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There are problems with thinking like this: 1) You may never be rich enough to have any wealth to dispense. This is arrogance and ignorance. 2) You ignore the

by coryl 16y ago

There are problems with thinking like this: 1) You may never be rich enough to have any wealth to dispense. This is arrogance and ignorance. 2) You ignore the plight of those today. Money isn't the only way to be charitable. Time, energy, effort, and passion can be lent to charitable causes. I have the same thought process as you, "oh I'll be rich one day and I'll be generous and give everything and make happiness, that'll be my contribution. But not now, I've got my own problems.". I think we all have a responsibility to do something for those less fortunate, those without opportunity, those suffering. A lot of my friends in college volunteered, and it really shamed me a bit into how little I do for anyone else. That said, give now, whatever it is you want to give.

_delirium 16y ago
Plus, if everyone did it, you'd just multiply bureaucracy: every dot-com millionaire will have a non-profit organization, with its own office, staff, accountants, lawyers, fundraising office, designers, program managers, etc., etc. That's one reason Buffett just gave his money to the Gates Foundation instead of setting up a self-aggrandizing but redundant Buffett Foundation.
- marknutter 16y ago
  Well, what I should have said then was I want to give my money away Warren Buffet style: carefully research which is the best nonprofit to donate to, and go all in.
marknutter 16y ago
I don't need to become as rich as Bill Gates to do this. I'm simply talking about having a large sum of money at the end of my career that I can use to help others. That could be $10k or $10M; the point is I will have the time to see that it gets used properly. At this point, my biggest responsibility is to my family. 100% of my time and money goes to them, as it should. By making sure they are well provided for and educated properly, Im doing society a bigger favor than throwing a few bucks towards some charity every month.
notahacker 16y ago
If you're not facing any fears of going broke and confident of amassing vast wealth in future, any income that's not spent or invested in amassing vast wealth may as well be donated to causes you support in the short term. Then again its a pretty common human trait to defer charitable spending to an unspecified point in the future, possibly after death.
- marknutter 16y ago
  Think of it this way: If Warren Buffet had given away half of the money he had started out with before making his fortune, he might not have made nearly as much or become rich at all. Money we have now is always worth more than money we have later. It helps to think about it in the extreme cases. I could give all my income and time away today, but it would seriously hinder my ability to become rich later. I could also just give 1 dollar and 1 hour per year now and feel a little less guilty but it wouldn't really be helping anybody now would it. Now perhaps there is some magical number that I should adhere to that will be the perfect mix of perserving my own time and money and helping others (and assuaging my guilt), but I think it'd be hard to pin down. That said, I'm taking the logical approach that one should aim toward giving the maximum amount of time and effort that one can possibly give. Without question that money and time comes towards the end of one's career. To put it in perspective, the amount of money both Gates and Buffet are donating to charity not only dwarfs the amount that all of the HN users give, it makes it mathematically insignificant. In the end, we're all just buying indulgences.
  - notahacker 16y ago
    The same concept of well-directed small investments now yielding disproportionately huge rewards in future applies to philanthropy as much as to investment. Buffet is something of an outlier in his ability to maximise ROI - an average person's affordable gift of $200 now would arguably help people more if given now than given after a number of years of earning interest averaging marginally above the rate of inflation in a savings account. Sure, if you need that $200 to bootstrap the next Google it's an entirely different matter. I take your point about mathematically insignificance in comparison to Buffet and Gates, but there's no shortage of worthwhile causes they aren't donating to where small donations can make a difference.

by coryl 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

Plus, if everyone did it, you'd just multiply bureaucracy: every dot-com millionaire will have a non-profit organization, with its own office, staff, accountants, lawyers, fundraising office, designers, program managers, etc., etc. That's one reason Buffett just gave his money to the Gates Foundation instead of setting up a self-aggrandizing but redundant Buffett Foundation.

marknutter 16y ago
Well, what I should have said then was I want to give my money away Warren Buffet style: carefully research which is the best nonprofit to donate to, and go all in.

marknutter 16y ago

I don't need to become as rich as Bill Gates to do this. I'm simply talking about having a large sum of money at the end of my career that I can use to help others. That could be $10k or $10M; the point is I will have the time to see that it gets used properly. At this point, my biggest responsibility is to my family. 100% of my time and money goes to them, as it should. By making sure they are well provided for and educated properly, Im doing society a bigger favor than throwing a few bucks towards some charity every month.

notahacker 16y ago

If you're not facing any fears of going broke and confident of amassing vast wealth in future, any income that's not spent or invested in amassing vast wealth may as well be donated to causes you support in the short term. Then again its a pretty common human trait to defer charitable spending to an unspecified point in the future, possibly after death.

marknutter 16y ago
Think of it this way: If Warren Buffet had given away half of the money he had started out with before making his fortune, he might not have made nearly as much or become rich at all. Money we have now is always worth more than money we have later. It helps to think about it in the extreme cases. I could give all my income and time away today, but it would seriously hinder my ability to become rich later. I could also just give 1 dollar and 1 hour per year now and feel a little less guilty but it wouldn't really be helping anybody now would it. Now perhaps there is some magical number that I should adhere to that will be the perfect mix of perserving my own time and money and helping others (and assuaging my guilt), but I think it'd be hard to pin down. That said, I'm taking the logical approach that one should aim toward giving the maximum amount of time and effort that one can possibly give. Without question that money and time comes towards the end of one's career. To put it in perspective, the amount of money both Gates and Buffet are donating to charity not only dwarfs the amount that all of the HN users give, it makes it mathematically insignificant. In the end, we're all just buying indulgences.
- notahacker 16y ago
  The same concept of well-directed small investments now yielding disproportionately huge rewards in future applies to philanthropy as much as to investment. Buffet is something of an outlier in his ability to maximise ROI - an average person's affordable gift of $200 now would arguably help people more if given now than given after a number of years of earning interest averaging marginally above the rate of inflation in a savings account. Sure, if you need that $200 to bootstrap the next Google it's an entirely different matter. I take your point about mathematically insignificance in comparison to Buffet and Gates, but there's no shortage of worthwhile causes they aren't donating to where small donations can make a difference.