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Comment by raspberry1337 | Hacker News Reader

I stopped respecting the UN when they said they criticized Elon Musk for not giving them 6 billion dollars so that they could "solve world hunger". That's about as much as the state of Sweden donates to poverty every single year, and that is just Sweden alone. The total amount of charity donations worldwide is in the trillions of dollars yet there's always just more required. Bureaucrats with humanities degrees at the UN don't solve problems, if they were solved, their jobs would be purposeless.

And yea, I know they releasased a "plan" showing how they would split the 6 billion to different areas and stop world hunger 2022. Amazing work!

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If one time donation of 6 billion would be enough to solve the hunger I think the nations with hungry in them could easily lend this much money and solve it once and for all. That would certainly have net positive ROI in long run for them.

> I stopped respecting the UN when they said they criticized Elon Musk

The UN isn't perfect but it sure as hell better than no communication between countries at all.

Elon Musk is insignificant compared to that, "I stopped respecting the biggest world forum when they criticised an egomaniac entrepreneur" jeez...

> Bureaucrats with humanities degrees at the UN don't solve problems, if they were solved, their jobs would be purposeless.

Does it occurs to you that some problems can't be solved but only mitigated ? it's like saying covid lockdowns and vaccines were useless because "hey look, not so many people died in the end". The UN have done more to the world than Musk or any other single individual will ever do. It's not perfect, it's inefficient, it's expensive, it's still the best we can do. What do you imagine ? The UN work for 15 years, solve all of the world problems and retire ? The world is constantly evolving, it's not so hard to grasp

Have you considered solving problems is hard and ends the gravy train, and if you get an opportunity to personally benefit, most people given the chance take the easy personal profits rather than to go down fighting the system?

Of course it is hard and of course people will take personal profit, it's the human natures. What's your point ? You can apply the same thing to the US government or the EU institutions, what's your alternative ?

>The UN isn't perfect but it sure as hell better than no communication between countries at all.

False equivalence, a typical error to defend something bad that it is in fact better than null, like we wouldnt have intercommunication without such a bureaucratic money sink

>Elon Musk is insignificant compared to that,

He writes, in a thread where the UN asks Elon for more money

>egomaniac entrepreneur"

Jealousy is such a pathethic feeling - Tolstoy

>Does it occurs to you that some problems can't be solved but only mitigated ?

Wrong again, world hunger can and will be solved, but not by the UN.

> it's like saying covid lockdowns

No proven effect to date

Amazing you managed to squeeze this many errors into one post.

>The UN have done more to the world than Musk or any other single individual will ever do

What has the UN done beside spending money ineffectively? Musk, and other does and practicioners as opposed to bureaucrats, has done far more for mankind than the UN.

>What do you imagine ? The UN work for 15 years, solve all of the world problems and retire ?

I would imagine that they would be more proffessional than claiming they could solve world hunger with 6 billion extra in a world of trillions for charity.

> like we wouldnt have intercommunication without such a bureaucratic money sink

I talk facts you talks hypothetical non existent scenarios, but go ahead and explain why ~200 countries are in a 80 years old organisation if alternatives are so good. It's like saying a company can function without any managers or meetings, sure you'll still have communication but nothing as serious/organised/efficient

> What has the UN done beside spending money ineffectively?

Open an history book, there have been hundreds of missions, if you put a bit of good faith in it it really isn't that hard

> world hunger can and will be solved, but not by the UN.

By who then ? Musk ? Bezos ? Some hypothetical person/organization that only exists in your mind and that might make it happen at some point in an equally hypothetical future ?

> Jealousy is such a pathethic feeling - Tolstoy

How's that an argument ? The dude works 95% of his awake time, can't even take care of his own kids, it's the rich guy I'm the least jealous of, and on top of that I absolutely disagree with his ideas.

> He writes, in a thread where the UN asks Elon for more money

? It was a PR stunt from Musk, like 90% of what he does, if you can't see through his bullshit I feel sad for you, jealousy is bad but worshipping people like him is equally dumb.

By the way The UN <> Musk discussion didn't go the way you're trying to portray it. The UN never asked Musk anything and never talked about ending world hunger for 6B, on top of that Musk bailed out of the discussion, so really there is nothing going his way on this topic, at least get your basic facts straight

https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-solve-world-hunger

https://twitter.com/WFPChief/status/1454883966071230472

> "solve world hunger"

I think the idea WFP promised to "solve world hunger" for $6bn originated with Musk or his fans, not with WFP. WFP's original claim was that they'd be able to prevent 42 million people from starving (a much more achievable goal). I'm struggling to find the original interview rather than dramatized reports of it, though.

Disclosure: I've done contract work for WFP.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1454808104256737289

That's the original tweet where Elon Musk first appeared in the conversation, as you can see the article he's replying to is where the misinformation comes in. Basically the WFP said "we can stop 42m starving for a year with $6b, which isn't a lot for someone like Elon Musk" -> CNN Business reports it as solving world hunger in general -> Elon Musk says he'll give them $6b if they openly show how they can solve world hunger. Which they obviously never claimed they could do, so when they eventually replied about how the $6b would be spent it was just ignored because it didn't solve world hunger, just temporary starvation.

Charity highlights taxation doesnt work.

They were incredibly disingenuous about the Elon Musk thing.

He said he'd sell $6bn of Tesla stock and donate it if they could provide an open source plan to completely solve world hunger.

They said they'd written a private plan to reduce world hunger then criticised him for not making the donation.

Whatever you think of Elon, I don't think he acted in bad faith here.

Definitely not. Musk did not ask for anything outrageous in return for the money. It was a PR disaster from the UN's point of view. Perhaps their perception of the risk of calling Elon Musk out like that was broken?

While I was less than impressed by what I saw, I think calling it “a PR disaster” overstates the impact. I observed people reading into both parties what I already know they wanted to believe about each of Musk and the UN.

Don't get me wrong; I normally don't like Musk's antics. However, we _know_ we can't end world hunger with 6 billion USD. At best, we can solve some urgent crisis, but an actual long-term solution requires more than billionaires flinging money at the problem.

Beasley knew this when he opened his mouth.

No, Elon responded saying that if they could describe exactly how world hunger could be solved "on this Twitter thread" he would donate $6bn. Nothing to do with "open source", everything to do with making the request undeliverable (UN staff did of course tweet links to already-too-long-for-Twitter UN documents at him)

Considering the "plan" is a table with a list of countries and corresponding numbers that could easily fit on one image (who could have known it was this easy!), its actually very possible to fit into a twitter thread: https://www.wfp.org/stories/wfps-plan-support-42-million-peo...

In fact, a high schooler could have done the same job of multiplying x_starving_ppl_in_country * y_cost_of_food_one_year_per_person, so its quite suprising that it took them all this time to counter with their genius, open source plan

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