A letter to our daughter • Hacker News Board

Re: A letter to our daughter

#541

Post by itistoday2 » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 4:10 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #480

itistoday2 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Mark, saying and doing are two completely different things. Example: "Helping poor people in third world countries get online" turned out to be: "Deceiving poor people in third world countries into using something called 'Internet' that's actually 'Facebook with apps', and depriving them of real online access." That whole thing ended up being an attack on the free and open web. "Share with friends only" is short…

The last time I checked, using Facebook was entirely voluntary. The existence of it takes away nothing. You have everything you had before, and also the option to use Facebook or not. There's nothing disempowering about that.

Thankfully you're right, Facebook is not—yet—capable of disempowering the entire world by its mere existence. But it does disempower its users, and the more users it gets, the more it disempowers even those who don't use the system thanks to those "network effects" that everyone is after.

It's not inconceivable that at some point some country (perhaps very close to home) might decide that having a Facebook profile is mandatory in order to operate a business. With their Real Name™ policy it might even be useful for registering citizens. You can see this already happening on a smaller scale with some companies requiring Facebook login in order to use their product or service. I see others calling Facebook a "public utility", seemingly unconscious of where that road leads.

Sure, you can say all of that is still "voluntary". You don't need to use that product and you don't need to even be a citizen of the United States. You could move to some part of Africa where Facebook has not yet commandeered the social infrastructure. But, somewhere around that point I think most would agree that the word "voluntary" ceases to have any real meaning.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#542

Post by ArkyBeagle » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 5:31 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #39

austenallred wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what else are you going to do with $45 Billion? Build a really big house? I've had the opportunity to rub shoulders with a few billionaires over the past few weeks, and it's remarkable how differently they think about money than the people who don't have it. Sure, they may buy a nice car (or jet), but after a certain level the only thing you can do with that kind of money is plug it back into something meanin…

>I mean, what else are you going to do with $45 Billion? You are thinking about it the wrong way. You don't spend $45B on stuff for yourself. You spend $45B on changing the way governments and populations live work and how power is balanced. When Bud Fox asked Gordon Gekko "How much is enough" Gekko knew immediately that Fox wasn't in the same league. Money isn't about stuff, it's about power and influence.

Nah. It's about ego(tism). Power & influence use different currency. You have to either - 1) not know or 2) not care - how badly you'll mess this up.

And you will.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#543

Post by ArkyBeagle » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 5:33 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #93

cwe wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly the type of stuff Zuck is talking about here, although in less power-hungry ways. So you're kind of proving @austenallred's point.

I think Zuck is still power hungry, he's just more veiled about it. Everyone with enough power (through money) wants to shape the world in their specific ideal.

I see more and more that hubris is apparently a deprecated concept.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#544

Post by ArkyBeagle » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 5:35 AM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #438

Chathamization wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The fact that they're having a big press release about all the awesome stuff they're going to be doing before they've done any of it, heck before they're even ready to say what they're actually going to be doing, is telling. As is naming their initiative after their daughter. It's nice when vanity projects end up helping the masses (and we'll have to wait and see how successful it is at that). However, we sho…

How is any of that stuff bad, though? Seems like a good trade. You put $45B into improving the world, we'll sing your praises. What's the difference between it being all done in vanity and it being all done in goodwill? It's literally the same thing to the rest of the world, the only difference is some internal chemical state in his brain.

We've become too cynical and rent-seek-ey. Many people realize that a large wad of money was Nature's way of telling them to keep doing what they're doing.

Instead, it has to be "charity" now. Very few rich people ever did charity well.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#545

Post by ArkyBeagle » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 5:40 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #150

chc wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we define "power-hungry" so broadly that it encompasses merely wanting to make the world a better place, I'm not sure what use the term is anymore.

The problem is "better" is subjective, and its probably preferred that the majority of people determine what better is instead of the small minority of people with billions of dollars. I like the future Bill Gates and Elon Musk want to bring. I do not like the future the Koch Brother's envision.

First you'll get the one, then the other. Elon Musk and Gates are hardcore egotists. Charles Koch was just trying to live up to his father's expectations. He's stated that his guiding principle is economic consumer surplus.

