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Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

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Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#51

Post by codyb »

wolfgke wrote: post #21
agumonkey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mainstream spoils everything. btw, what about Bezos paying taxes instead of "optimizing" ?

What evidence can you provide that the government provides a more efficient allocation of ressources? It is well-known that a lot of the taxes go into the military-industrial complex.

Isn't the USA pretty much middle of the pack when it comes to percentage of GDP spent on the military? And I feel like I don't hear too much about Raytheon Billionaires although I'm sure some of the upper echelon at these big contractors must be doing pretty well.

It's also well known a lot of taxes go into our healthcare complex. Is that good or bad? Seems like we overpay for worse outcomes statistically but we also have some of the best healthcare facilities in the world and pioneer a decent amount of drugs.

At the end of the day both are employing a lot of solidly middle class folk who are spending their money moving the economy which seems to be the ideal situation in a lot of ways.

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#52

Post by mc32 »

As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage.

When 1,200 jobs disappear because whole foods automates sorting and packing to their stores, this is traceable as a direct consequence of automation.

Those people should be interviewed assessed and retrained into viable opportunities.

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#53

Post by wolfgke »

mc32 wrote: post #52

As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage. When 1,200 jobs disappear because whole foods automates sorting and packing to their stores, this is traceable as a direct consequence of automation. Those people should be interviewed assessed and retrained into viable oppor…

> As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage.

If one can believe the HN crowd there is a shortage of programmers. For this you don't need retraining, you can just teach it yourself on the internet.

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#54

Post by Amygaz »

samstave wrote: post #28
6stringmerc wrote: post #17

Bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) concept and significantly over-pay the employees on the condition half goes into savings accounts for family use or to pay down debts of some sort. Employ it as a method to give uneducated (HS degree) or underemployed (able bodied with Bachelors and $8/hr job), rehabilitate and early-release incarcerated US Citizens and put them to work in infrastructure needs. So, thi…

Totally agree! This is why I always skeptically look at any philanthropic announcements.... if billionaires like Gates, Buffet, Zuck, Bezos simply funded the above - it would go way further, and have long asting effect on the future of this nation in so many profound ways. Rather than "give away half their wealth" - why not do the above now and actually see it change the surface of the nation? --- I am getting involv…

Same with the B&M Gates Foundation. When they started their Grand Challenges, they were very specific and methodical in deciding which project to found. The impact had to be directly towards helping underdeveloped or developing countries, the ideas had to be innovative. Now they found a lot of half-baked startups, that pitch solution based on very sparse/alternative facts. The due diligence is completely lacking.

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#55

Post by wolfgke »

nostrebored wrote: post #44
Cozumel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'You can't legislate societies problems away' Could you elaborate? It seems pretty obvious that you can. No child labour, minimum wage laws, equal rights etc.

All of these laws have pretty glaring problems though. Child labor combined with the emancipation system traps teenagers in abusive homes, minimum wage laws depend heavily on the elasticity of labor, equal rights laws seldom induce equality.

> Child labor combined with the emancipation system traps teenagers in abusive homes

I don't understand what you mean here (I probably miss some background in US culture).

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#56

Post by majewsky »

samstave wrote: post #18
melling wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Create an unsustainable system then seek philanthropy to fix the problem? Why not simply fix the system?

Seems to me, that is exactly what he stated: Legislation is blocking innovation and ability to provide micro-apartments. We need to change the laws to fix this. I know this first hand, as I am trying to work in the tiny house movement here in the bay area. In talking with the city and county of alameda, the code is the problem. The code states that any land parcel for a single family is required to be minumum of 2,30…

Can't you just make a small apartment building (with maybe 3 or 4 apartments all connected by a hallway to fulfil the single-outer-door requirement)?

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#57

Post by mc32 »

wolfgke wrote: post #53
mc32 wrote: post #52

As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage. When 1,200 jobs disappear because whole foods automates sorting and packing to their stores, this is traceable as a direct consequence of automation. Those people should be interviewed assessed and retrained into viable oppor…

> As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage. If one can believe the HN crowd there is a shortage of programmers. For this you don't need retraining, you can just teach it yourself on the internet.

I'm thinking union or non union worker in their late forties to early sixties losing their jobs to automation. Maybe some get trained in growth areas that they never thought of or considered seriously for lack of time and money to pursue.

Bezos's endowment could fund a restraining and or apprenticeship for these displaced workers. His enterprises and other like it _are_ actively displacing long time workers, if he's feeling philanthropy what better way to help those you helped displace?

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#58

Post by Amygaz »

wolfgke wrote: post #53
mc32 wrote: post #52

As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage. When 1,200 jobs disappear because whole foods automates sorting and packing to their stores, this is traceable as a direct consequence of automation. Those people should be interviewed assessed and retrained into viable oppor…

> As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage. If one can believe the HN crowd there is a shortage of programmers. For this you don't need retraining, you can just teach it yourself on the internet.

Beyond retraining, there is dignity. Most workers don't feel like their job means anything, that their effort is not valued properly, or do a job by obligation, not because they like it.

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#59

Post by wolfgke »

Amygaz wrote: post #58
wolfgke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into areas where there is a skills shortage. If one can believe the HN crowd there is a shortage of programmers. For this you don't need retraining, you can just teach it yourself on the internet.

Beyond retraining, there is dignity. Most workers don't feel like their job means anything, that their effort is not valued properly, or do a job by obligation, not because they like it.

> Beyond retraining, there is dignity. Most workers don't feel like their job means anything, that their effort is not valued properly, or do a job by obligation, not because they like it.

And what would retraining change on this situation? Why should they like the job that comes afterwards?

To state it cynically: Wouldn't brainwashing people to love their job be a much more effective solution to this problem?

Re: Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies

#60

Post by adventured »

The idea here isn't that Bezos is going to get some stellar idea from the Twitter crowd that he couldn't have gotten from an hour sitting down with the best people at the Gates Foundation. The idea is propaganda / PR. Bezos is letting the world know that while yes, he's about to become the world's richest person, he's going to be a good mogul and begin giving lots of money away, so please don't attack him too harshly for the soon to be $100 billion pile of riches.

The $1b per year in space spending wasn't going to be viewed as enough of a good deed, given the business dominance Amazon is about to enjoy and all the horrible press that is about to follow in the coming years. The Twitter campaign is Bezos firing up his own PR effort ahead of becoming anointed as the world's richest (which will generate thousands of headlines & stories, plenty of which will be negative, when it occurs; and so long as he retains that title, the headlines will grow worse inverse to his philanthropy levels).

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