Complex Numbers

The Right Thing

I've been thinking about this story (warning: godsdamned autoplay video):

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/santa-barbara-california-teen-rhami-zeini-finds-pur...

A Santa Barbara, California, high school junior was driving home from school Wednesday when he noticed a black purse in the middle of the street. He rescued the purse from the roadway and was shocked by what he found inside: $10,000.

Okay, cool. Good on the guy. Did the right thing, etc. Also lucky the cops were honest. Could have easily been like "Ma'am, we found your purse. Oh, the money? We didn't see any money. Someone must have lifted it. What's that? Where'd we get the shiny new rims on the police cruisers? Um, DUI fines. Nothing to worry about."

Now, I'd like to think most of us would have done something similar. I don't know what the legal thing to do is; based on the founding legal principle of "finders keepers, losers weepers," it may very well be legal to keep the wad. But what's legal isn't always right and vice versa.

Still, it got me thinking about thresholds. Let's say for the sake of argument that you're the type who would return the money. Pretty easy in this case, given that it was in a purse, and purses tend to also hold IDs. By the Ethical Principle of Least Resistance, you can feel good about your choice with very little effort. Okay.

Now, very likely you've found a penny on the street (assuming you're in a country like the US that still uses pennies). Most of us don't even expend the minor effort it would take to bend over and pick the thing up. Besides, it's probably covered in germs, right? The penny stays. (For the record, I pick up pennies. And shut up about the "heads good luck tails bad luck" or vice-versa or whatever; that's nonsense. Money is always good luck.)

But what if it's a nickel, a dime, a quarter? A dollar? A $20 bill? At what point do you stop saying "hey look, free money" and start looking for the owner? Hell, what are the chances you'd actually find the original owner? That's where ID comes in. What if it's a tiny wad of $1 bills clipped to an ID? Then do you return it? (I would - that might indicate it's a stripper.) At some point between "stack of 100 $100's with ID attached" and "stray penny," we say "fuck it," and the founding legal principle of "finders keepers, losers weepers" takes precedence.

Looking at it from the loser's perspective (something I'm eminently qualified to do), if I lost $10k, I'd be upset, but I wouldn't expect its return. It'd be nice, sure, but I'd consider it's on me for dropping $10K on the street. Not that I'd ever expect to be in a position to do so, but I have, in fact, held that much cash in my hand before. Briefly. It's not as bulky as you'd think. Thinner than most paperbacks. Even thinner than my NaNoWriMo manuscripts, and worth a hell of a lot more.

It's not a simple algorithm, either, not for an individual. Suppose you're in dire straits, just lost a job, buried in debt. Would you still do "the right thing?" About to be evicted or foreclosed upon? In which case "the right thing" starts to get a little murkier. What if you're simply in a bad mood, or - well, if I found that kind of cash lying around and the accompanying ID said "Richard Spencer," I'd probably keep it - though I expect I'd donate it to something left-wing just to piss off that Nazi ass. Except he'd never know about it, which might mute my satisfaction a bit.

Anyway, just got me thinking about it. It's a hypothetical, like the trolley problem - not something you'd expect to encounter in day-to-day life. I will, however, continue to pick up pennies off the street. By the time I die, that'll make my estate about $1.23 richer.