I’ll take a million, thanks.
My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
391–400 of 704 posts
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
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What a completely unhelpful comment: for all you know they are infertile. Having children shouldn't be done for such selfish reasons as mere personal fulfillment. I care about the kind of life a hypothetical human offspring would have (which is why I choose not to have any currently). Creating a family is a really weird solution to bring up. But your rage is valid, I think it is just misplaced. The above commenter to…
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Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#393One 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.
Benefits like less people in Africa and more resources for the ruling class?
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft's company practices under Gates don't help, but they are far from the main issue people have with him nowadays. Most people aren't even aware of the things Microsoft did. People think he is the antichrist because he promotes vaccines and because there are multiple quotes of him where he explains that he wants to reduce the world's population. By raising the standard of living and giving healthcare to the po…
There is a difference between reducing the world’s population and slowing its growth rate. The highest growth rates are necessarily in areas with high mortality. People have more babies to compensate for this mortality. Improve mortality rates and the population growth naturally goes down.
Good point, "Reducing population growth" is a more accurate portrayal of what Gates actually said.
But in practice they are the same thing. Almost the entire developed world has a fertility rate below the replacement rate. Even the upper half of developing countries are below replacement rate. If you bring health care, urbanization and the economy across Africa to levels comparable to Russia or Brazil we can expect their birth rate to similarly fall below the replacement rate too.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn’t answer the question. I get it, you think capitalism is bad. What do you propose instead?
Regulated capitalism, where cases of market failure are addressed.
I sometimes wish we actually had unregulated capitalism. Housing and healthcare would be much less terrible without legislated bottlenecks, among other areas.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not their argument. You lowering your tax rate and giving that money to charity isn't magicking more money into the world, it is just a different allocation. The government's tax income is allocated by the masses (in theory anyway). It is fair and dispassionate. Philanthropy / charity is picking winners and losers based on your personal whims, and for many it is about gaining social capital.
Even under ideal circumstances, the priority of a government is to serve the needs of its citizens. Sometimes, these happen to align with global needs, and sometimes not. In order to improve global health or address other issues that impact countries beyond where you live, the government (even an idealized version without waste, corruption, or political games) might not be the most effective way to accomplish this.
Right. But taking the combined $140 billion net worth of Bill and Melinda, about 30% (or whatever 'fair' rate you want to assume) shouldn't have been theirs to give away. Let them spend the other part however they want.
What I find kind of interesting is that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet argue that they should be taxed more, but they don't do anything to further that goal aside from media soundbites and headlines. They could fund an incredible war chest for a lobbying apparatus who's sole purpose would be to create a more fair tax system. But no such thing happens.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed—I spent the 90s idolizing Jobs and despising Gates. But today I have deep respect for Gates and the way he's using his wealth as a positive force in the world. Jobs had better taste and was a more effective product leader, but I'm sorry to say that he sucked as a philanthropist. It's disappointing that he spent ANY of his mental energy at the end of his life building that dumb $100M yacht, rather than focusing…
Better taste? How so, and why does that matter when we're talking about moral character?
It has nothing to do with moral character—just an opinion about Steve Jobs's strengths. Note that taste is subjective.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#398[deleted]
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#399This is the way that foundations and endowments should operate. Too many well-intentioned organizations wind up milquetoast tax-exempt hedge funds aimed primarily at self-preservation because the received wisdom is that they should focus on building endowments and keep their withdrawal rates below 4% in order to achieve immortality. I'm a big believer in research-driven philanthropy and mission-driven organizations.…
If wealth can be immortal why deplete it? All money spent is voting for allocation of resource. Sometimes there is too much money fighting the same goods in which case it may not be a good allocation of resources. That money can sit to become more money.
At a societal level, immortal wealth is incredibly bad.
At a personal level, because wealth sitting still, having 4% pay for the overhead of maintaining the 96% and then using the pennies left doesn't accomplish much of significance.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
> help your friend, your neighbor, your town, state, and country before you look further afield Many of my friends and family don't live on my neighborhood, town, state or country. They live in the world. Consider broadening up your social circle a little bit. Our lives don't have to be limited to where a horse can travel to any more.
Sure, the world has changed. But rightly-ordered love isn't about geographical layout, it's about the natural order of community and social structure. That has changed but "mosquito nets in zimbabwe" being on the way outer end of a right ordering of love hasn't.
I think the world has changed more than you think.
You are assuming that I don't have friends or family in Zimbabwe. Which is true in this particular case. But it might as well not. As I said I have friends and family in several countries.