61–70 of 291 posts
I don't think one donates money to Harvard just for the sake of a plaque. I guess there is some sort of indirect benefit to be had after such a donation, like an entry pass for a child, an entry pass for a PhD, or something of that vein?
If everybody thought the same then no one would donate to them and they wouldn’t be the richest school.
Isn’t it similar to saying “what’s the point of voting, in my state my party always wins anyway”.
Side topic. Is it better for society to give 300mil to an ivy league. Or start a new university?
When you look into the history of EA movements, a lot of the spending becomes weirdly self-serving and requires a lot of mental gymnastics to justify. One shining example that comes to mind is the $30K grant they allocated to printing Harry Potter rationalist fan fiction and distributing it (Yes, this really happened: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g/... ). Hardcore EA proponents will get staunchly defensive about all of this weird spending, but then they’ll single out $300mm donations like this for not going to malaria nets. It’s getting old.
Invest it in a beverage company whose customer base is conservative, frat boys, and the working class then aggressively rebrand it with everything they oppose front and center. Proceed to lose six billion dollars of capitalization in six days.
Buy a popular communication platform and then ruin it by making it a mockery of both free speech and censorship at the same time.
the war in afghanistan cost taxpayers $300,000,000 per day every day for 20 years, for a total of ~$2,000,000,000,000
I don't think one donates money to Harvard just for the sake of a plaque. I guess there is some sort of indirect benefit to be had after such a donation, like an entry pass for a child, an entry pass for a PhD, or something of that vein?
I like the idea of Effective Altruism (EA), but it’s ironic to use EA to call out ineffective charitable spending in the wake of all the Effective Altruism ridiculousness of recent years. EA was a key part of SBF’s cover story to make his frauds appear to be coming from a philanthropic angle. An EA figurehead recently spent multiple millions, some of which was FTX donations, on a castle/chateau to “host events”, whic…
Imagine if Disney came out with “Effective Avengers” tomorrow
100% agree with the title, that the it is very not impactive. But it isn't actively harmful, which there's a LOT of other ways to spend $300m and actually be harmful.
So the article takes issue with buying status overall - agreed. But, saying that Griffin should have donated the money to "better things". Even the article writer points out that Griffin is a egomaniac and a "villian". I disagree with the core issue and argue this is a fantastic outcome all things considered.
Like if Martin Shkreli donated to Harvard to get building as well I'd be super happy because he didn't actively invest in extracting money from people in disadvantaged medical situations.
I definitely don't think the big schools like Harvard/Yale/etc. need any more money, but I will play devil's advocate here. > "he donated $300 million in such as a way as to do as close as possible to zero good with it." Oh there are a lot worse ways to spend it with the best of intentions. The Turkana frozen-fish plant is a classic example, a charitable project where back in around 1975 around $150 million (in today…
A donation to Harvard only accelerates opportunity inequality. Harvard benefits only rich kids.
55% receive needs based scholarships, with families making less than 150k per year paying less than 15k per year.
Sure there are a lot of rich kids and legacies. But to say it only benefits the wealthy is just wrong.
1 - https://college.harvard.edu/guides/financial-aid-fact-sheet