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Comment by iddan | Hacker News Reader

Probably not gonna get upvoted but I’m pretty surprised none of the the top comments mentions volunteering or philanthropy. I believe people who get lucky should land a hand in making the world a better place. We are facing huge crises (climate change to name one) and as a wealthy individual you have both the time to spend helping to fix that and the fortune to donate. Being a smart wealthy individual just makes everything more valuable

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Right. There's no rule that if you get a hold of $XX million that you need to keep it. I'd argue, in fact, that there's a pretty good case you're obligated to give most of it away; you can keep single-digit millions and have total financial security for all practical purposes while sacrificing only a few luxuries that, as the author of this essay appears to have noticed, won't actually give your life meaning. Meanwhile, each $1M donated to insecticide-treated bednets (for one well-quantified example) could save hundreds of lives: https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf#What_do_you_get_for_y...

If there's a moral case for keeping the cash, it's the leverage it could provide to do something that (at least has a chance of being) even bigger. But few are the people who have legitimate reason to believe the expected value calculation comes out positively. People who feel directionless or jump on the latest Elon thing on a whim seem especially unlikely to be among those few.

(I'm not going to provide documentation, so take this for what little it's worth, but I myself gave away the majority of the several million I received for being a sufficiently early employee at the right startup. And I do not regret it.)

Thank you for giving away your wealth to help other people. Let's normalize this practice.

Thank you for doing that. We're all better off with people who use their good fortune to help others in need.

Nice job giving away the majority of your wealth. That's a brave and noble move. I'm up to 7% given away but plan to keep doing it over time.

I don't think it was particularly brave, even. I mentioned it just to try to normalize it. I'm not exactly living like an ascetic and I don't understand why people feel they need so much more.

Just curious, what did you donate to? Mostly GiveWell, or other charities? I'm at around 20% and trying to keep it up.

Half to GiveDirectly and half to a variety of local organizations near where I live (tbh, not all ones I would have selected, but it was a shared decision with my spouse).

Absolutely.

I recently read "The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer, and it really does a great job of making the case for generosity even amongst middle class 1st world individuals.

ebook/audiobook are free from their website: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org.au/the-book/

I'm amazed he didn't even seem to entertain it as an option. It's quite unusual because even a total narcissist would eventually land on philanthropy as an ego-trip

Greed

Good point. The about page does mention this. But perhaps broadening the volunteer perspective to other causes might give them greater purpose.

> i invest in companies and am willing to offer help to founders i vibe with for free and for no allocation

Came here to say this. Money is a tool to make the world a better place. He could be funding schools, scholarships, research projects, new start ups, and so much more. This is what I have been doing, and it has given my life so much more meaning than anything else I have done. I work to donate because that is how I have the biggest impact.

The lesson from FTX was to burn it all down.

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