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Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

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Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#231

Post by nebabyte »

randyrand wrote: post #142
braydenm wrote: post #68

Although there are many cynics, it's quite remarkable the impact on the world donations can have. Here's what their foundation has actually been doing with the money: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Med... I wouldn't be surprised if private donations will eventually be responsible for the eradication of Malaria (1000 deaths daily, much more suffering and cost to society). If you're in tech yo…

Yet many want to 'solve' the problem of the 0.1% being so wealthy and as a result let the government do most of the charity work instead. I think this would be a huge mistake. The mega wealthy donate a larger percent of their income than any other income group (which makes complete sense). We would be losing a ton of donation money. Yes this is a tangent. But I think its an important point to make. On top of that, ev…

> Yet many want to 'solve' the problem of the 0.1% being so wealthy and as a result let the government do most of the charity work instead. I think this would be a huge mistake.

...You don't see the problem in relying on the charatibility of a tiny few to work towards the well-being of billions?

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#232

Post by erikpukinskis »

grandalf wrote: post #193
TTPrograms wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates is also applying his money where he thinks it will have the most impact - their foundation often invests in new technologies and startups whose products will have the greatest impact per dollar. If Gates and Musk are both working to maximize impact their difference is who they focus on. Gates primarily focuses on the most impoverished on the planet, while Musk focuses on the first world (and indirectly the…

Impact in terms of what? Alleviating suffering or helping to fix the institutions whose brokenness has let the problems fester?

Those two things feed into each other. Basic health increases the ability of a populace to fix institutions.

You act like "fixing" the political institutions in a foreign country is some trivial thing, as if people haven't been trying and failing to make interventions like that for a hundred years.

I think the hypothesis of: make healthcare, credit, etc widely available, and the political landscape will change much more probable than the counter hypothesis: fix the political landscape through some intervention and healthcare, credit, etc will follow.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#233

Post by nebabyte »

pc86 wrote: post #149
ouid wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you give away your large sums of capital, then it isn't the accumulation of large sums of capital anymore, and therefore isn't capitalism.

Charity is very much a part of capitalism, if you want it to be . That's sort of the point. The choice of being able to keep your money or donate v. the requirement to give away most/all of what you earn to the state.

Charity is neither unique to capitalism nor a testament to it working. It's rather a monkey-patch fix to make it look more viable than it is - people think everything's fine as long as a few "heroes" donate.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#234

Post by erikpukinskis »

bluGill wrote: post #51
zitterbewegung wrote: post #9

I am not sure if I recall correctly but wasn’t there a reason where gates wouldn’t donate all of his wealth at once and needed to do it in stages ? Also, maybe they can’t utilize all that cash at once. Therefore it would be best to be illiquid until you need the liquidity.

It is the mythical man-month applied to charity. It takes time to get results, adding more money doesn't help. Nobody wants that much cash in one lump sum, they want an anual income. If you give me my anual income (including benifits and supplies) and I can quit my current job to do charity work. If instead you were to give me a billion dollars, I can still quit my job to do charity work, but this time I'll be doing…

Mm. Makes me realize the mythical man-month is also a good counterargument to the "superhuman AGI is imminent" predictions. The correllary in AI:

It takes time to get intelligence, adding more cycles doesn't help. For all the same reason throwing more money at programming problems doesn't make them go away.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#235

Post by sumedh »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #230
sumedh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who called for development efforts to support the policies that developing countries want. Do you know examples where the countries wanted something while Gates and Co wanted something else?

https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/blog/little-help-bill-gates...

That is the same link which GP gave and it did not have any examples. Not sure why you linked it again

So let me ask again, do you known any specific examples?

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#236

Post by canoebuilder »

carlisle_ wrote: post #202
canoebuilder wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the feedback! Being hyper aware(at least I think so) of this issue you mention I tried mightily to tread carefully. I think for the most part, the nature of the issue just makes it inherently open to objections of "bedside manner" when discussed in "polite society." What do you think I could have done better in terms of phrasing or what have you?

