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Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

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Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#181

Post by ABCLAW »

SJWDisagree111 wrote: post #174

I'm guessing most of the people here have not been to a local public library in a long time. They have basically become daytime homeless shelters. That is the reason they are no longer attractive for philanthropists.

Perhaps the libraries in your community share this property, but they certainly don't in mine. What communities are you referencing in this comment?

Mine have extensive multimedia selections available for access, music rooms with instruments for practice, 3d printers for prototyping, and a wealth of research staff who will help you find specific information that you need. All of the ones in my local area are well attended by the public, at least when I've gone.

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#182

Post by notfromhere »

cratermoon wrote: post #158
tertius wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about reducing their size, removing redundant jobs, reducing regulation that does harm, cutting costs...

You mean like we've been doing since the Reagan administration? How's that been working for citizens?

not well.

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#183

Post by maxxxxx »

melling wrote: post #175
maxxxxx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will cancer ever be solved? Isn't cancer many different problems that got the same label?

That's why I put an (s) on cancer to signify that I did understand the challenge.

Stupid question probably, but have any cancers been cured so far?

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#185

Post by [deleted] »

jpao79 wrote: post #173

Or maybe arm US public libraries with free to checkout Kindles that have no hardware for WiFi or LTE support and simply are cached with the latest videos from Khan Academy and a significant portion of the most read portions of Wikipedia. The cache would be updated over the air weekly at the library. If the Kindle ever was jailbroken, well then the kid or whoever just learned about jailbreaking/hacking. Without Wifi o…

[deleted]

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#186

Post by zanny »

eutropia wrote: post #53
graphitezepp wrote: post #15

I would much rather billionaire types take on large issues that governments don't want to touch, like space flight or specific diseases in foreign countries, than something already in service like libraries. Maybe I just have a bias due to having a library just up the street from where I live currently, but I have never not had access to an adequate library in my life time, and only see room for marginal diminishing…

Libraries have such an enormous impact on people that need them! It's as if you read the article and completely ignored all the points the author made -- musical instruments, tools, and art being loaned out. Makerspaces, computers with internet access, free classes, resume help, job applications -- a politically neutral meeting space! These are actually amazing investments because they're getting incredible duty-cycl…

I don't think anyone is arguing libraries aren't worth having. The argument is how to spend private money.

If libraries are underfunded, that is a problem you need to push through public channels. In the same vein as why a private company doing infrastructure makes no sense, if we can demonstrably show the benefits of having libraries (and we can) that breaks down the most fundamental barrier to public funding of anything - justifying the expense with demonstrable results.

The government has a hard time investing in space flight because without a demonstrable major goal like beating the Commies it looks to the uninformed like money down a black hole. It is really hard to justify, no matter the degree of information availability, bleeding edge research on the public purse because you have to explicitly detail it isn't a guarantee on results for any given years investment. In politics where the mood changes based on yesterdays news, few can weather a bad year if they are putting large amounts of money into important research.

Libraries, though? We got statistics for that. We are well versed in building and staffing libraries. They are functionally infrastructure - and that is supposed to be what government is good at. If you live in a country where it is not good at infrastructure, you got bigger problems to deal with then.

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#187

Post by zanny »

RivieraKid wrote: post #35
graphitezepp wrote: post #15

I would much rather billionaire types take on large issues that governments don't want to touch, like space flight or specific diseases in foreign countries, than something already in service like libraries. Maybe I just have a bias due to having a library just up the street from where I live currently, but I have never not had access to an adequate library in my life time, and only see room for marginal diminishing…

I wish some tech billionaire or rich tech company invested in rethinking healthcare from the ground up (or like Elon Musk likes to say, from first principles) with focus on UX, state-of-the-art technologies and integration. Anytime I use our healthcare (although, this is the Czech Rep, could be different in USA), I feel like it should be easy to design a better service. Basically, something what Tesla did, apply Sili…

Except you can't just manufacture healthcare in your back yard and win with capitalism. The whole industry is deeply and systemically regulated - trying to stir the pot gets you sued, either by existing hospitals for your threat or by any patient dissatisfied with the results of your treatment. Or by state health agencies that see you not following the extraordinarily rigid rulebook on how healthcare is to be done.

We are as far from a market where you can experiment with healthcare as you can be aside from outright banning private medical practice.

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#188

Post by tracker1 »

KGIII wrote: post #138
tracker1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries serve a very important function, preserving and distributing knowledge. Yes, internet access can mitigate some of the needs, but even then many use libraries to access the internet. Though an interesting idea would be to combine the roles of a library with a traditional pub house.

Meandering through the stacks with a pint in hand. That's either the best idea ever, or the worst idea ever. I'm not sure that it'd be very quiet, either.

I mean in terms of a larger gathering place of knowledge and ideas... Adding in meeting spaces and coffee/bar for beverages, etc would be a net positive imo. As for quiet, I'm not entirely sure that's always a positive either.

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#189

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

As commenters have noted, libraries conflict with Amazon's business. How about instead mass produce cheap (low-profit or at-cost) kindles pre-loaded with a large amount of public domain and other free material (including wikipedia offline compressed database). And then bezos will still make money from some of them buying paid kindle books.

Re: Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

#190

Post by zanny »

cratermoon wrote: post #158
tertius wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about reducing their size, removing redundant jobs, reducing regulation that does harm, cutting costs...

You mean like we've been doing since the Reagan administration? How's that been working for citizens?

How is 600B a year in global imperialism cutting anything?

Unsurprisingly, you can't just stick "size of government" on an axis and say one side is good and the other is bad. The way you spend the money matters way more than how much you spend. One dollar of state spending can mean anything from magnitudes of benefit to a negative impact on the economy or society from the consequences of that dollar.

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