You can guarantee a random 10% of the world population all basic human needs, but you have to sacrifice a finger every time you make that deal; how many people will you help?

If everybody has their basic needs met, the odds of getting prosthetic fingers dramatically increases. I'd be OK with that swap. Bonus: Robot Fingers.
- Yeah, I feel like that's a good deal. Especially if I get credit. I mean, I'd still do it if it was anonymous, but can you imagine the popularity of being the guy who cut off his fingers for world peace? Frankly you'd be kind of a monster not to do it. So many people lose hands for nothing at all. But being the guy with the robot fingers who gave the world peace and joy? Sure, sign me up. Sounds rad af.
- You could have more than 10 fingers, and with updates, they will get better every year. .. different fingers for different purpose..

All 10 even if they have to be taken off with a hacksaw. I would be concerned about the being who could so easily do this, but has a sick desire to maim me first though.
- Falls in line with the ethics of basically all known gods.
  
  You mean, human created stories. It's not like these beings are likely to exist.
  
  Yup.
- Maybe it's not a being, maybe you have some generic abnormality that can be exploited somehow. Bonus points if the abnormality is regeneration.

OP, are you a billionaire trying to reframe global poverty as me being unwilling to chop my fingers off rather than you being unwilling to share your enormous wealth?
- Fuck, how do these plebs keep finding out my scheme.
- And the billionaires have an AI number of fingers.

Of course I'd do it. Lack of fingers would be an inconvience, sure, but there's cool technology like 3d printing that I could use to get by okay. The inconvience is more than worth it for people to have basic human needs. Plus, with everyone having basic needs they'd be able to spend their time doing things that they enjoy and are passionate about. In all the population of the earth there are definitely gonna be people whose mission is to get people functioning bionic fingers that work like the real deal. I don't care about people knowing. It would be more annoying if they did because then people would constantly be thanking me and receiving compliments is awkward.

Depends: for how long? 1 finger = 10% of humanity has all of their basic survival needs met forever? Done and done, take all 10. Seems like an extremely tiny price to pay to alleviate a colossal amount of suffering in the world forever, and without all those people being distracted by meeting their basic needs odds are technology is going to advance even more rapidly, along with the quality of things like medical prosthetics and neural interfaces and shit. So, yes please bring on the cyberpunk without the dystopia.

Hey—so uh—you didn’t say whose fingers were have to sacrifice. This is a no brainier.
- Ah shit, you found the loophole 😁
- Hey leave my Okra plants alone!

Ten right away, and then another as often as there's a 10% turnover in world population.
Hey, you never said they had to be my fingers.
- I also choose some other guy's fingers.

All 10 of course. Rather keep it discreet though, don't want anybody asking awkward questions about why I carry around bags of fingers, whose fingers they are, that sort of thing.

I wouldn't mind losing all my fingers if it would make the world better. It's a small price to pay for so much.

If I help 100% of people that means that science will advance super fast and I can get those gnarly hands from Ghost in the Shell that split into even smaller fingers and allows me to type at 7,000WPM.
- Boss

Who would answer anything but "chop em all off"? Lol. You can singlehandedly stop world hunger, and you don't even have to give your life for it, just your fingers? A lot of praiseworthy people have given way more for way less. It's a small sacrifice for the betterment of the world, I wouldn't trust any man whose immediate instinct isn't to sacrifice their fingers...
- Singlehandedly? I think you need to sacraficebfingers from both hands
- Every conservative.
- It's a small sacrifice for the betterment of the world,
  *Betterment of humanity.

Can I get 8 fingers removed and leave the top 20% wealth people out in the cold. I would rather give them the remaining fingers(middle).
- Well they wouldn't be middle fingers anymore but we understand the sentiment

Do the needs stay satisfied, or is it going to be like 2 years later we have billionaires and starvation again?
- Damn, these earthlings are getting too intelligent with their knowledge of contract laws.

id do it in a heart beat. and then get robot hands. spend the rest of my life being adored, with robot hands that can have like darts or lighters in the fingers or something.
plus, all my needs would be taken care of as a result. and the poor would be better equipped to tackle inequality further without worry of starvation or loss of healthcare and various other listed issues that currently hold us back.

If "basic human needs" includes a full working set of fingers, all ten, because then I get them back.
- 8 fingers, 10 digits.

