Don’t get rich quick. Get rich instantly!

First step: Take this short quiz

Below is a short list to evaluate.

How much would you need to be paid so that you – and everyone you love – permanently give up access to and could never again benefit from each individual item listed below?

Please come up with an actual number for each, then sum the 30 numbers:

• Modern grocery stores (e.g., since 1916)
  

• Ability to buy a house and have a credit card (denied to half the US until 1974)

• Legal interracial marriage

• Legal LGBTQ relationships

• Legal gay marriage

• Smart phones

• Streaming entertainment (movies & TV shows, audiobooks, eBooks, songs)

• Internet (shopping, banking, comparisons, remote work, email, research, 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 (living many fewer years)

• Modern dentistry

• Antibiotics

• Morphine / modern pain relief

• Emergency medicine

• General anesthesia

Nearly everyone we know has access to these priceless miracles. (Again: sorry Europe.) The ubiquity of these 30 miracles – and many others – 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 since the dawn of life on Earth. Our wealth is far beyond every king and queen and emperor and aristocrat 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 – because of the efforts of past generations dedicated to progress – 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 the incredible everyday miracles we take for granted. 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 like we have.