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

gatesnotes.com

451–460 of 704 posts

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

#451

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

My issue with Gates is that he wants to fight climate change, yet he's personally an environmental disaster with his yachts and jets. I'm not saying he has to live like a monk to be credible, and maybe his foundation is doing a good job (never looked into it), but either he's an hypocrite, or I disagree with him on how to fight climate change.

Serious question: how bad is the footprint of Gate's yachts and jets and similar luxury stuff? I genuinely have no idea.

I mean, having more than one of either already seems ridiculously wasteful to me, and I don't care if that's standard billionaire lifestyle.

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

#452
Nice! And with what he will be left he could, if he deploys it also during 20y, help 1200 people per month. With 1k daily give aways.

https://ayudaefectiva.org/simula

Or with 10k daily, 310k monthly, adjusted by historical inflation it’s 100 million during 20 years.

That’s 3 million people helped.

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It assumes a lot about future administrations too. When Obama was in office I complained a lot about the Executive branch consolidating power and using executive orders, and the Democrats were fine with it because he was a "good" administration. But guess what? If you give too much power to a position, people who want to abuse the power will try to get themselves there. I wasn't upset that Obama was consolidating pow…

Obama didn't "consolidate power", he issued fewer EO than Bush (276 vs. 291). Trump has issued 142 just within these 100 days.

Number of EOs issued is a poor measure of centralization of power. Most exercise of executive power these days don't even require an EO, just a decree from one of the executive agencies. And looking at Trump vs Obama is myopic. This process has been going on continuously since at least the FDR admin.

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not embezzlement by any definition of the word. >>What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from? Care to reply to this?

> That's not embezzlement by any definition of the word. This is just mental gymnastics on the level of "it's not murder when the military does it!". > Care to reply to this? No, because it's not relevant to the discussion.

>>This is just mental gymnastics on the level of "it's not murder when the military does it!".

What definition of embezzlement includes both parties willingly engaging in exchange of labour for financial compensation? I think you are right, there is mental gymnastic happening, just not where you think it is.

>>No, because it's not relevant to the discussion.

How so?

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

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well but that's exactly what I was asking for - thank you for posting this. I asked to be corrected and I was. But let me quote what the article you linked says: "claimed that Bill had met the disgraced financier on “numerous occasions.” One of those meetings allegedly lasted for hours." Does that sound to you like they had a deep relationship of any kind? I'm just trying to form my own view on it - and that just doe…

Bro you're on Hacker News and you don't know how to get past a NY Times paywall. Embarrassing, though unsurprising given your blue-pilled beliefs. https://web.archive.org/web/20250505081209/https://www.nytim...

What do you mean by blue pilled beliefs?

And thank you for the archive link, I didn't know you could do it this way. If this surprises you then I'd link to link you this:

https://xkcd.com/1053/

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

#456
post #57

How can u get some of this funding to do fundamental AI research?

Aren't there more important issues than tossing more money into that particular furnace? Touch some grass man.

Gates is betting very heavily on AI and thinks it will greatly improve health outcomes. Both for medical research and even primary care. You may not like it, but I'm sure he is offering grants for AI research. Not necessarily for training models, but for finding effective ways to apply models to achieve the foundation's goals. So, it's not a stupid question to ask at all.

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

#457

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

My issue with Gates is that he wants to fight climate change, yet he's personally an environmental disaster with his yachts and jets. I'm not saying he has to live like a monk to be credible, and maybe his foundation is doing a good job (never looked into it), but either he's an hypocrite, or I disagree with him on how to fight climate change.

Being a hypocrite is a fairly minor sin, and doesn't take away from the good he does. I could make a long list of worse qualities Bill Gates possesses, but I'll still acknowledge the good.

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

#458
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's his money. He can give it to North Korea or China if he wants. Entitled and selfish.

Actually, no he can't. OFAC will absolutely destroy him if he does. I have a remote job and I am even explicitly banned from doing any work for my company while I am in China or a bunch of other countries.

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

#459

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

I worked there and would encourage you not to do that.

It'd be smarter to see who they are giving money to (which is all public) and give directly to those orgs. The Gates foundation itself spends a lot of money on consultants, "government engagement" (aka lobbying by another name), and fancy dinners.

That's fine or maybe even noble for a family foundation, but it's probably not something individuals would want to fund.

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

#460

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

I worked there and would encourage you not to do that. It'd be smarter to see who they are giving money to (which is all public) and give directly to those orgs. The Gates foundation itself spends a lot of money on consultants, "government engagement" (aka lobbying by another name), and fancy dinners. That's fine or maybe even noble for a family foundation, but it's probably not something individuals would want to fu…

Exactly. He doesn't need 20 years. That's just him trying to draw attention to himself.

If he was really serious about giving away his money, he could write a single check to the Red Cross || Doctors Without Borders || insert charity here and in five minutes be done with it.

The world doesn't need more vanity charities. It needs its existing charities to be better funded.

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