Imagine thinking that bringing up a one time gift for someone else was a way of explaining why the world's once richest man should be considered a philanthropist for giving a sum of money that is worth less than the average hiring bonus in his AI department.
A man worth a hundred billion plus may not be considered generous for giving away less than I have. No. I am in no way rich or important. He can do more than I have, and you absolutely will not hold up a pittance like that and pretend it forgives him the insane damage he's done.
This level of apologism reflects on you. Please stop putting it in front of my face.
When we as a people have grown, we will judge billionaires for their allowing the starving to die, instead of gathering in groups to show that we're wise enough to admire them.
Stop looking up to those who could stop the death, and choose not to. They are not worthy of your respect, and you should learn that.
I'm not religious, but there's a lot of wisdom in what nearly every religion says about rich men. Here in the West we tend to be familiar with the Biblical phrasing: "Indeed, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
I have no expectation to go to heaven, but my fat ass is getting through that needle, because there are dozens of human beings who eat because I mail my dollars. Every time someone in a pope hat tries to stare me down, I get to look back with clear eyes. Feels pretty good.
The UN World Food Programme makes it easy. The hardest part is using a British spelled word every month. (Indeed, if I ever become rich like him, one of my plans is to go to them and tell them I will fund fixing world hunger if and only if they switch permanently to the American spelling. Makes my skin itch.)
Put your signature on food for another person. Try it, one time. You won't stop.
Pretty soon you'll get why I don't care about a couple hundred grand, from a man who spends tens of millions on car commercials every month.
And you might understand why I think you shouldn't be impressed either. And why I think that if we all started expecting him to do better, and stopped being impressed by silly tricks like fake flamethrowers and smoking pot on vaccine denier radio, we might be better off.
Do you know how much he's had removed from his taxes through lobbying for exemptions? That's a pittance. A trivial pittance.
Elon Musk challenged the UN to explain how $6b could help against world hunger, and said if they did it he'd foot the bill. They solidly answered.
It's been years, and he's trying to buy Twitter for $44b instead.
He's literally got all the resources he needs to solve world hunger, and instead he's wasting time trying to put two block subways under sports arenas which even trivial video game simulations can show would never, ever have worked.
Can you imagine anyone being in a position to solve a job like that, and choosing not to?
At least Bill Gates is tackling malaria. But the ones who aren't doing something like that? Not my favorites. I'd say something more severe but HN has a habit of treating criticism of the rich as bad behavior.
With that amount of money, he could just rent an academic to tell him how to do good, and he chooses not to. I don't understand how anyone, ever, fails to judge that. I genuinely don't.
I don't understand how we've gotten to a position of not hating rich who don't give back. It used to be socially normal to loathe these people, to the point of calling them robber barons.
Nine million lives a year. A holocaust every eight months. Ten thousand children every single day.
People like to pretend that they have some deep insight into the money not being liquid and people not being able to and blah blah who cares, he got it together for Twitter, it's just apologism
What is the meaningful difference between having the ability to stop that and choosing not to, and actual evil? Like, really. I know it's the kind of statement that seems exaggerated and misplaced, but make a genuine attempt to answer it.
We still punish someone for causing a death, even if it's through inaction. If you're standing at a train control panel in that Rocky and Bullwinkle thing with a person tied on the tracks, and you can pull the lever to switch the track to save them, and you just choose not to? And you knew? Even if you had nothing to do with the situation, you're still going to jail for negligent homicide.
If you ask the average American who the worst person of all time is, they'll typically say Hitler, and justify it with six million dead. Better educated people might instead say Stalin, Pol Pot, or Andrew Jackson, on similar grounds.
Most academics count the largest single human's death count as Stalin at an estimated 12 mil.
Nine million by starvation every single year.
Should we have the concept of negligent genocide?
I will ask it again. What is the meaningful difference between having the ability to stop that and choosing not to, and actual evil? Really.
We all pay a substantial portion of our income in taxes. They skate. That portion on just Elon and the Waltons - on just five people, to pay our tax rate - and three holocausts every two years are prevented for the rest of time.
When do we start judging them for their excesses, their lack of doing their share, the harm they're doing to the rest of us?
When do we stop admiring the gilded cage, and realize that it's denying us our basics?
Shouldn't you have government health care, manageable rent, and a non-carbon grid by now?
Of course, given where I'm posting this, this comment is probably bad for me in the long run
Statistically speaking, most academics believe that altruism evolved because it's an effective cure for tragedies of the commons
Really, do you read that as something other than "he threw away a couple hundred grand to impress a girl?"
Do you actually think that was charity? Genuinely? Why just that once, then?
And from that lens, do you realize how little money that actually is, then, and how easy a real amount would be able for him to give?