151–160 of 250 posts
I think this is a good idea. I would add YMCAs and similar places. I think one of the best places for a mega-philanthropist to invest would be in the time and places that kids spend outside of public schools. Many of the biggest disadvantages in opportunities for kids are created when they fall behind before and after school and during summers, relative to kids who are better off socioeconomically. These disadvantage…
Bezos still needs to focus on actually delivering the value that the world has priced into the expectations of his company. He can't just retire and collect income off of an existing machine like Gates.
The problem libraries solved, mostly access to information, has largely been monopolize by the internet. Most, including the third world impoverished, have access to the internet. Therefore the necessity of a library has been largely diminished and inevitably libraries will disappear. Complaining about libraries when people have no sanitation and access to clean tap water sounds largely like a first world problem, as…
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I overwhelmingly agree with that. I grew up in one of the poorer places in America - Appalachia. Despite that, we had a nice library, donated initially by a wealthy individual and then sustained by various forms of private funding over the decades. It didn't always have the absolute latest books, the selection was decent though. It had Internet access very early on and was a valuable, inexpensive resource for young a…
It's much more efficient to move people from rural areas into the cities, than to build micro-cities all across the country.
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Every library I've been to in every town I've been to had Sunday hours. This includes New York City and its surrounding suburbs, Buffalo and its surrounding suburbs, several towns in Conneticut and several more in Toronto Canada and its surrounding suburbs. Even my university library has sunday hours.
In LA only the central library is open Sunday, for 4 or 5 hours.
Also, the main branches of suburban libraries in places like Glendale and Pasadena are open all weekend too.
I'd like to see some billionaire put a lot of money into abortions. The political fight over abortion keeps messing up other things, and a billionaire could fix that. For example, I don't think many on the right disagree that funding prenatal care is a good thing--but some major prenatal care providers, such as Planned Parenthood, also provide abortion services and so some politicians want to cut all their funding to…
If you're pro-life, you probably don't like the idea that someone is spending billions to fund abortions.
If you're pro-choice, you probably don't like the idea of Planned Parenthood conceding their abortion services because of political pressure.
The problem libraries solved, mostly access to information, has largely been monopolize by the internet. Most, including the third world impoverished, have access to the internet. Therefore the necessity of a library has been largely diminished and inevitably libraries will disappear. Complaining about libraries when people have no sanitation and access to clean tap water sounds largely like a first world problem, as…
A lot of people, even those in the developed nations, rely on libraries for internet access.
It also seems obvious that instead of access to libraries a better use of money would be access to the internet. SpaceX and Facebook are already working on solving this problem. It’s just a matter of technology and infrastructure. If it’s unfeasible to lay wires in remote areas maybe access to internet would better be served by satellites or balloons.
If a person is not educating themselves through the internet what makes you think they would educate themselves at a library? At some point it comes down to personal responsibility and as much money you throw at the problem it will never solve it.
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> large issues that governments don't want to touch Health care for all? Affordable housing? Food security?
How about reducing their size, removing redundant jobs, reducing regulation that does harm, cutting costs...
Raise taxes and on people like Bezos and Gates for the needs of society.
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Let me give you a hypothetical company IT department: while you are allowed to work there with any education background, only an MBA can be a manager. How do you think they would perform at IT tasks? Who runs libraries? People with Masters in Library Science. I expect severe budget and certification crises would come to any library that won't put a certified librarian in a head position. Or, I'm a working class guy a…
> Who runs libraries? People with Masters in Library Science. I expect severe budget and certification crises would come to any library that won't put a certified librarian in a head position. And you would be wrong. My local library is considered one of the best small-town libraries in the nation (I believe at one point it literally won an award for being the best) -- and does not have a certified librarian in a hea…
My point is not to disrespect MLS, in fact as even as a programmer, I'd probably be terrible as a head sys-admin/tech-support for a library too.
I'm wondering why we've never heard of anyone making a good career move by setting up tech at a library (other than as a fat and easy contract)? If we can all relate to these deficient computer networks being run in public libraries, why has nobody succeeded in this space? I'm suggesting perverse incentives in management structure is why this much needed service isn't being filled by our extremely talented tech workforce.
> it literally won an award for being the best and does not have a certified librarian in a head position.
kind of my point, no?