Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation • Hacker News Board

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#151

Post by bluecalm » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #125

sph wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can 'throw' what you can afford and it will feel as satisfying. Just try it.

If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars. I don’t believe donating $400 really feels that satisfying, the impact is fairly negligible in most contexts whereas donating $400k can very visibly improve a lot of lives. I think this illustrates just how much a billion dollars is and maybe why a very small wealth ta…

>>If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars.

It's not an equivalent. It's proportionally the same but it's completely different.

>>I think this illustrates just how much a billion dollars is and maybe why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society.

If anything it illustrates taxes should be lower for people like Hashimoto. Giving even more money to the government instead of leaving it with people like Hashimoto will result in a huge net loss.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#152

Post by hallole » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

paufernandez wrote: post #120

trizoza wrote: post #19

What a word of wisdom right there, the bit about internet is beautiful because it's ok to be weird - this is often the opposite on twitter, fb, reddit and many discords where if you have a different opinion you get mobbed by angry comments making one feel worse about their own weirdness.

It is increasingly important to be able to see that many things are true. There is no single "truth". Many things are true at the same time , and in all aspects of life. Each brain is like a band pass filter, and the effort we should make is to try to imagine the points of view of others, which are just different slices of the same world. Then embrace the slices we like, and just ignore the ones we don't, but don't a…

There is only a single source of truth and that is objective reality. Maybe you agree with that, but your wording is messy. It's true that different perspectives can yield their own particular bits of truth, if that's what you're saying.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#153

Post by GavinMcG » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #135

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars. I don’t believe donating $400 really feels that satisfying, the impact is fairly negligible in most contexts whereas donating $400k can very visibly improve a lot of lives. I think this illustrates just how much a billion dollars is and maybe why a very small wealth ta…

> I think this illustrates ... why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society. isn't the accrued billion dollars what remains after a much larger amount was taxed at roughly 50%? (of course could be spread across multiple years, but the essence remains) How would the "very small wealth tax" be calculated, that you propose?

50%? No, that’s for high wages. And previous taxation is irrelevant: we as a society get to choose what is taxed, and there’s no inherent reason why only a single tax should apply to someone. Sales taxes, for example (which disproportionately burden those with less wealth) are paid out of one’s already-taxed income.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#154

Post by georgemcbay » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #127

sevenzero wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we cant grow past money as a species we are pretty much doomed. I'd rather have allegiance or community based incentives over monetary gain, given that most people on earth can't really afford life anymore and rack up debt so rich people can get richer.

Capitalism is the single greatest force for improvement in the human condition. Money is the foundation of capitalism. If you went to school and believe what you write then you went to terrible schools.

> Capitalism is the single greatest force for improvement in the human condition.

Capitalism has done a lot of good in the world, and it has also done a lot of bad.

The problem isn't that capitalism exists, it is that far too many people treat it as a religion rather than a tool.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#155

Post by bluecalm » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #136

grim_io wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very privileged out of touch comment to make, no offense. In many(most?) parts of the world, $400 is the equivalent of months of good salary.

How is it out of touch? I donated much more than Hashimoto did relative to our net worths, but I cannot deny that I would have felt much more satisfied making a 1000x impact if I was a billionaire. I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house.

Hashimoto did more valuable work than you and then he is in position to do more impact wherever he pleases.

>>I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house.

We need some mechanism to select people who makes the choice. Popularity/lying contest (politics) ain't it. People making money conducting honest business is the best mechanism we have.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#156

Post by Fwirt » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

ar_lan wrote: post #137

bionsystem wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things to note. 1 billion isn't a thousand times a million. If you make a conservative 5% let's say out of your net worth, you still need to work with a million, whereas you don't with a billion. So, technically, $400 with a million is some amount of work hours, whereas $400k with a billion is just pocket change taken out of more than most people lifetime's of earnings that is just 1 year of your interest. Also…

> 1 billion isn't a thousand times a million. What?

The point they were trying to make was that if you take appreciation of assets into account, if your billion is appreciating by a relatively modest 5% per year, you are passively earning 50 million/year. Whereas someone with one million passively earns 50 thousand/year. One is enough to live in luxury anywhere in the world for several lifetimes, the other is enough to live comfortably in some parts of the US (or like a king in many parts of the world) but not enough to throw 6 figures at a programming language foundation for fun.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#157

Post by rpearl » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #135

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars. I don’t believe donating $400 really feels that satisfying, the impact is fairly negligible in most contexts whereas donating $400k can very visibly improve a lot of lives. I think this illustrates just how much a billion dollars is and maybe why a very small wealth ta…

> I think this illustrates ... why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society. isn't the accrued billion dollars what remains after a much larger amount was taxed at roughly 50%? (of course could be spread across multiple years, but the essence remains) How would the "very small wealth tax" be calculated, that you propose?

> How would the "very small wealth tax" be calculated, that you propose?

It is possible to tax unrealized assets. We already do. For example, a property owner pays property tax based on the value of their property, even when they are not selling it.

It is possible for billionaires to borrow against their held assets. It is therefore also possible to calculate a tax on them.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#158

Post by benatkin » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

lukaslalinsky wrote: post #63

tadasv wrote: post #53

This is great IMO. I like zig as a language and the idea behind it. But boy, it has a syntax issue. I with they figure out better syntax before 1.0, developer ergonomics I think are as important.

Zig has multiple issues, but syntax is definitely not it. It might take a little bit of time getting used to, if you are coming from another language, but it's one of the most readable languages I've ever worked with.

That is an opinion framed as a fact. There's plenty to rub a coder the wrong way, such as the sigil in builtin functions like @import, the dot syntax in structures (.{}, Timestamp{ .seconds = 0, .nanos = 0, };), triple slash comments (///), and multiline strings (beginning each with \\ - good luck grepping for escaped backslashes). However, that is just like any programming language - none is immune to this criticism.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#159

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

johnwheeler wrote: post #139

mixmastamyk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not quite finished, give it time to mature. But pretty good already.

Yeah, it's a good polished piece of software no doubt. I'm not denying that, but the hype it gets is just... I don't know.

Agreed, though it hasn’t been excessive in my experience. Just that the devs are better at marketing than others. Really shows how important that side of the equation is. Wish I was better at it myself.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#160

Post by rrgok » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

hallole wrote: post #152

paufernandez wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is increasingly important to be able to see that many things are true. There is no single "truth". Many things are true at the same time , and in all aspects of life. Each brain is like a band pass filter, and the effort we should make is to try to imagine the points of view of others, which are just different slices of the same world. Then embrace the slices we like, and just ignore the ones we don't, but don't a…

There is only a single source of truth and that is objective reality. Maybe you agree with that, but your wording is messy. It's true that different perspectives can yield their own particular bits of truth, if that's what you're saying.

Uh, what is objective reality?