A letter to our daughter • Hacker News Board

Re: A letter to our daughter

#381

Post by seanlinehan » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 5:54 AM UTC

> Can we truly empower everyone -- women, children, underrepresented minorities, immigrants and the unconnected?

Part of me thinks that Zuck means people without family or otherwise ties to wealth and influence. But another part of me thinks that he means those that aren't connected to the internet. If it's the latter, this is quite the bold statement. The implication would be that people without access to the internet are structurally disadvantaged. Which in a lot of ways are true. The internet enables anybody to acquire knowledge, skills, and relationships with an ease that is otherwise impossible. Thankfully, this bucket has a fairly clear solution path.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#382

Post by YorkianTones » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 5:55 AM UTC

Applause to the Zuck for the public commitment to invest 99% of his fortune in charitable causes.

Providing cheap, reliable internet to underserved areas of the planet seems like an achievable goal. Much of the technology is present, and so this goal can be attacked now given available funding. The technology should improve further and become cheaper in the near horizon. Go for it Zuck. Make a dent.

"Curing disease", however, or "learning and experiencing 100x more than we do today" - these trite and nebulous platitudes seem line lines stolen from HBO's Silicon Valley script. "Eradicating polio" is a concrete, well-scoped, measurable, and realistic goal (regardless of whether its is the best apportioning of resources). "Curing disease" is not. Does someone who's married to a doctor really believe that all disease is eradicable in the next 100 years? Must we resort to impossible moonshots and unqualified invocations like "Make the world a better place!"? Something like "colonize space!" is not a helpful goal; "build a habitation on Mars which produces enough food, water, and O2 to sustain 5 people for a year" begins to be.

This pedestrian rallying cry is a chaotic amalgam of cliches. I hope Zuckerberg puts more thought, organization, and direction into how he will invest his billions for the betterment of posterity.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#383

Post by lotharbot » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:00 AM UTC

gradstudent wrote: post #337

tertius wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure which US you're referring to but it's not one I recognise. I'm from an African country and with that perspective I stand by this phrase: > There is extreme lack of poverty in the U.S. There is no reason for anyone to go without food. Name one area in the U.S. where a homeless person cannot get a meal. My claim is simple. The U.S. is the most prosperous place on the planet, the inequality doesn't touch…

> My claim is simple. The U.S. is the most prosperous place on the planet, the inequality doesn't touch at least a hundred other countries. Again, inequality isn't necessarily an indicator of poverty. The comparisons you make are on absolute terms but the reality is more nuanced. There are almost 47 million people living in poverty in the US [1] and something like 38% of the population live paycheque-to-paycheque (up…

There's a little nuance needed when it comes to poverty in the US, since it's based on a floating measure.

[the following is copied from previous comments I've made on this subject]

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/nationaldata.html Americans below the poverty line in 2009 are more likely to have things like complete kitchens, complete plumbing, automobiles, air conditioning, and dishwashers than Americans as a whole in 1970. Put another way, if we used the living conditions of someone at the poverty line right now and used that to define the poverty line in 1970, over half of the 1970 population would be below the poverty line.

.... the definition [of poverty] is tied to CPI, which is tied to housing costs, which are more likely to include the cost of a full kitchen now than in the past especially for people near the bottom. I would argue that for someone in that position, having a full kitchen is better than not. Yet the CPI-based measure treats the cost of having a full kitchen as a negative (inflation), without treating the benefit of the full kitchen as a positive

[end copied segment]

Point being, the definition of "poverty" has some hidden inflation built in.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#384

Post by jsprogrammer » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:00 AM UTC

bigbugbag wrote: post #273

brbsix wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Facebook were to pay taxes "where the real business is done" (assuming there is a legal way to avoid doing so), it would probably be considered gross negligence. I imagine the same is true of any multinational. Besides, Facebook can put that money to much better use than government. All the lowly users of Facebook on the other hand do not know how to best spend their money and had better hand it over. Zuck says so…

I have yet to see unemployment checks from facebook, or social security, or public services or infrastructure. But I've seen budget cuts and austerity and the GAFAM's tax evasion plays a role in this. The point is that if facebook were to stop its tax evasion business, it would probably not be profitable.

If you are taxed, you are, by definition, profitable.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#385

Post by joeguilmette » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:08 AM UTC

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…

I can't say I'm surprised to see the mental gymnastics that 'the internet' is willing to engage in to cynically criticize such a massive donation and doe-eyed optimism.

To paraphrase some guy on Twitter, Zuckerberg's letter is like a control in the way it measures the baseline meanness of the internet.

That would be you, 6stringmerc.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#386

Post by o0-0o » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:09 AM UTC

This would have been a lot more genuine if he had just wrote the letter - tucked it away - and then let his actions do the talking.

When a choice is between doing the right thing loudly, and doing the right thing quietly, the amount of noise you make is the inverse of the size of your dick.

~_^

Re: A letter to our daughter

#387

Post by teekert » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:11 AM UTC

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…

Well, regardless of its accuracy it perfectly matches the sentiments I felt at the birth of my son. The emotions I felt were be deep, vitalizing, positive and made me want to fight to make the perfect world for him. If anything it shows Mark and his wife to be normal human beings. They just happen to be rich, famous and successful and so their message carries a bit farther. I hope they keep their motivation and enjoy their new feelings for as long as possible. The world can very well use these emotions, at any time.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#388

Post by sparkzilla » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:13 AM UTC

dhcar wrote: post #153

This seems more like PR than a genuine letter to a child. Which is fine, but I wish they'd treat it as such. They talk about facebook, donations, improving the world, their beliefs, etc. but very little on how to be a better person or how to enjoy life. Maybe I'm projecting, but what would you want to find in your pillow after moving in for your first day of college? I hope they wrote their daughter a real letter. On…

Isn't the birth of a child enough of a celebration, without smothering it in a multi-page manifesto?

Re: A letter to our daughter

#389

Post by tertius » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #368

tertius wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are almost 47 million people living in poverty in the US Look at the definition of poverty and you'll agree it's certainly a form of poverty, but again compared to the majority of the planet doesn't really cut it. Living paycheck to paycheck is generally an unfortunate choice or lack of education, but the point remains that there's a paycheck. And I can certainly agree that the culture of credit/debt isn't th…

Americans are the most charitable people on earth. So you don't really have a point.

If you read up you'll see the attitude I was responding to was contrary to that of charity.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#390

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 6:21 AM UTC

KayEss wrote: post #327

scott_karana wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because hoarding up billions of dollars into family dynasties is pretty much doing nothing. Well, his money isn't stuffed under sofa cushions, so it would bankers choosing what to invest in, but your point still stands. ;)

If the wealth is held as stock then there is no "money" for the bankers to do anything with. At best he can borrow money with the stock as collateral and then allow bankers to invest that.

In that case he'd better pray the stock doesn't tank.