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A letter to our daughter

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Re: A letter to our daughter

#181

Mark has set some ambitious goals regarding poverty, disease, nutrition, and equality, and connectivity. I hope for all of our sake that he is successful in realigning many of the perverse short-term incentives through his and his Priscilla's generous contributions and efforts. I wish he had spoken more about luck and balance. This is something that Bill & Melinda Gates, as well as Warren Buffet do very well. Underst…

Most of these things can be achieved, but I really don't understand what most people expect from equality. For example, does equality mean that if I sit on my ass and do nothing, I get the same as the person next to me who works their butt off? Or does it mean that I get a fixed amount based on the effort I put in? How is that effort measured?

When people talk about equality, I'm not sure if they mean equal opportunity or equity or utopia (knowing that utopia depends on a slave class). Maybe it means something else.

The reality is that humanity has empathy and greed (noting they are not opposites). I can not imagine that I will ever see every person equally.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#182

Okay, maybe it's just me, but after reading the introduction and getting through the list of extremely difficult "Can we..." challenges followed by the "We must..." directives, the first quote that popped into my head was a variation of “a poor man is crazy, but a rich man is just ‘eccentric.’” I get the desire to solve the world's ills, of society's shortcomings, of essentially fixing the thousands of years of evolu…

Did someone say narcissist? May I introduce you to: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/

Re: A letter to our daughter

#183

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, for some reason. Must one's private life be this public? I get that Zuckerberg doesn't agree with privacy, but surely putting his daughter in the public limelight as soon as she is born is an imposition on her privacy. Maybe I'm just getting old.

I would like to draw your attention to the time when the fb hit the privacy scandal and it was brought to light that the founder and CEO was too privacy conscious and shared little to nothing on his site.

May be I'm too cynical as I see that there was a conscious effort to post more updates. Recently I see another shift following the Internet.org initiative.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#184
post #87

I feel only on HN and Reddit can people find reason to criticize a guy who is giving away billions of dollars for humanity. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.

I think it's a good sign if people don't take words at face value and be critical of it.

Their public pledge to donate 45 billion dollars to charity within their lifetimes with an eye towards long term solutions deserves criticism? Seriously, WTF?

Re: A letter to our daughter

#185

Okay, maybe it's just me, but after reading the introduction and getting through the list of extremely difficult "Can we..." challenges followed by the "We must..." directives, the first quote that popped into my head was a variation of “a poor man is crazy, but a rich man is just ‘eccentric.’” I get the desire to solve the world's ills, of society's shortcomings, of essentially fixing the thousands of years of evolu…

Man tries to help the world with his money and he's greeted with criticism.

Man evades taxes, scams his coworkers, conceals a press release as "letter to daughter" and is greeted with "He just wants to do good".

Re: A letter to our daughter

#186

Something's always bugged me about relying on philanthropy as a source of funding the public good, as opposed to the public funding the public good through taxation and the democratic process: In the former case, the public doesn't really have much of a say about where the help goes. We must rely on the judgment (and personal values) of a few rich people and hope they pick charities that maximize the benefit. Would t…

I think it's good to have both. Philanthropy of rich guy means three things:

1. He can afford really good advisers. Democratically elected can be good. But they might be good at campaigning and only get selected because of party status.

2. He can afford to monitor charities closely. And enforce legal action if they fuck around. When you invest several millions, you probably take care that they reach the destination. If you just pay little taxes that go everywhere and you also have day job, much slimmer chance.

3. These individuals could fund projects that in the future give back to whole humanity. But such projects aren't always popular with the public in the start.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#187
Why are the techno-barons so focused on human health? Not that there's anything wrong with these efforts, but human disease is much less of a threat to our species and planet than an ever-increasing human population. What I'm saying is that humans have little difficulty reproducing; it's a solved problem.

What's not a solved problem is our disappearing fisheries[1], rhinos going extinct all over the place[2], farmland desertification[3], tropical deforestation[4], ocean acidification[5]... From my back of the envelope math, it seems that longer lives and a larger population will exacerbate our environmental and resource issues.

I'd like to see billionaires purchase large tracks of land simply for preservation. Cleaning up industrial waste from rivers. Foot the salaries of anti-poaching efforts. Get clean fusion energy production up and running. That sort of thing. Perhaps we should get our planet's shit together before tackling immortality?

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/03/t...

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/16/africa/kenya-northern-white-rh...

[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34790661

[4] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/indones...

[5] http://fm.kuac.org/post/increasing-ocean-acidity-threatens-m...

Re: A letter to our daughter

#188

Why are the techno-barons so focused on human health? Not that there's anything wrong with these efforts, but human disease is much less of a threat to our species and planet than an ever-increasing human population. What I'm saying is that humans have little difficulty reproducing; it's a solved problem. What's not a solved problem is our disappearing fisheries[1], rhinos going extinct all over the place[2], farmlan…

Ted Turner bought a bunch of land.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#189

Something's always bugged me about relying on philanthropy as a source of funding the public good, as opposed to the public funding the public good through taxation and the democratic process: In the former case, the public doesn't really have much of a say about where the help goes. We must rely on the judgment (and personal values) of a few rich people and hope they pick charities that maximize the benefit. Would t…

i've wondered about this as well, and it seems really insane to me when you break it down. being good at making money does not imply being good at philanthropy, nor does it imply that your opinion is more valid. yes, i know there isn't a perfect solution, but isn't it silly that that's how things work now? it seems like letting the public vote would do better.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#190

Okay, maybe it's just me, but after reading the introduction and getting through the list of extremely difficult "Can we..." challenges followed by the "We must..." directives, the first quote that popped into my head was a variation of “a poor man is crazy, but a rich man is just ‘eccentric.’” I get the desire to solve the world's ills, of society's shortcomings, of essentially fixing the thousands of years of evolu…

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