It’s his money and he can do whatever he wants. But I can also form whatever opinions I want: That man is chasing after something that he will never find.
At this point, you have an opinion on him. He does not have an opinion on you.
The least impactful way to spend $300M?
41–50 of 291 posts
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#42I definitely don't think the big schools like Harvard/Yale/etc. need any more money, but I will play devil's advocate here. > "he donated $300 million in such as a way as to do as close as possible to zero good with it." Oh there are a lot worse ways to spend it with the best of intentions. The Turkana frozen-fish plant is a classic example, a charitable project where back in around 1975 around $150 million (in today…
Playing devil’s advocate is a great antidote to this article.
I also agree that Harvard doesn’t need any more money, but…
You notice something in that article, which is that Harvard is almost twice the size of the next largest school in that article’s list of richest schools per student. The undergraduate part of Harvard is extremely small and exclusive. Griffin gave the money to the graduate school of arts and sciences, which is actively building the capacity to serve more students. They’re building what is effectively a second campus on the Boston side of the river, with even more land than they have in Cambridge.
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#43[deleted]
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#44This article very briefly encapsulates everything wrong with Effective Altruism: a boneheaded assumption that this money is being donated for its societal impact, an unwillingness to try to actually understand what's going on, instead choosing to engage with the Harvard endowment on its own terms by taking the university "mission statement" seriously, and a screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet purporting to identify be…
> a boneheaded assumption that this money is being donated for its societal impact
Pretty hard disagree. The subtitle of this article is "Buying status is as close to bad as a good act can be." The author seems pretty clear-headed about what the purpose of this gift is. The also seem to say "sure, EA isn't the end all/be all of donation guidance", but it is an easy way to highlight that Griffin's act of altruism is a vanity play.
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt anyone in EA is actually misled by what’s going on here. They’re trying to out it as not a charitable donation at all so no one who hasn’t thought about it is misled. This is a good thing to do.
Then why take it seriously at all. You're looking to perform a forensic analysis to determine whether the wallet inspector's credentials are a forgery. The whole thing is a scam.
Because not everyone knows that donations to Harvard are ~scams.
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#46It’s his money and he can do whatever he wants. But I can also form whatever opinions I want: That man is chasing after something that he will never find.
This seems dramatic given the context haha, I would think NOT donating $300m would be a bigger sign of what you're describing
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#47I definitely don't think the big schools like Harvard/Yale/etc. need any more money, but I will play devil's advocate here. > "he donated $300 million in such as a way as to do as close as possible to zero good with it." Oh there are a lot worse ways to spend it with the best of intentions. The Turkana frozen-fish plant is a classic example, a charitable project where back in around 1975 around $150 million (in today…
A donation to Harvard only accelerates opportunity inequality. Harvard benefits only rich kids.
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#48He should have given that money to an advocacy organization instead. (But only if it’s one that this blogger happens to agree with.)
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#49the war in afghanistan cost taxpayers $300,000,000 per day every day for 20 years, for a total of ~$2,000,000,000,000
For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day (per taxpayer)...
Re: The least impactful way to spend $300M?
#50only fans