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Comment by t0mbstone | Hacker News Reader

If you aren't going to leave anything behind for your kids, why work so hard to earn so much in the first place?

because if you get a lot of cash, you, while still living, can make it do stuff in the world that you think needs to be done.

Carnegie, for example, decided that He Really Liked Libraries. So he built a lot of them.

Paul Allen decided that we were wasting everyone's time redoing basic science experiments, so he did a lot of them and put them all online for free forever.

Brian Acton and Jan Koum decided that free, secure messaging should be available to everyone, so they sunk $500M into Open Whisper Systems so it can be a nonprofit with a warchest.

In years past, people have made similar decicions like "there should be a really good hospital in this town, so i am building one", or whatnot.

Carnegie liked building libraries, but you will notice that a lot of those libraries got named after him.

He used his wealth to benefit society, but he also effectively set up a system that would stamp and preserve his name and legacy in history. His actions weren't exactly entirely selfless.

This seems to be a common goal for a lot of people once they become very rich. They ask themselves, "what do I do with all this money?", and then they discover that even rich people die... So they attempt to white wash any of their past wrong-doings, and paint themselves as heroes and leave behind a legacy where their name will live on even after they die.

Who cares about Carnegie's reputation now that he's long since dead? It doesn't benefit him at all!

Does it hurt anyone alive today? That's the more important question.

The really hard questions are things like "are all of carnegie's depredations that he was responsible for while amassing his wealth in some sense 'worth it' if his wealth was subsequently spent on raising the standards for everyone? If so, by what metrics?"

I would prefer that than not doing good at all. Doing good is doing good, leaving a legacy or not.

Plenty of places (ie, hospitals) put the name of the donors out of respect for them.

I highly doubt someone as famous as Andrew Carnegie was heavily motivated by having his name on another building.

If I ran a library that was given millions by a donor, even if they didn't ask for it I'd like to name the library after them. Instead of it just being called "Houston Public Library" or whatever, you can show how people choose to give back to communities and maybe inspire other people to contribute in ways they're capable of.

Very rarely, if ever, an action is done that could only possibly be entirely selfless.

Doing good things and having a legacy is better then just doing good things.

>Paul Allen decided that we were wasting everyone's time redoing basic science experiments, so he did a lot of them...

Link please. Couldn't find em

http://portal.brain-map.org/

Maybe this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204630904577058...

> Brian Acton and Jan Koum decided that free, secure messaging should be available to everyone, so they sunk $500M into Open Whisper Systems so it can be a nonprofit with a warchest.

I believe it was $50 million not $500.

A better question would be why would you leave anything material for your kids? A good eduction and guidance through life should suffice. The rest should be invested in good governance.

I'm leaving a large estate to my kids because they (and any kids they have) need something to fall back on if my investments in governance in their country of birth fail. Education and guidance aren't enough.

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

What if they can't take care of themselves? There are many reasons to provide for your offspring.

For that we should invest in a social safety net, even basic income, so that those who can't succeed don't have to go off and die.

This would be true if everything in life were fair and there were zero biases towards the rich vs the poor.

Look, we all know that's not true. It's good to give kids a leg up so they don't suffer unfairly in this unfair world.

Like it or not, money does solve (or can simplify) a lot of problems in life . Providing a good education to your kids does not have to be mutually exclusive to leaving money behind. Why not do both?

They didn't earn it, and it may adversely affect who they turn into as people.

Why not give it to literally anyone else? Why not give your money to me when you die? I'm sure your gut said, obviously not, why would I do that? That's how I feel about inherited wealth.

If receiving something you didn't "earn" will always have a negative effect on someone, then why would you give it to someone else?

After all, wouldn't receiving that help that they didn't earn just automatically turn them into a bad person?

I guess we should just burn any extra money we have! Can't be letting people having something for free that they didn't earn!

Are you serious? There are plenty of things people do for their kids they wouldn't do for a random stranger on HN.

Sure, I’m speaking just to inheritance though

Leaving an inheritance is one of those things...

I have thought that there would be no need to leave anything of significant monetary value to my kids. Either they are smart and they do not need that. Or they are dumb and they do not deserve that.

And if I could choose, I would highly prefer paying my taxes not from my income when I am alive, but from the estate I leave after I am dead. For some reason that is completely mindboggling to me, this preference seems to be quite rare...

What would prevent you from just spending / donating your whole estate before you passed and then paying zero taxes? Or is that a feature in your system?

Of course there are practical issues in paying all of my taxes from my estate, but I can still hope that I could pay a bit more of my taxes after my death and less while I live.

