Join Wall Street. Save the world • Hacker News Board

Re: Join Wall Street. Save the world

#101

Post by cbr » Mon, Jun 03, 2013, 1:07 AM UTC

nickpinkston wrote: post #16

Join Wall Street. Attempt to save the world through donations. End up unable to recognize what to solve. This is a pattern that all these guys do. Even Warren Buffet just gave his money to Gates. You'd think a guy who spends his life picking out successful businesses would be able to recognize this in non-profit / social ventures, but he's so removed from real problems he can't. If you want to save the world, save th…

"Warren Buffet just gave his money to Gates"

Warren Buffet realized that a new charitable foundation wasn't needed and that by donating money through the Gates foundation he could accomplish more.

Re: Join Wall Street. Save the world

#102

Post by cbr » Mon, Jun 03, 2013, 1:16 AM UTC

m52go wrote: post #24

Join Wall Street, make some money, and then start a company that actually does something useful (i.e., not make photo-sharing more beautiful or social marketing .01% more effective). Giving money away is an effective way of actually accomplishing very little, unless you're doing it like Bill Gates and can have very tight control over what your money is actually doing.

"unless you're doing it like Bill Gates and can have very tight control over what your money is actually doing"

This kind of impact is actually accessible even to people who are giving smaller amounts: http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

Re: Join Wall Street. Save the world

#103

Post by cbr » Mon, Jun 03, 2013, 1:29 AM UTC

sailfast wrote: post #26

I fail to see how earning 100K and donating half of it as effective as working to save a life for $500 instead of $2500 over time. Like all things in life, a balance is required and no one way is going to be a cure-all. I applaud people that live frugally and donate what they have to worthy causes, but maybe a bit more introspection is also required to figure out why the career path has really been chosen.

Saving lives 5x more efficiently would be awesome. But how many people over how many years does that take? It may be that someone like Trigg who is earning to give would actually do better to go into malaria research, but it's a hard question. It's one I'm very interested in, though, if you know something about this.

(What is clear is that he's doing a lot of good, and if more people followed his example that would be great.)

Re: Join Wall Street. Save the world

#104

Post by thewarrior » Tue, Jun 04, 2013, 8:20 AM UTC

By this logic you could justify becoming a drug lord provided that you donate some of your earnings to charity.

Re: Join Wall Street. Save the world

#105

Post by kamakazizuru » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:06 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #86

ca98am79 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. For example, Gandhi and Mother Teresa had no money and did orders of magnitude of more good than many others with money. They did more than many others who had money and good intentions.

To the extent Gandhi was responsible for the poor economic performance of post-independence India, as well as the Partition, he is responsible for millions of deaths.

thats a very broad statement..based on...nothing?