in the last 7 days...
phil has elevated the game like Mile High Stadium with 12 comments.
beth is in Striking Distance like Bruce Willis & boats with 11.
Joe is closing quickly like Circuit City with 8.
Tiffany! is right up in there like ill-fitting swimwear with 8.
prof. fancy pants has 5 and is intense like the circus.
DirtyDanSin has his/her dignity, but only 4 comments
jon has 3 comments and needs to raise the stakes like when the camping trip is over.
Stace has 2 & needs work like me before I got hired.If you were offered something hugely big, like a majority stake in Microsoft, in exchange for never being able to see or talk to the one you love the most, would you take it?
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category: a very serious question
→ 34 answers so far ↓
1
beth
// Mar 3, 2010 at 9:19 am
Absolutely not.
2
phil
// Mar 3, 2010 at 9:57 am
No, there wouldn’t be much point to it.
3
c lo
// Mar 3, 2010 at 10:04 am
No. Ditto what Phill said.
4
nateg
// Mar 3, 2010 at 10:27 am
no way. i just don’t sell out like that
5
Joe
// Mar 3, 2010 at 10:49 am
I think you guys are forgetting what world changing power you would have with a majority stake in MS. It would be like having a majority stake in America.
You could create great things in your vision. You could change policy to match your own ethics. Compared to that, your own personal happiness should come in secondary I think.
I would probably have these lofty goals in mind as I made the terrifying decision to take the MS share. Then, as the years progressed, my own ethics and morals would be weakened by compromise and bad decisions. At the end I would break down completely and go out with a fleet of luxury yachts going on a world wide sex tour trying to fill the void that missing my loved ones left in me.
6
phil
// Mar 3, 2010 at 11:08 am
Wait is it just the one person or all your loved ones? DO you have time to explain yourself?
If it’s just one person, what if you become very close and love the Chief Financial Officer at Microsoft after you make the deal, are they then the #1 person you love most and they become invisible to you?
If you make sure to be really self absorbed and love yourself more than you love anyone else and this could work! Then you would be unable to see and talk to yourself but you could hire someone to shave you since you wouldn’t be able to do it yourself.
I see your point Joe that maybe you are selling out more by clinging to your own personal happiness when you could be curing malaria and saving lives.
7
Joe
// Mar 3, 2010 at 11:10 am
No, just as a one time thing right now with whoever you love most. For instance, I would never be able to see you again. You would never be able to see fish and chips* again etc.
*I am basing this on that one time when you chose to go and get fish and chips rather than hang out with me 5 or 6 years ago.
8
jake
// Mar 3, 2010 at 11:51 am
I think I have to say “no”. Somehow I think the regret you’d feel for giving up the one you love the most would be greater than what you’d feel for giving up a chance at having unbelievable power. I think this is especially true if you ended up losing the power.
This is essentially a “would you sell your soul…” question. That’s not a criticism; I like the question.
9
phil
// Mar 3, 2010 at 12:14 pm
But you aren’t selling your soul you just don’t get to have the one person you love most near you. You could help that person out also, just don’t get the selfish joy of seeing them or talking to them. Joe, could you write?
10
jake
// Mar 3, 2010 at 12:42 pm
@Phil, I guess since you take everything literally I’ll have to connect the dots for you:
When I said “soul” I didn’t mean “the invisible and immaterial entity that shares your personality, and that leaves your body and when you die goes to heaven or hell, or remains here in the material world as a ghost.” That thing doesn’t exist.
I meant “the part of your identity that makes you feel emotionally whole.”
11
Stace
// Mar 3, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Nope unless I can make my hated relatives the most loved then get this offer.
12
jason
// Mar 3, 2010 at 12:58 pm
since i don’t know who i love the most but have a few ideas on how to spend a billion dollars, i think you’d find me having doin’ it big somewhere. And phil and joe and jake would have an open invite since i only kinda like them.
13
beth
// Mar 3, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Part of this question is “Who do you love most?” Which is impossible to answer.
The idea of loving one person the very most in the whole wide world is a sticky subject because there are different emotions tied to each of the “loves in your life.” And trying to figure out which emotion weights the most on this scale is just way too hard.
Besides, isn’t Bill Gates already working on the Malaria issue? I don’t think I could take over his share of MS and do a better job. And if I did make the choice of never seeing that loved one again, I have a feeling I’d be so crippled by the decision that, I could have all the money in the world but it would be useless in my hands for philanthropy or otherwise. (How’s that for dramatic?)
14
Joe
// Mar 3, 2010 at 3:05 pm
@jake it isn’t “selling your soul” it is “a difficult choice.” You aren’t getting anything on credit.
15
phil
// Mar 3, 2010 at 3:16 pm
@Beth I think Microsoft was just an example so just imagine a giant organization like Microsoft, the world bank or JP morgan that gave you the power to shape the world.
@Jake giving up a selfish attachment to somebody else for the betterment of the world isn’t selling your soul. When you tell me you have to spell something out for me it makes me angry. I’m a goddamn spelling bee champ when it comes to what things mean believe me. By the way season two of the last airbender is sort of about this.
16
jake
// Mar 3, 2010 at 3:42 pm
@Phil: Sorry about the spelling-out thing. Does it make you less mad when I accuse you of being an unfeeling robot? Because you clearly can only see the giving-up-the-one-you-love premise from a stance of cold, inhuman objectivity. Your viewpoint works fine if we assume that one can wipe the psychological slate clean– and do away with any debilitating senses of loss, regret, guilt, etc.– by simply redefining their feelings as “selfish attachment”.
Also, I think the assumption that all that power could only lead to betterment of the world is giving you, me and most people too much credit.