So I take it you don't carry a life insurance policy?

> why work so hard to earn so much in the first place?

Power.

A very comfortable lifestyle can be had for orders of magnitude less than $400M in wealth, so lifestyle isn't a motivation at that point.

Inheritances function kind of like insurance policies against an unpredictable future for your progeny. The more dangerous you think that future is for your children, the more likely you are to set aside as much as you can for them.

The father in this case seems to be confident that the future holds promise for his children, whether because he thinks they will get a fair chance, or because he raised them well, and that therefore they don't need a massive inheritance to live well.

Following this to its logical conclusion, is anything worth doing if you don't have children?

Perhaps it is about what he leaves behind for people other than his children?

Evolutionarily speaking, people should be motivated to protect their offspring and ensure their survival.

It strikes me as very odd (and stupid) for someone to give their own child nothing, but then essentially give a bunch of other families and their children $400 million.

I mean, at least give your own kid a leg up! Geez.

He likely is protecting his children's children by denying them obscene wealth. The problem isn't with the first generation born into great wealth it is the 2nd or 3rd who are far removed from the origin and the ways of thinking that created it they tend to get all sorts of deluded worldviews that ultimately lead to their and their families ruin. I've seen stats that assert 70%-90% of wealthy families lose their fortune over 2 generations. Falling wealth levels is likely a much greater existential threat than being born into one and maintaining.

It seems that there are "interesting" ways that you could have a lot of wealth, but shield your children from the negative effects. For example, let's say you drove mostly older cars, teaching your kids to maintain and repair them themselves. Or let's say you lived in a huge house, but you don't have a cleaning crew - the family works together to clean the house on Sundays. Everyone fights, no one quits. If you made it your goal, you should be able to decouple "instill a serious work ethic" from "we own assets worth millions or billions"

There are many things other than money that parents can give to children to ensure their survival - relationship, connection, power, status, good will, knowledge, education, wisdom, character, vision, etc. Money is just the medium for exchange. In this case the parent has exchanged the money with something intangible for his children, and as a last act, exchanged it for other intangibles.

Edit: Also human has evolved to utilize social systems to further their survival and dominance. It's no good to have all the money in the world while the system itself crumbles. This dad has the foresight to use his money to ensure the system his offspring living in will survive and thrive. There's a saying, "no eggs can survive a fallen bird nest."

Maybe the other families had less than his kid. Have you thought about that?

I'm pretty sure his kid has more than nothing. It wasn't sent to an orphanage to begin with. Having a good education and knowing the right people is often more valuable than some cash in the bank.

>give their own child nothing

I think he probabbly gave them something more than "nothing", possibly even a leg up.

If your children are well educated and have connections, they already have a leg up. But whatever the reasons, if he's not worried about their ability to survive, then it makes sense to contribute to society.

>Evolutionarily speaking, people should...

What does this mean?

> "Evolutionarily speaking"

When I use this term, I'm referring to the general theory of evolution, particularly in reference to survival of the fittest and natural selection. I'm also referring to the natural instincts that a lot of animals (and humans) tend to have, such as the instinct to save the life of their own offspring, even if it means putting their own lives at risk.

By that standard, evolutionarily speaking, he should have worked to maximize the number of children he had, as he had the means to provide for them. Or maybe he should have worked to fight climate change, as that could be a long-term threat to humanity's survival, which may include some of his descendents (and certainly some of the same traits he has).

Acting like what is "evolutionarily smart" isn't necessarily what's good. It can be, but that's not a strong basis for moral action.

Evolutionarily speaking we should be chasing animals in hunter-gatherer clans. The fact that we are slowly transcending the bounds of biological evolution should be celebrated: we have culture, art, and science now. And what we consider family (the ones we want to be happy) is slowly growing (with the occasional small step back). That guy ensured his kids had marvelous opportunities and is now trying to provide marvelous opportunities for other people in his "extended family". Jeez, how misanthropic or selfish do you have to be for this to not make you happy?

I never said I disapproved of him giving away his money. I just found it odd. Like, it doesn't make logical sense to me.

But I also have a deep-rooted mistrust of most charities, since I have first-hand knowledge of how many of them mismanage their funds.

If you've parented well, you've given your kid a leg up whether you leave them money/property or not (though I intend to leave my children money/property). The connections they have from their father are likely non-negligible as well.

The son is still running the company. He received a great education and opportunities to work and challenge himself. He's gotten a lot and has appreciation for what he has.

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