to now making videos about how, despite having hundreds of millions of dollars already, they would still throw a random person in a woodchipper to get more. Great content which really helps them relate to the average person.
I’d also like to add, just for posterity, that I continue to be amazed by MPJ’s stupidity. Every time I think he couldn’t be a bigger dipshit, he proves me wrong.
The rest of the league is mostly similarly stupid, just 2% smarter so they know when to shut up.
I’ve long given up seeing these dudes as anything other than uneducated narcissists with athletic bodies and 100% of their tiny brains optimized purely for the game.
This is true of almost all pro athletes and even coaches, and part of why we should be so vehemently opposed to giving them any sort of political power.
This comment section is a case study of how our society has eroded and dulled our basic sense of ethics in any relation to money. Everyone for themselves. Others are just obstacles in the way of you becoming rich.
Is this really anything new? Pretty sure its always been like this
I don’t think it’s really clear whether people would actually do it given the choice right in front of them despite what people say. I think there’s probably a lot of people who say they would who wouldn’t when facing the consequences and vice versa
Not exactly paragons of virtue in these comments, damn
what’s really shocking is the amount of people to whom this is such an easy decision to press the button that they literally cannot comprehend someone not pressing it and say everyone is “virtue signaling” and completely full of shit
it makes me really sad actually. i’d like to believe the average person is a good person but when i see people that would straight up murder someone for money with a clear conscience, it makes me question
Kinda shocking me lol
Feels like the majority of commenters on this subreddit pretty much only value money and would do just about anything for it. They wrap it up in hatred of billionaires and rich people somehow but it’s fairly obvious that if they were that rich, they’d be more than happy to be just like the average billionaire at best. This is one of the few times where there straight up isn’t any moral justification for it.
i would never press that, and i’m actually really depressed seeing how many of you would. i dont deserve to have a billion dollars for killing somebody, and you never know, you could be killing your own mother, lover, child, it’s never worth it.
These comments are hard to read, like damn there’s that many fucked up people out there?
Mostly kids tbh lol
Lot of people are bad people I guess
I mean… you could give half of it away and save way more than one life. The DoT uses $14.2 million as the value of a statistical life when determining whether to undertake projects, for example.
The only way you can remotely justify this is spending the entire billion on saving others.
If you keep even a few mil for yourself, then you are saying it’s okay to murder an innocent person for some amount of self-benefit. That to me is unconscionable.
Americans accepted random people dying so that they could get cheaper bananas.
They were okay with random people dying if it meant they could go to a fun party 5 years ago.
Miss me with the pearl clutching.
Have you considered that the people who wouldn’t press this button also aren’t happy with people dying for cheaper groceries or to go to parties?
real “you criticize society, yet you participate in society” energy here
This comment is peak comedy
And this is from people who have more money than most people will make in a lifetime. I can see it for a poor person or even a person working a job they really hate. These guys dgaf.
The question is essentially asking if you’d kill someone for a billion dollars. I’m not a murderer, so I would not.
Thanks for that breakdown.
Fair enough, but a lot of people don’t associate the act of pressing a button with actual murder.
Reminds me of the trolley problem. Do you switch the lever to kill 1, saving 5 people. Most people would say yes, they would.
Now there’s a twist, instead of just switching a level, you have to actively push 1 person off a bridge, killing them but saving 5 lives.
The math is exactly the same, kill 1 to save 5, but when the visceral act of physically killing is involved, people are much less likely to say they’d do it. By the same token, I think if this question was “$1 billion but you have to stab a random person 50 times and kill them”, the answer would be majority no
Fair enough, but a lot of people don’t associate the act of pressing a button with actual murder
That’s literally what it is what else would it be lol
This is nothing like the trolley problem you’re just trying to rationalize murder.
If you wouldn’t, you’re lying
Edit: Our economic system causes so much death and suffering just to support our current lifestyles and society is largely chill with it. But as soon as it becomes more personal, people are outraged? We push the button everyday for way less than $1B
who raised you degenerates
Is it so hard to imagine that some people would prefer to not be a murderer? People who could press that button and not think about it every time they spend that money are sociopaths.
