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Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

seattletimes.nwsource.com

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Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#51

Post by andreyf »

parallax7d wrote: post #37
andreyf wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woz has spent decades teaching 5th graders. He donated most of his money to the school district he worked with. My bias might be showing, but this seems a lot better approach to education than throwing money at it like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Starting in 2000, the Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its first big project, trying to revitalize U.S. high schools by making them smaller…

Not only does gates throw lots of money at problems, they follow up the results with effectiveness studies.

And what makes his definition of "effectiveness" any good? When goals are as clear as "maximize profit", I have no doubt Bill Gates is one of the most competent in the field. However, when it's as vague as "improve education", I have serious doubts.

I'd trust a passionate fifth grade teacher to make good judgements of what's best for their students' education over a billionaire entrepreneur any day.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#52

Post by mrtron »

c1sc0 wrote: post #32
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about suffering, I'm talking about not even slightly restraining the most astronomical privilege. The man is worth $13bn. He could give away 99% of his wealth and still live out his days in a level of luxury which will never be experienced by 99% of Western world's population, let alone the world's.

And what is wrong with that?

Given our economical system - it is a certainty that certain individuals will be so wealthy they can afford anything.

The inevitable is hardly wrong!

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#53

Post by mrtron »

parallax7d wrote: post #35

This is a good step, but the state should also be taxing them at close to 90% as well. That way all the other billionaires who don't care about philanthropy are forced to contribute back into the system that allowed them to gain the wealth in the first place.

I don't know why this is being voted down - it is a valid point of view and historically significant!

There are pros and cons to different tax models. A lot of US history has contained very high tax rates for the highly wealthy.

This was the first google result (I don't want to promote that org)

http://s3.moveon.org/images/tax_rate-chart.gif

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#54

Post by mrtron »

Ardit20 wrote: post #43
Ardit20 wrote: post #27

Why was he able to make billions anyway? That money would have been spent better on charging less for his products than giving it to charity where much will probably be lost in immense bureaucracy.

Also, down vote the comment all you like. I was fully aware you would. Engage however if you dare :), that is what shows your worth.

This type of comment isn't useful. Please refrain from feeling the need to add this when people disagree with your comment.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#55

Post by edanm »

andreyf wrote: post #51
parallax7d wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only does gates throw lots of money at problems, they follow up the results with effectiveness studies.

And what makes his definition of "effectiveness" any good? When goals are as clear as "maximize profit", I have no doubt Bill Gates is one of the most competent in the field. However, when it's as vague as "improve education", I have serious doubts. I'd trust a passionate fifth grade teacher to make good judgements of what's best for their students' education over a billionaire entrepreneur any day.

I'm guessing a portion of that money is going towards "passionate 5th grade teachers", giving them the chance to use their expertise and imagination to improve education.

Bill Gates is, at the very least, very smart. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he's spending his considerable net worth in a way that helps.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#56

Post by mrtron »

Ardit20 wrote: post #41
c1sc0 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you define a level of bureaucracy that would be acceptable to you? 10%? 20%? 30%? While many charities are woefully inefficient, so are many businesses. And charities don't live in some kind of vacuum: inefficient charities fail just like inefficient businesses.

Its the greater point which you have missed. He is not being some great guy, he is not being awesome, in this drunken state I am free to say that which I wanted to all along, he is a thief pure and simple, it is not HE giving away money, HE is not being ethical, some kind of god we should all adore for being so nice to us paroles. He stole this money. He charged much more for his products than he clearly, plainly kne…

I wouldn't advise arguing against capitalism while drunk.

What does the amount they charged for their product have to do with anything? Pricing is influenced by the market - the market was willing to pay what they were being charged. I don't know that pure capitalism is the ideal system (being Canadian I rely on public services like health care) but it is very difficult to claim he is a thief.

They were wildly successful because they added a lot of value to the market.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#57

Post by Ardit20 »

mrtron wrote: post #54
Ardit20 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, down vote the comment all you like. I was fully aware you would. Engage however if you dare :), that is what shows your worth.

This type of comment isn't useful. Please refrain from feeling the need to add this when people disagree with your comment.

I was making a fine point. The comment was down voted because they disagreed with it. Yet reasonable people can disagree.

I think in this community down voting is used to discourage a certain behaviour, not so as to penalise someone who expresses a valid opinion.

Charities are full of bureaucracy and the entire money does eventually not end up to the people who are supposed to get it. Also, squeezing as much profit as possible, perhaps to the expense of life and great environmental disaster in the case of BP, is not desirable.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#59

Post by sp332 »

rbanffy wrote: post #49
Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI: There is no reason to use url shorteners on hn and many people will not click on them.

Sorry. The URL was so huge I felt bad. When more than 50% of the message is a insanely long URL, something is clearly wrong.

HN truncates the display of long URLs. Yours is http://books.google.com/books?id=ni0EsmebjYwC&pg=RA1-PA7...

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#60

Post by rbanffy »

sp332 wrote: post #59
rbanffy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. The URL was so huge I felt bad. When more than 50% of the message is a insanely long URL, something is clearly wrong.

HN truncates the display of long URLs. Yours is http://books.google.com/books?id=ni0EsmebjYwC&pg=RA1-PA7...

Cool!
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