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A letter to our daughter

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Re: A letter to our daughter

#191

Post by xur17 »

rimantas wrote: post #64
aswanson wrote: post #50

I have had some problems with the way his company operates sometimes but I can't find a single thing he said I don't emphatically agree with here. Hat tip, Mark Z.

I find that I don't agree with the whole thing. It just seems like a PR stunt to me :( Why the fuck are you posting a letter to your daughter across the globe? Why do you have a letter at all, can you just say it to her sometime when she is actually able to understand. I guess for him completely different rules apply, but my wife and I don't even post any pictures of our daughter online nor are we sharing anything ab…

This will encourage others to do similar things with their wealth, which is a good thing.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#192

Post by rustynails77 »

littletimmy wrote: post #17

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.

There are at least two sides to this. Mark is speaking openly and stating his view to set an example to others. I applaud that. There may be better ways to achieve this, but I feel this personal approach is a very positive gesture.

On the other hand, you have the Leonardo Di Caprios of the world who are very philanthropic and try to make the world a better place without open letters like this.

I personally am not offended by Mark's approach (and I'm not a fan of Zuck). I'd rather see someone express benevolent intentions than just about any other alternative (including silence, or prejudice/hostility/etc that seems so common today).

Re: A letter to our daughter

#193

Post by amalag »

droopybuns wrote: post #116
6stringmerc wrote: post #35

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…

His Charity is so great- that He simultaneously saves the world's poor while providing fodder for season 3 of Silicon Valley.

If only he had put something in the letter about how the opening of car doors has improved so much in the last 100 years.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#194

Post by peterwwillis »

kansface wrote: post #184
myth_buster wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The scope of this pledge in combination with the dollar amount would stretch so thin that it would have the net effect of giving every child in the world $20 and saying, here, go improve the quality of your life.

So, yeah, if he wants to open himself up to public scrutiny with a tastless "letter to my daughter that i'm actually making for the public because my daughter can't understand this for another 10 years", people are going to criticize.

But he has 45 billion freaking dollars, so I doubt he cares.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#195

Post by the_cat_kittles »

clarkmoody wrote: post #147
ryandrake wrote: post #63

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…

So would "the people" know of a better way to deploy Zuckerberg's fortune than the man himself?

why is his opinion more valid?

edit: "its his money" doesn't explain why he would be more able to judge how to donate money, or effect positive change than someone else. i understand he is allowed to spend it how ever he chooses. the point i'm trying to make is that someone is not inherently more likely to know the right thing to do than someone else just because they have more money.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#196

Post by lottin »

wnissen wrote: post #135
ciconia wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not the letter is narcissistic, one has to admire their initiative. It is not, unfortunately, the obvious thing to do, and they deserve to be applauded for that. Whatever personal faults the man has, I'd argue this kind of philanthropy more than makes up for it.

Exactly. Bill Gates came late to the game. He pretty much had to conquer the whole world before developing an interest in philanthropy. Now it's his "real work" and I guarantee you he'll be remembered more for that than MS-DOS! Zuckerberg, like Gates, is a brilliant but deeply flawed person. However, Zuckerberg appears to be maturing much faster than Gates. I have lots of hope for him left.

To be honest, I think this "interest" in philanthropy is simply due to the diminishing returns of money: the more money you have, the less value each unit of money has to you, therefore you feel more inclined to give it away for good causes.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#197

Post by kuschku »

Cookingboy wrote: post #85
throwaway999888 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is _top_ university an important distinction in this context?

It actually is in my opinion. If the top, elite research institutes show these kind of problem, then we can expect it to be very prevalent in the rest of the field as well. As in, this isn't some no name low tier school run by mediocre people.

Actually, I’d say it’s the opposite.

"Top" "Elite" universities are usually optimized for their metric – which is the Shanghai index, which is based on number of publications in english-language magazines.

In countries outside of the Anglosphere often research at universities can go a lot slower, as they have no chance in the Shanghai index anyway.

The Fraunhofer institute has, in cooperation with Sony, VW and Mercedes, worked on self driving cars since 2002. Sometimes you just have to throw a few million euro and a few decades onto a project to get some results.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#198

Post by jimbokun »

wnissen wrote: post #135
ciconia wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not the letter is narcissistic, one has to admire their initiative. It is not, unfortunately, the obvious thing to do, and they deserve to be applauded for that. Whatever personal faults the man has, I'd argue this kind of philanthropy more than makes up for it.

Exactly. Bill Gates came late to the game. He pretty much had to conquer the whole world before developing an interest in philanthropy. Now it's his "real work" and I guarantee you he'll be remembered more for that than MS-DOS! Zuckerberg, like Gates, is a brilliant but deeply flawed person. However, Zuckerberg appears to be maturing much faster than Gates. I have lots of hope for him left.

"However, Zuckerberg appears to be maturing much faster than Gates."

Most likely, due to having Gates as an example and inspiration.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#199

Post by rustynails77 »

77ko wrote: post #127
rimantas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that I don't agree with the whole thing. It just seems like a PR stunt to me :( Why the fuck are you posting a letter to your daughter across the globe? Why do you have a letter at all, can you just say it to her sometime when she is actually able to understand. I guess for him completely different rules apply, but my wife and I don't even post any pictures of our daughter online nor are we sharing anything ab…

One good answer: It totally changed my perception of Facebook. If the guy at the top is trying to save the world, that automatically makes facebook a lot more appealing, not just to me and many other other I know who have historically been quite suspicious of facebook and its overly invasive privacy 'features'.

I will never change my perspective about Facebook. They sell data to the highest bidder and almost certainly use that data to exploit Facebook users.

(this contradicts my positive post about respecting Mark for posting the letter).

It's similar to Standard Oil. Rockefeller screwed over many businesses and jacked up the price of fuel to great detriment of society (at least in some ways). Then, he donates the money to help society.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#200

Post by msellout »

clarkmoody wrote: post #147
ryandrake wrote: post #63

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…

So would "the people" know of a better way to deploy Zuckerberg's fortune than the man himself?

That's the principle of the free market -- central planning is inefficient.
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