My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth • Hacker News Board

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#351

Post by mlyle » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

_bin_ wrote: post #282

mlyle wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am within mine to remind everyone to please help your friend, your neighbor, your town, state, and country before you look further afield. Nah. We have memberships in families, neighborhoods, friend groups, local areas, cultural groups, nations, and the whole world. And problems at any of these levels can grow to the point where they affect us, too. And places where the needs are most acute and broad stand the gr…

You have to weigh that against the fact that you are much more able to figure out how to actually do what's needed at levels where you see things firsthand. At least, that's been my experience; it's much more realistic to start a nonprofit that can make a real difference locally, then perhaps scale with time, than it is to found something with a global mission, lacking global context on how things manifest around the…

Sure, but even when you apply discount rates due to uncertainty of efficacy and distance of effects, the numbers can still be big.

At this point, I spend substantially my entire life in local service (I am a schoolteacher and I give away 6 figures locally annually). I still don't think it would maximize my effective impact to ignore the rest of my country or the rest of the world.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#352

Post by Spinnaker_ » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

tough wrote: post #211

Every billionaire running these are just doing tax avoidalnce at the highest levels i assume?

You think that they hate paying the government money so much that they.... give it all away instead? Yeah, that's some brilliant tax avoidance.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#353

Post by tough » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #352

tough wrote: post #211

Every billionaire running these are just doing tax avoidalnce at the highest levels i assume?

You think that they hate paying the government money so much that they.... give it all away instead? Yeah, that's some brilliant tax avoidance.

Aren't those donations the equivalent of buying out foreign governments through these?

Seems like that to me

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#354

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #97

skandium wrote: post #48

One of the great tragedies of the world is that while he is arguably the philanthropist with the highest positive impact in human history, a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.

Yeah, and vaccines are a big reason why. He has seen the benefits of mass vaccination first hand and was a big advocate for pandemic prevention before COVID. COVID really broke a lot of people's brains.

[deleted]

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#355

Post by mmooss » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #247

vasco wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state is never going to be as agile as private people engaging on topics they are passionate about on their private time.

When it comes to funding various "public good" efforts, we don't need agility. We need fairness and at least some kind of public influence over what gets funded. The problem with leaving everything to private charity is that only the wealthy people and churches doing the donating dictate what counts as "public good" without you and I having any say over it. We luck out when the donor has good intentions and chooses t…

> The problem with leaving everything to private charity is that only the wealthy people and churches doing the donating dictate what counts as "public good" without you and I having any say over it. We luck out when the donor has good intentions ...

It is problematic even with good intentions.

People don't have time, expertise or usually even the motive to systematically examine ROI. They or someone they know has a 'good cause' and they support it. For example, endowments at their alma mater - likely a school for wealthy kids, new buildings for the hospital (that serves wealthy people), new research in diseases that are problems for the wealthy, etc.

They can't know without talking to people who have experience with poverty, for example, and those aren't the people coming to dinner tonight.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#356

Post by iancmceachern » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:09 PM UTC

Good, I hope they distribute it in ways that last, and have lasting positive impact.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#357

Post by toenail » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #212

toenail wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a problem to solve, there is a business opportunity. What do you propose instead?

No. Capitalism is ineffective at solving lots of problems. Particularly problems of the kind where there is universal inelastic demand, where competition makes the end arrive or product less affordable or efficient, where externalities are not priced in, and where there are single/few or a unique instance of a thing that can be used by the public. Examples: healthcare, food and water for sustenance; insurance; pollut…

You didn’t answer the question. I get it, you think capitalism is bad. What do you propose instead?

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#358

Post by mmooss » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #264

ryandrake wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to funding various "public good" efforts, we don't need agility. We need fairness and at least some kind of public influence over what gets funded. The problem with leaving everything to private charity is that only the wealthy people and churches doing the donating dictate what counts as "public good" without you and I having any say over it. We luck out when the donor has good intentions and chooses t…

> The problem with leaving everything to private charity is that the wealthy people doing the donating dictate what counts as "public good" without you and I having any say over it. The thing about public goods is that people tend to agree pretty closely about what they are. The wealthiest person in the world benefits from, e.g. clean air just as much as you do. You should be a lot more worried about wealthy folks wh…

> The thing about public goods is that people tend to agree pretty closely about what they are.

Is there some data that shows that?

> The wealthiest person in the world benefits from, e.g. clean air just as much as you do.

We can find public goods in common for many groups, but that's actually a bad example. Wealthy people care about clean air in their neighborhood; pollution is therefore concentrated in poor areas. They don't site the new incerator (or drug treatment facility) on the Upper East Side of Manhatten.

Many needs are specific to poverty. For example, wealthy people are not subject to malaria; they are no illiterate; they don't need toilets or labor rights; they can afford college for their kids regardless of tuition; they have unlimited access to safe, fresh, healthy food. They don't need more available and less expensive health care, so they donate to cancer research and high-tech therapy and not to the medical clinic in the poor neighborhood.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#359

Post by celeritascelery » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

oulipo wrote: post #246

jarbus wrote: post #16

Say what you want, but I respect this a lot. Sure as hell beats giving it all to your kids.

Sure, but only capitalism concentrates so much wealth in such few hands An alternative would be that company like Microsoft couldn't gain so much wealth, simply because their revenue would be capped / taxed high enough that the extra money they make goes back directly to people and governments In this case, *everyone* gets to vote and choose for what philanthropies the amount gets used, rather than having just "one g…

The government spends about 10x the amount of money on foreign aid than the gates foundations entire budget ever year. Not to mention the hundreds billions spent on domestic aid every year. So your dream is already a reality.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#360

Post by mmooss » Thu, May 08, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

psunavy03 wrote: post #222

9rx wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A group of people engaging in topics they are passionate about in their private time is what a state is. Perhaps what you are trying to say is that you only want to help out your friends?

Yeah, no. A government is not "a group of people engaging in topics they are passionate about." A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do, and if you don't do it, eventually people with guns will show up at your door and take you to jail.

That's a very narrow aspect of government, and one that I have hardly ever encountered. Law-abiding people don't do it because of government coercion but because they believe in being cooperative members of their community and don't want to hurt others.

Another, much larger aspect of government, especially democratic, is people getting together and doing things as a community that can't be done individually.