This is great; Rather than having government's and or NGO employees who pulls normal salary and aren't experienced in efficiently managing the spending of billions of dollars of development aid and end up harming the recipients, we are now getting the billionaires - people who excel at efficiently investing billions of dollars to reap billions more - to allocate these resources.
Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
71–80 of 206 posts
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Capitalism creating wealth in Africa? Cruel joke?
Nope. Counter-intuitive truth.
It isn't even that counter-intuitive. The approach for the longest time was to give aid through food and other basic necessities. Teaching a person how to fish rather than giving him fish clearly produces better results in the long term.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's certainly a testament to the power of perspective that you've dismissed a quarter of the planet living sick, hungry, and in poverty as "problems that will always exist", and decided that doing something about it produces no "real value."
> It's certainly a testament to the power of perspective that you've dismissed a quarter of the planet living sick, hungry, and in poverty as "problems that will always exist", and decided that doing something about it produces no "real value." Can we spare the moral condemnations? Today's advances in the cutting edge of sciences become the life-saving and enhancing cheap commodities of the future, and being skeptica…
I find it a really shameful comment. It seems like unbelievably wishful thinking to claim that high-tech startups are the most important thing everyone should be doing when the going rate for saving lives from tuberculosis or malaria is in the hundreds of dollars per (e.g. http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities). I'd like to hear why that is not real value. No doubt most First World businesses produce technology and efficiency advancements that are genuinely useful, but I doubt that very many are that useful.
I can't imagine how you could hold the original poster's view as stated unless you literally don't value human life very much, or you have done some convincing math about how much good Tesla Motors is likely to do the world. I condemn it without reservation.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#74Fantastic. I wonder if all these very public proclamations are going to shift people's attitude towards taxes? Most people think of the government as wasteful, inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt to more or less degrees, and I know I'd prefer to see money allocated by smart people like Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg than by politicians who need to keep constituents happy and win votes. I committed a while back to giving…
I don't like estate taxes. Governments are typically terrible financial stewards and bad examples of financial responsibility. Give the government one billion and it will find a way to spend two.
But I also don't like the idea of a permanent aristocratic class where generation after generation are born into opulence because your great grandfather created a great company.
The movement towards philanthropy is a great alternative as long there are clearly defined and applied metrics of success. Gates Foundation does a good job at this. If you claim you're going to change the world, but you can't prove it, you won't get funding again.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#75Fantastic. I wonder if all these very public proclamations are going to shift people's attitude towards taxes? Most people think of the government as wasteful, inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt to more or less degrees, and I know I'd prefer to see money allocated by smart people like Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg than by politicians who need to keep constituents happy and win votes. I committed a while back to giving…
Sometimes it takes the government (or someone funded by them) to come up with novel solutions for the maladies that have plagued humanity. Norman Borlaug for famine, Jonas Salk for Polio, the research into Avian influenza and H1N1 pandemics, space exploration, etc. have all been either spearheaded, guided or financially encouraged by government agencies.
These are areas which charities (and corporations, for that matter) have sometimes fallen short due to either lack of funding or the mission-critical nature of the moment. Either way, we must agree that it's tough to conclude that governments are completely incompetent and charities aren't, however apt the perception may be.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#76Someone once said, "No man is rich enough to buy back his past." If you ask me, this just might do it for Zuck. Congrats Man! I hope you find yourself surprised by how many other young entrepreneurs follow suit. But seriously, do yourself a favor, quit renting your little college house and buy yourself a little home while interest rates are still low.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's certainly a testament to the power of perspective that you've dismissed a quarter of the planet living sick, hungry, and in poverty as "problems that will always exist", and decided that doing something about it produces no "real value." Can we spare the moral condemnations? Today's advances in the cutting edge of sciences become the life-saving and enhancing cheap commodities of the future, and being skeptica…
I find it a really shameful comment. It seems like unbelievably wishful thinking to claim that high-tech startups are the most important thing everyone should be doing when the going rate for saving lives from tuberculosis or malaria is in the hundreds of dollars per (e.g. http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities ). I'd like to hear why that is not real value. No doubt most First World businesses produce techn…
> I find it a really shameful comment.
You can still debate the merits civilly - and that makes it more likely to actually change someone's opinion than just expressing outrage.
> It seems like unbelievably wishful thinking to claim that high-tech startups are the most important thing everyone should be doing when the going rate for saving lives from tuberculosis or malaria is in the hundreds of dollars per
There's no conflict here. New technology saves lives, often by use in unexpected ways. Eradicating disease saves lives. They're both good.
> I can't imagine how you could hold the original poster's view as stated unless you literally don't value human life very much, or you have done some convincing math about how much good Tesla Motors is likely to do the world. I condemn it without reservation.
You don't see how electric cars could save lives? Coupled with better batteries and advanced nuclear power, it goes a long way towards obsoleting fossil fuels and driving down the costs of transportation. That's huge - lower pollution and lower costs on everything - medicine, food, housing - lower transport costs makes everything more affordable.
As for the condemnation? Why not just, y'know, state your point of view without the moral condemnation? I don't think it adds much to the discussion. By the way, I'm more in agreement with you than the OP, though I think it's a bit more nuanced than you make it out to be.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#78Well, this will properly be nice for those who receive those founds, but I have to wonder why he did it. Why get a fortune just to give it away?
> Why get a fortune just to give it away? Why climb Mount Everest just to come back down?
Because if you don't, you'll be dead within the next day: http://godheadv.blogspot.com/2010/04/abandoned-on-everest.ht...
Your point still stands though.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#79How much liquid wealth does Mark actually have? Isn't the vast majority of it purely theoretical based on Facebook equity purchases?
This is a public pledge on his part that he'll give away the majority of his wealth over time, not right this moment. At the moment, I'm not sure the guy owns much of anything besides Facebook stock. Last I read, he rents a little house and drives a paid-off Nissan coupe.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune
#80I'd rather see more people following the lead of Elon Musk than Bill Gates. Instead of throwing money at problems that will always exist and producing no real value, Musk is creating high-tech jobs and advancing the state of humanity.
So saving several million lives produced no real value?