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How Should We Donate $53,000 of xkcd Book Profits?
- MikeCapone 16y agoI can't vote because I have no idea which of these countries needs the help more and where the dollars would have the biggest marginal utility (maybe it's time to go check GapMinder.org?), but I just want to say that I'm glad they're doing this, and access to education is a great way to change some lives for the better.
- kn0thing 16y agoAnd sell more books - that's the real reason breadpig puts profits into nonprofits related to the product. Higher literacy rates means more potential book buyers. It's quite sinister, really. We did the same thing with LOLmagnetz (for the SF SPCA) so that more dogs & cats get adopted, creating more dog & cat owners and thus more potential LOLmagnetz buyers.
- rms 16y agoI don't believe that you are actually sinister here. I think it's more like you are claiming to be sinister because the process of narrowing down which specific charity to support out of the vast array of needy charities just feels evil. Literacy is a good cause. If I was in your position, it would be hard for me to pick a specific cause like literacy over saving the most human lives per dollar. Out of all the developing country education charities, Givewell rates Pratham highest. http://www.givewell.net/international/charities/pratham http://www.givewell.net/international/charities/pratham Have you considered them for the next Breadpig book project?
- pavs 16y agoReddit search... Ok, I am just kidding :). Its hard to vote on donations like this because I am sure they could all use some help, so I only voted for the countries and causes I am more aware of.
- kn0thing 16y agoI keep telling people: we're open-source :) please consider that an open invitation to fix our search.
- chime 16y agoI said the following in the reddit thread but don't know if anyone read it. Award $5k to ten "help-the-world" projects ($3k would probably go towards organizing everything). Spread the word via reddit/xkcd/HN. Sorta like the Pepsi-Refresh contest but more open and social. Let each of the 10 project owners do a reddit IAMA and keep the online community updated with their idea and progress. Allow them to share videos, photos, and post guest entries on blog.reddit.com. Let reddit/xkcd/HN users vote on all the submitted projects and select the top 10. If $5k seems too low, then maybe have five $10k projects or some other mix. In a way, this would be a gift that keeps on giving.
- kn0thing 16y agoheya! Yes, I should've made this more clear :) but we've already promised xkcd book profits to Room to Read (it says so on the copyleft page of each book). 2 years ago when I started breadpig, I had ambitions for a vague 'breadpig prize' -- what your proposing is a much more concrete idea. It's great and I think you're absolutely right on with this (and would love to have your help in the near future, if you're up for it). I'm officially retired from reddit, tho, so there'll probably be no blog.reddit takeover ;) But I do like this idea. I'm proud to be one of the AwesomeFoundation trustees; the org itself is nothing short of awesome: http://awesomefoundation.org/ http://awesomefoundation.org/ Creating something with a more 'help the world' bent would be great, especially if it's software-based. To even play a small part in starting the next Ushahidi...
- jacquesm 16y agoLooks like they're in good hands with you :)
- chime 16y agoI'm totally up for this. AwesomeFoundation could be the main host for the prize and you can probably have additional sponsors for each idea, maybe in a different field each (health, farming, education etc.) Give me a shout out whenever you are ready.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- 27182818284 16y agoScholarships.
- apsec112 16y agoI don't think these work very well, in general. What colleges tend to do is look at their student body, observe "Hey! A lot of them are getting big scholarships, so if we raise tuition, they can afford it", and then raise tuition.
- gte910h 16y agoOld age/metabolic dmg reseach: benefits 99% of all humans on earth.
- jodrellblank 16y agoBenefits some of the humans on earth who are still alive and can afford it at the time it becomes working and widely available. If you mean people on Earth right now... at a death rate of around 150,000 people per day, assuming 7 billions alive right now, that gives about 500 days before 1% of the population dies, and it needs to benefit everyone else. Death rate citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate
- gte910h 16y agoBenefits 99% of humanity, as opposed to any other disease which benefits only that one.
- jodrellblank 16y agoBenefits only those who live long enough to suffer age related problems, and I doubt that's 99% of all humans born.
- gte910h 16y ago"99% of all ________" is an idiom. I'm sure your nitpick is factually correct in the small. I doubt we'll ever get infant mortality down that low. However, you do get the "Comic book guy" award for picking apart an argument on a completely inconsequential detail. However, the point is MOST EVERYONE dies from something that's a result of getting older, and they'll benefit from age related research. Most cancers even can't actually progress until older ages, as younger peoples' immune systems are so much better they typically fight off the disease. Here's a pretty good TED talk on it. http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_ag...
- mschaecher 16y agoEFF
- kashif 16y agohttp://kiva.org http://kiva.org Your money will make more money and grow.
- diziet 16y agoI believe the grown money would (mostly) go to the partner lenders of the program, Kiva makes it sound perfectly lovely, but someone has to go out and interview those people and file paperwork and take photos an collect the money, and of course make profit doing that.
- kn0thing 16y agoAye, most of the MFIs (microfinance institutes = banks to the poor, essentially) are for-profit. Some are non-profit, though, but they all charge interest rates for these loans - kiva lenders essentially are loaning them interest-free loans ($25 at a time) to encourage them to take more risks, that is, lend to poorer clients for lower interest rates.
- kn0thing 16y agoI just finished a 3month kiva fellowship :) so I can assure you that your kiva loans do not generate interest for you. You will (in most cases, if the loan is repaid in full) at best get all of your loan back, which you can then reloan, donate to kiva, or withdraw. It's still a great nonprofit, but I should've made it more clear that we've already promised publisher profits to Room to Read, we just need to decide where in the world to build.
- kashif 16y agoGreat :)
- robg 16y agohttp://roomtoread.org http://roomtoread.org
- blumer 16y agoTwo words: Raptor Awareness
- kn0thing 16y agoYou can never be too safe. All xkcd-book-built-buildings will have raptor emergency escape plans installed in conspicuous parts of each room, of course.
- puredemo 16y agoFreedom From Religion Foundation http://www.ffrf.org/ http://www.ffrf.org/
- mkramlich 16y agoMy immediate thought was to hire a band of ninja to appear at every XKCD speaking appearance.
- daniel-cussen 16y agoDo nerd solidarity.