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Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

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Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#261

Post by jimbokun »

Hokusai wrote: post #92
havetocharge wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them. What's up with this nonstop handout mindset lately?

> His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them. So, people have options to stop being poor, people have options to not have to pee in a bottle at work, but they chose to do it, why? Poverty removes many options, lack of good education removes many options, abusive corporations keep options far away. The system is the problem, people is just living in a system manipula…

> It's not a handout, it's asking for growth to be shared fairly. It's about taking care of our fellow humans. It's about creating a society that works for everyone and not just the few.

Stop with the feel good euphemisms!

Which SPECIFIC policies do you want? Full blown communism? Single payer health care? Universal Basic Income?

Every ACTUAL policy has costs, trade offs and drawbacks. Put actual dollar amounts on the table, and a rational discussion can take place.

Just handwaving about a society where everyone someway somehow gets everything they need to happy, healthy, fulfilled, and self-actualized accomplishes nothing.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#262

Post by ixacto »

sofixa wrote: post #219
Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

> It's how we get to the moon and Mars and how we survive as a species. It's what's next. I find it extremely weird that people are banking on a (almost literal) moonshot for the survival of our species. Isn't trying to stop/lessen the damage we're doing to the place we currently live and which can sustain us better and more optimistic proposition than hoping a metric shitton of things go perfectly after probably mil…

We need to make humanity a multi-planetary species, Mars is just the beginning. The moonshot is just a tech validation, then we can send humans to the rest of the planets and the belt too.

Figuring out how to solve pollution on Earth is also doable with modern technology. We can terraform Earth to be more habitable as well, we could melt the antarctic icecap and colonize it. Maybe even make a new civilization there without as many problems [government/bureaucracy as we have in the rest of the world?

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#263

Post by colordrops »

catillac wrote: post #2

There will be a lot of cynicism on this post from the HN crowd, but these are unbelievably good recipients. I have interacted with Jose Andres many times, and go to his DC restaurants when I visit, and he is truly a wonderful soul who spends all his effort helping others. I don’t know much about Van Jones beyond what I see on TV, but if he’s of the same character as Jose Andres, that is stellar and they will both do…

These guys are stooges of the elite for maintaining narrative control. They are part of the same media bloc as the Washington Post, which Bezos owns - that bloc being neoliberal establishment. To call them "unbelievably good recipients" is orwell speak.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#264

Post by jimbokun »

joshuahaglund wrote: post #80

I just think this money shoulda been paid in taxes so we could collectively solve problems instead of some guy hand picking a couple lottery winners.

Given current level of disfunction in the US government, I'll take Bezos just picking who he thinks can do the most good with the money.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#265

Post by arrosenberg »

edmundsauto wrote: post #53
whymauri wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt like I entered a wormhole in the GP comment where the ocean wasn't on fire, the Amazon wasn't burning down, a heat wave didn't sweep through the Northwest, and the polar caps aren't melting at an irreversible rate. The largest redistribution of wealth in history is happening right now while the global environment collapses and somehow there are cheerleaders egging it on so rich guys can play around in sub-orbi…

Is wealth being redistributed, or are the Bezos’ simply slurping up the new money that have been so abundant? It matters, I think. Because if people are only getting relatively poorer when compared to the top 1%, it’s not as bad as if they are losing their standard of living. There are other issues about how excessively rich people can distort our society, but that’s not so much about the redistribution but the distr…

> Is wealth being redistributed, or are the Bezos’ simply slurping up the new money that have been so abundant?

How do you differentiate these? If you have 100 dollars, distributed evenly among 10 people, and then you print 100 more and give them all to Jeffery, then you have redistributed the wealth even though you only printed new money. He went from 10% of the power to 55%.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#266

Post by jimbokun »

akira2501 wrote: post #64
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10

The really interesting thing to me about this announcement is that it's the first time I think I've ever heard about such a large gift being given to individuals , instead of a foundation or non-profit. Curious if Bezos is just testing to see if this type of philanthropy has better results. I'm also interested in the logistics of a gift this large. I mean, Bezos would have to pay a large gift tax for gifts sent direc…

> is just testing to see if this type of philanthropy has better results. The idea of a billionaire spending time minmax-ing their donations seems highly unlikely.

Seems like exactly how Bill Gates has spent his time since retiring from Microsoft.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#267

Post by dantheman »

mostdataisnice wrote: post #86
alfalfasprout wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the reality is that competition really does drive innovation. In the past few years we've seen SpaceX get reusable boosters working, a mission to the ISS, etc. Though people like to diminish blue origin's accomplishments due to not hitting orbit they were able to land their reusable booster on the first try too. In a short amount of time we've seen tremendous progress in bringing down the costs of launching. It's…

The fundamental problem is that NASA's funding is tied to politics and not a business model. Both Democrats and Republicans gutted NASA over the last 15 years and essentially killed any chance we had at even launching basic rockets. The SLS was the last serious project NASA tackled and it was shuttered. Private space exploration has brought us innovation at a pace NASA could have never delivered because it always had…

SpaceX raised about 6 billion in total, NASAs budget is 23 Billion/Year -- why did NASA lose the ability to get people to space?

You can blame whatever you want, but at the end of the day - they're failing.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#268

Post by nomel »

gonehome wrote: post #190
nomel wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Borrowing mean returning the money at some point. Where does this money come from, and how isn't it taxed?

Person dies, wealth gets inherited at new cost basis, heirs pay off loans with new (higher) cost basis, tax revenue isn’t collected. At least that’s the model as I understand it.

I assume this means the banks are giving > 40 years loans? Isn't inheritance tax fairly high? A quick search says 40% federal, with around 20% state.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#270

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

bigthymer wrote: post #248
systemvoltage wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving people money is absolutely the last thing anyone should do. I'd much prefer if Bezos spent $200M in building an education institute or an apprentice shop for tradesmen or to humanitarian aid or doctors without borders or open source courseware or human genome project...

> Giving people money is absolutely the last thing anyone should do. Why? Cash transfers to poor people is starting to look like an effective way to alleviate poverty. Despite the old stereotype of poor people blowing it all on booze and drugs, in reality, most people put it to good use. This is also another reason why UBI has started gaining more support.

> Cash transfers to poor people is starting to look like an effective way to alleviate poverty.

Much like alleviating homelessness by giving people homes, it's so simple and obvious that no one can tolerate it.

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