I think the easiest way is to explicitly call out possible arguments and get your opinion out in front. E.g "Some might say this gives me a lackadaisical attitude towards the lives of others. Conversely I have nothing but the utmost respect for the lives of others and am concerned with the well being of others" It's not a perfect example but it's an easy way to show that you are thinking about other people and what t…

Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#237

Post by canoebuilder »

burkaman wrote: post #205
canoebuilder wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People leaving Africa right now are being forced out by war and violence, most of them aren't choosing to leave. As respectfully as possible, this is completely wrong. https://www.google.com/search?q=migrant+crisis+economic I phrased this a little wrong, the source of the current refugee crisis is mostly not Africa, but my point is that the societal disruption you're referring to is not caused by voluntary immigratio…

Thanks, that was plenty respectful and I didn't know that. I wish there were sources and numbers to define "overwhelmingly", and I think refugees are probably more likely to pay "a substantial price" than a voluntary migrant, but overall I get the point. I'll fall back to my other question then, why would people leave? I was looking at this image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis#/media... It see…

Every single image I've seen of this has been overwhelmingly young males, the personal experience of everyone I know in the affected areas has been that they are overwhelmingly young males. In most cases cases "overwhelmingly" is an understatement, because they are all young males.

The data on that map is from 2015.

If you want to read about migrant/illegal border crossers from Africa in recent years, italy has been bearing the brunt of it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=italy+migrants

Here's a recent video from a spanish beach that looks like some kind of absurdist theater. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA02zZCGTdk

I also have some issues with what qualifies as "mass societal disruption", but I guess that's mostly a semantics argument.

How about pre-meditated and coordinated sex attacks with 1000+ perpetrators?

This was hardly an isolated incident, just one of the more shocking in scale and brazen in execution.

https://www.google.com/search?q=new+year%27s+eve+cologne

Societal disruption needn't be limited to large scale events like the above, just the steady flow of increased crime disrupts and degrades society. https://www.google.com/search?q=migrant+crime

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#238

Post by jk2323 »

braydenm wrote: post #68

Although there are many cynics, it's quite remarkable the impact on the world donations can have. Here's what their foundation has actually been doing with the money: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Med... I wouldn't be surprised if private donations will eventually be responsible for the eradication of Malaria (1000 deaths daily, much more suffering and cost to society). If you're in tech yo…

"I wouldn't be surprised if private donations will eventually be responsible for the eradication of Malaria (1000 deaths daily, much more suffering and cost to society)."

He should improve contraception instead. Would be better for the Africans AND Europeans.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#239

Post by RhysU »

Retric wrote: post #145
randyrand wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet many want to 'solve' the problem of the 0.1% being so wealthy and as a result let the government do most of the charity work instead. I think this would be a huge mistake. The mega wealthy donate a larger percent of their income than any other income group (which makes complete sense). We would be losing a ton of donation money. Yes this is a tangent. But I think its an important point to make. On top of that, ev…

I don't want to 'take it back.' But, I feel donations should not be tax deductible. Why should I subsidize anything someone feels is worth donating for?

How is not taking his money subsidizing him? Tax credits would be subsidizing him.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#240

Post by randyrand »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #192
randyrand wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet many want to 'solve' the problem of the 0.1% being so wealthy and as a result let the government do most of the charity work instead. I think this would be a huge mistake. The mega wealthy donate a larger percent of their income than any other income group (which makes complete sense). We would be losing a ton of donation money. Yes this is a tangent. But I think its an important point to make. On top of that, ev…

There's a difference between someone who went from upper middle class to billionaire, like Gates, and someone who inherited most of their wealth, like other people. I don't think lumping them together into a monolithic N% is productive for purposes of discussing policy.

88% of the very wealthy ($30+ million) in the USA made their wealth themselves.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/10/10/where-...

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