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MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

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Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#11

Post by edot »

reinitctxoffset wrote: post #9

Speaking for myself, just knowing there is someone in the billionaire class who is still an incandescent beacon of humanity, humility, and hope has in some nontrivial way increased the quality of my years since she started on this path. She is an existence proof that a now-inevitable extreme inequality regime is not by construction maximally cynical and extractive.

Right, but she is not pathologically like the other billionaires. She married a man who became one. Same with Melinda Gates. So I guess our hope is that more billionaires will lust after young Russians or hot newscasters and get divorced, so their normal wives can do what normal people do with more money than they’d even need and help others.

Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#13

Post by reinitctxoffset »

edot wrote: post #11
reinitctxoffset wrote: post #9

Speaking for myself, just knowing there is someone in the billionaire class who is still an incandescent beacon of humanity, humility, and hope has in some nontrivial way increased the quality of my years since she started on this path. She is an existence proof that a now-inevitable extreme inequality regime is not by construction maximally cynical and extractive.

Right, but she is not pathologically like the other billionaires. She married a man who became one. Same with Melinda Gates. So I guess our hope is that more billionaires will lust after young Russians or hot newscasters and get divorced, so their normal wives can do what normal people do with more money than they’d even need and help others.

Hard to square these guys antics with the whole meritocracy of wealth business. Losing half your empire falling for a uh, socialite, on a business trip to LA? Tagged in a log book on the way to an island of ill repute? Getting high out of your mind and picking a fight with your boss who is the President?

These are depressingly average ways to screw up. Been there done that, but I don't claim to be John Galt either.

Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#14

Post by ziofill »

reinitctxoffset wrote: post #10
Schiendelman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, these are the right metrics. You're missing choice . When a woman chooses to have a child, or chooses to not have a child, we ascribe the economic impact based on her intent.

I think a great many women and a great many economists (and women who are economists for that matter) would take issue with the notion that raising a child is the alternative to being productive. Ask any policy maker in South Korea how they feel about the social value in raising children. It's not a film adaptation of a book starring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, it's 2055 or thereabouts in the China, the US isn't s…

I don’t disagree, but there is a vast difference between a wanted and an unwanted child. This is well studied and well understood. See freakonomics episode 394.

Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#16

Post by ralph84 »

leereeves wrote: post #5
ggm wrote: post #2

Do you find the end figures believable against other claims? I found them overly pessimistic but thats a non-scientific vibe view. Even on the most optimistic setting the $ per QALY seemed excessive. Many of MacKenzie Scott's interventions are early age. The multiplier effect on the economy and life adjusted years should be huge by both supression of excess pregnancies and avoided child death and disease. Every avoid…

> Every avoided pregnancy is economically that woman being productive back in the workforce or managing the family on a lower overhead. > Every avoided child death [or additional child born] is 40-50 years of productive labour from that child. Opinions about abortion and birth control aside, these two seem to be opposing calculations. If that's controversial, perhaps the conclusion should be that economic value is th…

Some people are net consumers and other people are net producers over their lifetime. If you abort the net consumers and invest in the net producers it's an economic gain. What's controversial is identifying who will be the net producers and net consumers that early because it's essentially eugenics.

Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#17

Post by georgemcbay »

reinitctxoffset wrote: post #9

Speaking for myself, just knowing there is someone in the billionaire class who is still an incandescent beacon of humanity, humility, and hope has in some nontrivial way increased the quality of my years since she started on this path. She is an existence proof that a now-inevitable extreme inequality regime is not by construction maximally cynical and extractive.

> She is an existence proof that a now-inevitable extreme inequality regime is not by construction maximally cynical and extractive.

MacKenzie Scott's philanthropy is great, and I'm both glad she exists and glad that her existence apparently upsets the Garry Tans and the Elon Musks of the world, but I don't think this conclusion is the take away at all.

She's an anomaly in the system, not proof that the system isn't horrendously harmful.

Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#18

Post by phoneafriend »

"A QALY is a health metric. Most of Scott's giving targets economic mobility, education, and equity, whose value is largely non-health — income, opportunity, rights, wellbeing. The model therefore understates her total social impact; it answers one specific question. The largest dollar buckets (equity & justice at ~22%, education at ~18%) contribute little health precisely because no credible study ties those grants to QALYs, not because the giving lacks value."

Which other metrics could be included to balance these economically? - society-wide morale lift & improved individual output - international desirability & forex lift

Or just re-weighting giving to normalize out non-health targeted expenditures?

Oh, and f** Malaria. Go get 'em, GiveWell and all working to reduce Malaria deaths. Polio too, heartbreaking that we have not beaten this one down yet. Suspect spend per paralysis/mortality is very high on Polio right now, but probably most agree the spend is very worth it given the payoff of a Polio-free planet.

Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#19

Post by rescripting »

reinitctxoffset wrote: post #9

Speaking for myself, just knowing there is someone in the billionaire class who is still an incandescent beacon of humanity, humility, and hope has in some nontrivial way increased the quality of my years since she started on this path. She is an existence proof that a now-inevitable extreme inequality regime is not by construction maximally cynical and extractive.

She is an outlier in the sense that she is both “new money” and also “old money” (she did the equivalent of inheriting money in her settlement with Bezos).

She was, at one time, a normal person, with normal friends and normal parents. However unlike most other “new money” billionaires she acquired her wealth without the corrupting influence of being a master of the universe business person where everyone in your circle is falling over themselves to gas up your ego.

Re: MacKenzie Scott's giving, in quality-adjusted life years

#20

Post by smt88 »

ks2048 wrote: post #15

Even if all her donations were a complete waste, one can argue every $1B taken from the oligarch class is a win - less money to buy media outlets and politicians.

Along these lines, I’d almost rather she’d bought major media outlets and newspapers and set them up under nonprofits with strict governance against taking corrupting donations.
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