As long as I'm not losing fingers for a "Monkey's Paw" or genie-style "You get your wish but with a twist" kinda thing, take 'em all.
More thought would need to be invested if there was a twist.
- It seems like the twist is you lose fingers

I'll be honest: none. I'm not making shady deals like that. Besides, shortcuts always come with giant caveats that you don't know in advance. Like: how long is this guaranteed for? Will it magically prevent people from depriving others of their needs (murder, arson, imprisonment, torture, etc.)? How will it be sustained, and how would it affect the rest of life on Earth?
No no no, count me out. I'm not taking that deal just to find out it only applies for 1 month or some crap like that and people can still kill each other.
Plus, I like my fingers. I use them every day!
- how long is this guaranteed for?
  I left the question ambiguous for a reason. I'm glad someone pointed that out. 😉
- 1 month of universal basic needs met for every human alive could easily be world-reshaping
- This is what I think when characters in fiction want achieve inmortality. Yeah dude, inmortality is one thing, but good health is other thing. You can get disabled, unable to walk, even worse, been in a vegetal state, but hey, you are inmortal.

I would need more specificity around "basic human needs". It could be that only 1-30% of the world's population don't currently meet that threshold, so sure, easy call to lop off pinky thru middle finger on my non-dominant hand to help them. I mean, ask "would you cut off your pinky finger to stop the genocide in Gaza?" and that would be a hard, fast yes and that's way less than 10% of the world affected.
If we're talking past basic survival to full universal healthcare and universal basic income... I'd consider all ten fingers with more details. I'm super sus of any monkey paw curls, so I want to understand the ins and outs before I say all ten fingers.

If I have the chance to do something helpful or even remotely worthwhile with my life I'm gonna take it. All ten, let's go.

Every single finger. I'd give my arms and legs too if it would help. Once the world was fixed I might want to take part in it again too, if nobody knew it was me. If it was public knowledge that I did it though, I'd probably keep being a hermit. I do not like attention or people knowing who I am.

And my toes too, just to be sure

Fuck yes dude, chop my hands off. I'm in one of those 10%
- Agreed, take all ten fingers, 100% of everyone's needs met, including my need for fingers
  
  Its only "basic needs". Paraplegics are still human. you dont habe your fingers anymore, but you've still got two extra arms, two extra legs, a spare lung and kidney, and a bunch of other stuff that you don't technically "need" as a human.

yes because there would be billions of people who would be willing to lift my drink to my lips for a sip and and help me dress etc

Wait wait, by saying 10% stacks each time, do you mean 10% of the original number, or 10% of the remaining number of people?
Like, for the sake of simplicity, 10 billion to start with, 10%, so 1 billion for the first finger. Then does it become 10% of the remaining 9 billion, so around 900 million, or another 10% of 10 billion?
I would likely still do it, even if all 10 fingers wouldn't save humanity together, but if I could also pass this deal, it would be interesting to get 10 random people off the street and present the choice to them. If the collective has the solidarity necessary to want to save others, it shows just how justified it is for them to be saved.

the fuck am i gonna do with 1 finger or 2 fingers? going all 10 guarantees my needs are provided for so obviously I'm doing that
- Leave 2 of your middle fingers so you can flip off your enemies.

My only regret is only being born with 7 fingers to give...
- Thank you for your service of offering three before birth

FML, I'd have to learn how to type with my toes.

So how does the 10% get chosen? Like if the first 10% were all the people desperately in need of it, that's an easy finger. But if there is a potential that only wealthy people could be effected by that, then the loss of the finger would be meaningless. If it's totally random each time, it's a harder choice since you really aren't helping 10% of the population each time, given that many will already have basic needs met.
- Completely random. A quantum-dice roll, impossible to predict. If they were already rich, it just means that if they go bankrupt, they still have their safety-net, they just lose all their luxury stuff. But they don't notice any change if their basic needs are already met.
  Losing 10 fingers would guarantee the status effect applied to everyone.
  
  Then it's not completely random though. Random would mean there's a non-zero chance the same 10% get picked for every finger sacrificed.

I will sacrifice 10 of my premium fishfingers and 10 of my precious ladyfingers. You are welcome.

If those 10% were picked completely at random, then it’s not obvious to me that this would be a good thing. It would effectively increase wealth inequality in the world, where 10% of any population is given something the rest don’t have. That kind of disparity builds resentment and could, in the long run, end up causing more harm than good. If there’s a poor village where nearly everyone is struggling, and suddenly 10% of the population has their basic needs guaranteed, they’d instantly become the “rich guys” of that village. You’d need to do it for the whole village - but then the same issue arises when people in the next village start resenting yours, and so on.
Either way, I’d give 0–2 fingers. I could probably live a perfectly normal life without my pinkies, but I’m not going to pretend I’d definitely go through with it - even if, from a strictly rational perspective, it’s kind of a no-brainer.

Yeah, it's definitely all ten, although I can see how I would regret that choice from time to time.
Fortunately, robot hands are pretty cool, and I'm sure that if the world were prosperous and they saw somebody with no fingers, they would all chip in to help back out. So it wouldn't be like terrible forever, but it would definitely have its moments where it sucks.