Sam Simon, Who Helped Shape 'The Simpsons,' Dies at 59
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"Mr. Simon put his money toward his passions. He started a foundation that trained dogs to help disabled people, including veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he gave generously to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, among other groups."
There's something that super-rich individuals can do that vastly richer governments, organizations, and companies can't do. They can make long shot bets. That is, they can invest in something that needs a large concentration of capital (an idea, research, enterprise, discovery) that carries very long odds but could have massive world-changing effects if it succeeds. Those are things that neither governments (too many people need to agree) or companies (no short- or medium-term profit) can normally do.
I'm avoid giving examples here because it'd detract from the point. Besides, there's an infinite number of such long shot bets.
It's sad and ironic that people are more risk averse with what happens to the money after they pass away than when they're alive.
No, it's never about the "big picture".
High net-worth people almost never leave their money to a "space shot" type of endeavor.
How fitting to see so much horse-beating from someone called shutupalready.
Please don't thank the government unless you think they know better how to distribute this money than the people they claim to spend it for.
There's an implicit assumption in there that reducing taxes will cause people to 'invest' more -- i.e. something like the trickle-down effect. I believe there's enough evidence to show this isn't how things actually play out (people still keep their cash).
Also governments, need to set up/support entities that do figure out how to disburse funds appropriately. Like Research Councils in the UK or the NSF in the US who have established processes to do exactly this. How is that less distributed than a rich person deciding for themselves? Also, there are fundamental areas of research that would be completely ignored if we relied solely on the wealthy to solve problems.
> "Please don't thank the government unless you think they know better how to distribute this money than the people they claim to spend it for."
That assumes that people have enough knowledge about where it should be spent. I strongly disagree with that. You cannot achieve fundamental scientific breakthroughs this way.
Typically, in times when interest rates are positive and default rates acceptably low (i.e., normal times), people put their money in a bank and the bank invests it. So the amount invested stays the same and the money doesn't appear or disappear, it's just invested by someone else. So I don't see this implicit assumption here.
> Also governments, need to set up/support entities that do figure out how to disburse funds appropriately.
Exactly and the money to sustain such councils is not used for research but for bureaucracy. And as you already mentioned, these 'well established processes' are not exactly simple and may happen to consume a rather substantial amount of the money supposed to be used for research. Not in all cases but in enough to produce events like this: "EU Resarch Council slams bureaucracy" [1]
> Also, there are fundamental areas of research that would be completely ignored if we relied solely on the wealthy to solve problems.
I disagree - if it is important to someone, then it will get researched. Of course, the very poor will not receive so much attention but then again that's not the case today either.
This discussion is actually more about trust in government and who is better able to identify the needs of a society. I just want to express that I disagree with your view.
[1] http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2010042...
You held off giving an example, but could you give me one -- one that's qualitatively different to the stuff that wealthy people do often fund?
Granted, Bill has done the world a lot of good, but I suspect that's the kind of project shutupalready was referring to.
Or for a higher risk example a few billion might get you a multi stage scram jet for getting stuff into LEO which could be huge. Or for an organization idea, build an ion drive tugboat for moving satellites around in orbit. Then if it works you take the revenue from that and start building ever more space based infrastructure with the long term goal of getting some people living on other stars.
PS: If you accept huge projects might just flat out fail there are plenty of possibilities. Human level AI?
Yes, those are precisely the kinds of projects I was thinking of. (I was worried that if I gave examples, the conversation would derail into the viability of fusions reactors, ion drives, human level AI, or whatever.)
I actually outcampaigned him in some other ways. It didn't matter. His poster smashed me. :) The guy was a serious cartoonist even then.
R.I.P.