As far as “selling your soul goes” I think we’re all defining that phrase differently so I take it back.
17
Joe
// Mar 3, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Ok, you win phil, i’ll torrent it. (actually I am only doing it because someone whose taste I actually trust, Chris, has it on his list)
18
beth
// Mar 3, 2010 at 3:45 pm
“Selfish attachment” is a one-sided way of looking at this. It denotes that the person whom is “taken away from you” wouldn’t also be totally hurt by the separation.
19
beth
// Mar 3, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Actually…it’s kind of a selfish way of looking at it.
20
jake
// Mar 3, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Yeah, that’s the other thing Beth. I, like you (and maybe wrongly, as it’s not specified in the question), am assuming the feelings are mutual.
21
beth
// Mar 3, 2010 at 4:01 pm
@jake – maybe the other person’s brain would be wiped clean of any relationship between you and them? Like when Spider-man and Mary Jane’s marriage is erased from history.
22
phil
// Mar 3, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Excellent Spider-Man reference Beth!
As head of MS you could get them free upgrades to Windows 7 sent through the mail so it would be worth it for them.
If you could explain yourself beforehand or even write letters afterwards it would make a big difference.
I think this is a real choice that everyone makes all the time, this is just an exaggerated case. Anyone who chooses to have any effect on the world has to choose to be apart from the people they love.
23
jake
// Mar 3, 2010 at 4:23 pm
I’m pretty sure Beth’s no-prize is in the mail.
24
beth
// Mar 3, 2010 at 4:34 pm
@phil thanks!
Do you mean for example: my choice to move from a small, not-so-enterprising town to a bigger, much-more-dynamic city (and thus away from my family) so I can ultimately find my calling in non-prof? Or the neighbor that joins the Army so she can afford college, despite the fact that we are in war and she’ll likely be sent abroad?
Sure, I guess these are watered down versions of the question. And you’re right, many people have to make this choice everyday.
25
beth
// Mar 3, 2010 at 4:35 pm
@jake does no-prize = Windows 7 free upgrade?
26
Chris
// Mar 4, 2010 at 5:08 am
Take the Money and don’t look back. You only have to give up the one person once. How many people have you been with and thought they were “the one”? Exactly, they dumped your ass and you found a different “the one”. So consider this, 6 months of being sad and lonely versus the rest of your life rich and happy… even happier when you find another “the one”.
Gimme the money and power… I will find someone else to love.
27
jake
// Mar 4, 2010 at 9:29 am
@Chris: Many rich people are very unhappy, and it’s frequently because of something they gave up in order to get rich.
28
DirtyDanSin
// Mar 4, 2010 at 10:18 am
@Chris: Your assumption that the beloved is a romantic paramour is possibly over-simplistic. My loves are my kids, mom and muh woman.
I suppose that I could be made to agree that muh woman got along just fine without me for years, and so if that is the question, she’d rebound…although I am getting hitched this month and am answering a resopunding no in that instance…esp. since Microsoft is the example – I mean how emabarrassing is that!? Apple on the other hand, that would be a tough one to pass on.
If you wanted to discuss my Mom being a most loved, she is so generous and concerned for me that she would probably encourage me to take the deal pretty seriously…she made me to win and always likes me to go big.
My kids…forget it. They are stuck with me and no Microsoft offer can change that.
29
jenny
// Mar 4, 2010 at 11:44 am
That shouldn’t even be a question, if you equate money and wealth with happiness and love then you have never experienced either and you will never know true happiness or love no matter how much dough you accumulate.
30
panasonicyouth
// Mar 4, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Ew, not at all.
31
Chris
// Mar 4, 2010 at 3:42 pm
I do not believe all relationships are fulfilling. And I am ignoring any cases for children.
I believe many of you had relationships which were not fulfilling, and you did not realized it until near the end or after the relationship. But during the relationship, for some period of time, you thought you found the one. I for one never regretted a leaving a relationship I had, why? Because although it was fun while it lasted, it was not fulfilling.
Now ignoring any relationship matters…
My case is not using the money to buy an island and partying with the natives. It is about being a compassionate person with the gift you have been offered.
Studies have shown that compassionate people live very fulfilling lives regardless of their financial or social status. A person vesting time, sweat and emotions into helping others will be highly fulfilling. With this in mind, if you have almost unlimited wealth and influence, you can have a invest your self into these causes. You can eradicate malaria and polio. You can fund AIDS and Cancer research. You can provide for a loving and caring homes for orphans, helping them to have happy lives. You can create jobs which are self sustaining for poor or under-privileged families.
Doing these compassionate works in person, on the ground, getting your hands dirty, will make it even more fulfilling. Not only will you be doing something “good”, but you will get to know the people you are helping, building relationships that are potentially more meaningful to you than the one you gave up.
I cannot make the trade with my son. But if he was not in my life, with any other person in my life.
32
phil
// Mar 4, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Yeah Chris I think you said it really well.
33
jake
// Mar 4, 2010 at 5:19 pm
So Chris’ answer is to the question is “no”.
I just heard today that a Gallup poll revealed that money does, in fact, increase experiential happiness up to 60k/year, but beyond that the line for happiness totally becomes flat.
34
April
// Mar 5, 2010 at 11:33 am
This is a hard one but I think that with the idea of not being with the one you love most and taking my age into consideration and the fact that it most likely not a romantic love but a family member they would take away. I woud say yes because I’m a believer that with the right funds one person can change the world for the benefit of all kinds including the one you love. And the with that there was no stipulation stating you couldn’t love after but just be with out that one person. So I think taking it would be smarter then not.
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