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Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

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Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#21

Post by basementcat »

throwawaygh wrote: post #4
michaelangerman wrote: post #3

Besides monarchs in the past, for the first time in the history of Planet Earth we have many people and corporations that have more money than governments and so with that comes the responsibility of "acting accordingly". I believe that in a good light this will continue to assist humanity in ways never thought of before as human ingenuity is always more nimble than large bureaucratic organizations.

Andrew Carnegie definitely had "more money than governments". Same with other titans of that time. He was a really shit person when in came to labor -- hiring literal private armies to straight up lay siege to his workers -- but he did basically create the "rich guy gives away his money as a social obligation" model of... maintaining... democratic... government? Or, to be less coy, model of staving off communist/soci…

There was also a modest contribution toward basic scientific research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Institution_for_Scien...

Some astronomical observatories built atop certain mountains were built with his funding.

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#22

Post by catalogia »

michaelangerman wrote: post #9
saddlerustle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has more money than governments? Sergey Brin is worth about $65 billion. The US federal budget is ~$3 trillion _per year_

Here is one example... 5. Niger: Wealth per Adult: $1,017 Niger is the largest nation in West Africa, but more than 80% of its land area is in the Sahara Desert, so it is prone to drought and famine. The GDP as of 2017 was $9.87 billion, but the wealth per adult remained low despite economic reforms. Reference: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/managing-wealth/112916...

Mansa Musa is said to have been so wealthy he crashed the economy of Egypt by giving away gold. Extremely wealthy people is not a new phenomenon. Maybe monarchs don't count because they're so wealthy they own entire countries outright? It seems to me that makes them more wealthy, not less.

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#24

Post by 0xy »

flyinglizard wrote: post #10

> But the use of ex-military personnel for humanitarian and conservation work is also controversial, according to Rosaleen Duffy, a professor of politics and international relations at the University of Sheffield. No, Professor Duffy, the use of ex- or active - military personnel to render aid is not controversial. It's a widely accepted and successful practice.

Switzerland is a model for this. Given their neutral and famously anti-confrontational manner, their armies do a lot of civil construction and aid work. The US should do more of that kind of thing.

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#25

Post by wutbrodo »

throwawaygh wrote: post #19
awillen wrote: post #2

Truly commendable that he would do this, but deeply terrible that a private citizen, no matter how wealthy, can beat governments to the punch on this kind of aid.

> can beat governments to the punch on this kind of aid. Yes, exactly this. Not "can provide the aid", but "first to the punch". You really hit the nail on the head. The morality of massive wealth accumulation -- and the morality of various mechanisms for changing that accumulation -- is definitely something that reasonable people can have a polite and respectable debate about. But it is absolutely unacceptable that…

Is this really that surprising? Governments' advantage is crafting certain kinds of incentives that markets can't, but it's pretty much a guarantee that government will be more incompetent at whatever specific task they put their mind to, in large part because of the burden of democratic accountability. Conditioned on the resources and incentives being centralized (in Brin), why wouldn't you expect his organization to be more competent?

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#26

Post by dmckeon »

awillen wrote: post #2

Truly commendable that he would do this, but deeply terrible that a private citizen, no matter how wealthy, can beat governments to the punch on this kind of aid.

As a thought experiment, imagine some wealthy private citizen who could afford to spend, say, $10 million USD and had a few hundred employees to draw a team from, and adequate transportation to a disaster location.

Now identify a country that could respond with a similar level of aid in less time. Not more aid in more time, but just “beat to the punch” with a useful initial response. Citations preferred.

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#27

Post by jrockway »

selectodude wrote: post #17
saddlerustle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has more money than governments? Sergey Brin is worth about $65 billion. The US federal budget is ~$3 trillion _per year_

The US is the wealthiest country on earth. Sergei Brin's checking account would be the 74th largest GDP in the world.

Checking account or total value of investments?

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#28

Post by throwawaygh »

wutbrodo wrote: post #25
throwawaygh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can beat governments to the punch on this kind of aid. Yes, exactly this. Not "can provide the aid", but "first to the punch". You really hit the nail on the head. The morality of massive wealth accumulation -- and the morality of various mechanisms for changing that accumulation -- is definitely something that reasonable people can have a polite and respectable debate about. But it is absolutely unacceptable that…

Is this really that surprising? Governments' advantage is crafting certain kinds of incentives that markets can't, but it's pretty much a guarantee that government will be more incompetent at whatever specific task they put their mind to, in large part because of the burden of democratic accountability. Conditioned on the resources and incentives being centralized (in Brin), why wouldn't you expect his organization t…

Yes, the poor performance of the US government in COVID-19 is astounding and unique among governments. In no small part due to exactly this attitude.

The US Government was the first institution in the world to put a man on the moon. A half century before the libertarian corporatism figured out the market incentives to merely put stuff into low orbit. Which even communism figured out a half century ago.

And even now the lead investor is government, because both public and private equity is too chicken-shit to lead investment in even tried-and-true tech when the dollar amounts get too big.

Excellence in government is possible. There is no magic "gub'mit" pixie dust which makes that institution by fiat incompetent.

Governments and businesses are just collections of people doing stuff. Getting all religious about the difference between the two is counter-productive. The question here is one of utilitarian division of responsibility.

And, btw, capitalists didn't save the day on COVID-19 in the USA either. 120K+ dead and growing. We failed the dry run.

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#29

Post by [deleted] »

selectodude wrote: post #17
saddlerustle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has more money than governments? Sergey Brin is worth about $65 billion. The US federal budget is ~$3 trillion _per year_

The US is the wealthiest country on earth. Sergei Brin's checking account would be the 74th largest GDP in the world.

[deleted]

Re: Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity

#30

Post by throwawaygh »

catalogia wrote: post #22
michaelangerman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is one example... 5. Niger: Wealth per Adult: $1,017 Niger is the largest nation in West Africa, but more than 80% of its land area is in the Sahara Desert, so it is prone to drought and famine. The GDP as of 2017 was $9.87 billion, but the wealth per adult remained low despite economic reforms. Reference: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/managing-wealth/112916...

Mansa Musa is said to have been so wealthy he crashed the economy of Egypt by giving away gold. Extremely wealthy people is not a new phenomenon. Maybe monarchs don't count because they're so wealthy they own entire countries outright? It seems to me that makes them more wealthy, not less.

> Mansa Musa

That's a bit of a confusing thing, though, because he was also the emperor. (OT: I often wonder if his story is well-known in tech circles because of the end date of his reign.)

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