I won't excuse the whole "killer instinct" thing they all have in common. It's just how humans sometimes work.

Don't get me wrong - Koch et al is a weird company but there's room for that, too. W.R.T energy I hope you're right but it moves slowly.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#546

Post by andreyf » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 7:25 AM UTC

visakanv wrote: post #397

andreyf wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think cynicism and criticism are the same here. This is the man that about a decade ago who called his users "dumb fucks" for trusting him with their personal data [1]. The same man who used failed password logins to Facebook to access a journalist's email address [2]. Now he's giving 99% of his wealth to a charity he controls. This is an awesome step: dynastic wealth is stupid. However, it will take a few mo…

What in particular would Zuck have to do to convince you that he's "grown out of his youthful moral indiscretions"?

The most important measure is how well he weaves his core principles stated here into how Facebook makes its money (the way Jobs did with Apple).

More specifically, I worry that Internet.org is an advertiser-funded competitor to the user-funded internet as we know it, and that the interests of advertisers are in many ways contrary to the interests of individuals (e.g. w.r.t. privacy).

Information pipes are a really important building block to a thriving political and economic ecosystem, and for those blocks to be sturdy, it's important that these pipes have built-in privacy protections which remove a lot of value advertisers derive from them.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#547

Post by tempestn » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 8:48 AM UTC

deathcakes wrote: post #462

tempestn wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you force rich people to give away a large enough percentage of their money, perhaps you will remove any incentive for the non-philanthropic ones to keep earning more money. If they weren't inclined to give it away in the first place, they probably won't be inclined to make more, knowing they'll be required to give it away.

And therefore the people who end up making the most money are the people who are the most philanthropic and that is worse than the current system how?

Because those people are already giving most of their money away to causes that benefit the world. The "other" rich people are still, on average, creating wealth though, via the companies they start and run. If you disincentivize them from doing those things, you eliminate that wealth, leaving everyone worse off on average.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#548

Post by psykovsky » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 9:25 AM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #518

psykovsky wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except he still didn't do a thing besides putting out a press-release. Do you think his real intentions will not shape the way he acts in the future? How can you say it is a good trade when no trade happened yet?

You think he's going to just put a press release out and not actually do it?

I still remember what Internet.org was supposed to be and what it turned out to be. The man is an egocentric liar.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#549

Post by zaphar » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:09 PM UTC

itistoday2 wrote: post #541

imgabe wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I checked, using Facebook was entirely voluntary. The existence of it takes away nothing. You have everything you had before, and also the option to use Facebook or not. There's nothing disempowering about that.

Thankfully you're right, Facebook is not—yet—capable of disempowering the entire world by its mere existence. But it does disempower its users, and the more users it gets, the more it disempowers even those who don't use the system thanks to those "network effects" that everyone is after. It's not inconceivable that at some point some country (perhaps very close to home) might decide that having a Facebook profile is…

    I see others calling Facebook a "public utility", 
    seemingly unconscious of where that road leads.

If I were Facebook there is a line I wouldn't want to cross. As soon as you become a "public utility" you get regulated to oblivion.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#550

Post by cplease » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

cdcarter wrote: post #540

cplease wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not selling the shares. He said they "will give 99% of our Facebook shares." If he sold appreciated stock and donated the proceeds, he'd still have to pay tax on the capital gains, and could only deduct the amount of the actual donation, which would be smaller after tax. By donating stock directly, he still gets to deduct the full value of the stock without paying any tax, and the charity (or more likely, privat…

The Initiative is an LLC and not a public charity or private foundation, so as not to limit the activities they can take part in. This will all be taxed at some point (though the Initiative may further grant shares to public charities).

Yeah, I missed this the first time around. But you are not quite correct. An LLC is a pass-through entity. No doubt it will be treated as a disregarded entity for federal tax purposes. So, gifting shares to an LLC is not a taxable event. If the LLC sells shares for a non-charitable purpose (e.g. lobbying, or funding commercial ventures), then sure, that will be taxable. But if it in turn donates shares to either a private foundation or another charity, in that case, it will not be taxable, and will in fact be deductible for the Zucks.

Basically, if the Zucks own the LLC, then until funds actually leave the LLC they really haven't made a donation at all.