If I had over $100M in career earnings at 28 years old I would not
Thinking everyone would kill someone for money is wild lol. Also your edit just makes it worse. The economic system is beyond fucked because a bunch of psychopaths like you have all the wealth.
What the fuck?
Edit: your edit is just rationalizing murder lol what’s wrong with you
It’s sad that you can’t even imagine people not wanting to end a life for personal gain
Most people are actually not murderers lol
Not me… I wouldn’t want the same thing done to me…🤷♀️
We are all in this game together. Killing another for your own gain is just hurting us as a species.
Don’t project
Not lying, find the thought experiment/the fact that so many people would do it absolutely wild.
I’m well enough off on investments and a good job, combined with a solid retirement plan that I’m going to be able to live the rest of my days in comfort and happiness, so I wouldn’t. But I could understand why somebody with no way out of poverty would press it with no hesitation
One of the most annoying things on reddit is when someone says, ‘WE WOULD ALL DO IT’, no I wouldn’t. You only speak for yourself.
People do not personally contribute to anyone’s death simply for existing in a society they don’t have the power to change. This reads like a teenager who just read his first (poorly summarized) assignment in a philosophy elective and is just a poor attempt at rationalizing murder
Apparently these dumbasses never saw “The Box”
Roddy Rich made a music video for that song?
It’s one thing to shoot the shit in your dorm room while high on the marijuana but debating this for the world to hear is a pretty odd choice
A lot of liars in these comments
Or a lot of people with a fucking conscience
A lot of people needing to project their greed unto others so they can feel better about themselves
I’m not killing someone for some fucking money lol
I get someone who is super financially desperate pushing the button, I like to think I wouldn’t even in that situation but it’s easy to say that if you’re not in said situation and you can’t 100 percent know for sure unless I’m in it, and wouldn’t blame someone in those shoes. But someone who is not only a multimillionaire, but someone with at least tens of millions of dollars choosing to push that button is an awful thing to do. You never have to work another day on your life and have enough money to have comfortably set you and your family up for life but will choose to murder an innocent person for more money? I don’t know how someone could do that and look themselves in the mirror.
its like a mcdonalds worker being against taxing billionaires because they think they could be a billionaire one day, people are so greedy it just never ends
Seemingly the more money people have the less of a soul they seem to have.
How many people willing to “push the button” are pro-life? 🙄
MPJ’s stupid ass definitely is.
Probably a lot. Seems like pushing the bottom would agree more with conservative values
I would too.
I’d push it twice.
Bam, both your parents dead
What does Mr. Adabayo have to do with this?
This is sociopathy.
Multi-millionaires will sacrifice a human being for more money
What do they not have that they want?
A billion dollars apparently.
This is wild coming from Millionaires.
Stop listening to these morons speak. They get paid millions to play a game. What do you think they know about the real world?
I would not press it. I see most of you are lost, greedy, and soulless though. That’s the reason I just shutdown in life and don’t try.
If NBA was wise, they’d pull this clip asap. These fuckers are worth millions - are associated with people who collectively are worth billions. This is a bad rep on them and the league. Losers
two of the dumbest men to ever grace the earth
Just take player podcasts away. We’re better off.
Now we got the moral grandstanding r/nba redditors out here.
I’d slap tf out that button
I can understand the average person doing this, but a multi millionaire doing it is wrong
Anyone doing it is unquestionably immoral. It’s murder.
Quality Humans right there….
Money is the root of all evil
I wouldn’t do it.
Not b/c I’m some superior moral person, but b/c that decision would give me extreme anxiety for the rest of my life, and that can’t be fun even with a billion dollars.
I maybe wouldn’t say this if I already had more money than god
Many of you seem to believe that wealthy people wouldn’t press the button because they have wealth and poor people would because they need it, and you are really misjudging how wealthy people make money and not comprehending the class war against you.
We have a morality issue in this country