What would you do with 100 billion dollars to have the most positive impact on the largest number of people?

CableP13@waveform.social to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 82 points –

My partner and I were discussing this over dinner, our ideas went from buying up land to finance organic farming and distributing it at the lowest price to crashing the financial system to "reset" everybody's bank account with no possible recovery. Any other ideas?

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Organic farming?

Pesticideless farming that's respectful of the environment, easy way to make people healthier without damaging the plant further and while thinking about the future sustainably. Sounds like a decent deal to me!

Organic farming isn’t pesticide free, they use a range of pesticides, and usually at a higher volume than normal farming methods, because they don’t work nearly as well.

http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/organic.html#:~:text=Sometimes%20people%20refer%20to%20pesticides,and%20plant%20extracts%20as%20ingredients.

Additionally, organic farming tends to produce lower yields (19-25% lower on average) than traditional farming, meaning you need to actually use more space and resources (water, fertilizer, plus application of both) for the same benefit.

https://allianceforscience.org/blog/2018/04/new-study-challenges-beliefs-organic-ag/#:~:text=The%20lower%20land%2Duse%20efficiency,and%20other%20currently%20wild%20areas.

Organic farming can be good for some things, like fixing already-damaged environments, but it’s not a silver bullet by any means.