What Would You Do for a Million Dollars?

Aubrey Carter (0:00)

This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 2700 What would you do for a million dollars?

Lindsay McMahon (0:08)

Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. And Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. Coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com/subscribe.

Today learn about a cultural phenomenon that's happening in the US involving bounties and learn how to turn this topic into a robust debate or a conversation with your friends in English.

SPEAKER_3 (1:07)

Where some see heroes and others see egos, Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money.

Learn more at bloomberg.com.

Aubrey Carter (1:22)

Hello, Lindsay. How are you?

Lindsay McMahon (1:25)

I'm doing great today, Aubrey. I have a question for you though.

SPEAKER_3 (1:27)

I'd like to start with.

Aubrey Carter (1:29)

Let's hear it.

Lindsay McMahon (1:30)

Would you ever shave your head, even for a million dollars? Like if I were to give you a million dollars to shave your head, would you do it?

Aubrey Carter (1:38)

Absolutely. In a heartbeat, I would shave my head. But the question is, would you have this beautiful hair?

Lindsay McMahon (1:45)

I know.

SPEAKER_4 (1:45)

Thank you.

Aubrey Carter (1:46)

What is mine is nothing to write home about.

Lindsay McMahon (1:48)

But for a million bucks, I think I still would, honestly.

SPEAKER_4 (1:52)

I would just retire.

Lindsay McMahon (1:53)

I'll have a shaved head.

It grows back. It's fine. I'll take the money. I agree.

Aubrey Carter (1:59)

I'm really curious. Everyone out there, how would you answer? Questions like these are asked often in American culture. I wonder if it's popular as well around the world, where you'll ask, what would you do for a million dollars or something like this? Would you shave your head for a million dollars? Right? But crazily, it's becoming less of a hypothetical. There are these new bounty websites that are starting where prices are put on risky actions. Like, for example, getting a tattoo advertisement on your forehead, something really, that's a tough choice to make. Even for a million dollars, I wouldn't tattoo something on my forehead.

Lindsay McMahon (2:40)

No, tattoos are semi-permanent. I mean, you have to, and it's expensive to get them removed. And on your face, I wouldn't do it.

Aubrey Carter (2:47)

And there could be scarring and it's extremely painful.

So yeah, it's interesting. We're gonna dive into this. What is a bounty? How else does it come up in culture? And kind of talk about the ethics of this because it's very controversial.

Lindsay McMahon (3:02)

Yeah, and we have a couple of examples of bounties when it comes to wildlife and that kind of thing. So Aubrey, what is a bounty? Let's get started there.

Aubrey Carter (3:10)

All right, so this is a monetary reward offered by a government corporation or an individual. And in this case, it's cryptocurrency that's being paid. So that's kind of interesting as well. But traditionally, bounties have existed for a long time.

There's the newest Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu is about a bounty hunter, the Mandalorian, right? So it's offered money to like bring in a criminal.

Lindsay McMahon (3:36)

Okay. Yeah, that's how you hear about it the most, term bounty when they're looking for a person, right?

SPEAKER_4 (3:43)

Right. Or Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Aubrey Carter (3:44)

Have you ever seen that show? That's an older show. It's someone who would go and find people who had skipped bail.

SPEAKER_4 (3:50)

Oh, yeah.

Aubrey Carter (3:51)

Paid bounty money for that.

Lindsay McMahon (3:53)

Interesting. And now there is some more examples here. I know down in Florida to shift over to wildlife. Right now, there's an overpopulation of Burmese pythons. So a few years ago, this was, I saw this on some documentary on TV once. They have a bounty on pythons. So they're going out and paying citizens that are just brave enough and have a big enough, I don't know, machete or whatever they need to go and bring in your recovered, bring in dead pythons. And I think they're paying around a grand per python, but these are like huge snakes.

Aubrey Carter (4:28)

They're earning their money to put their life at risk to try and catch those snakes.

Lindsay McMahon (4:33)

Yeah.

Aubrey Carter (4:34)

And that's also existed in the Mountain West in Idaho, Montana, maybe Colorado. There have been bounties on wolves back when there was an extreme overpopulation of wolves and it was about $1,000, $1,500 for someone to kill a wolf. But now they've over hunted them and they're endangered now. So it can swing either way, right?