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I don't understand how I'm the cruel one. This person contributed to wasting 100K... How many lives could have been saved for that money if it had been donated

I don't understand how I'm the cruel one. This person contributed to wasting 100K... How many lives could have been saved for that money if it had been donated to charity (for example)? I merely wrote a few lines of text on some website.

jack_pp 8y ago
And Marx merely philosophised on the merits of communism, an idea which resulted in the death of hundreds of millions of people. Money wasn't exactly lost, it wasn't dumped in a garbaged bin and literally set on fire, people were compensated for their work, that money was used to buy goods and services so the money was merely recicled back into the general economy, the investors more than likely can tolerate the risk they took and can take the hit while others won ( the people hired by OP ) Do you dedicate your life to being ultra efficient to make huge sums of money in order to save those countless lives that OP failed to save? If not then you're a hypocrite. How many lives are being lost by us wasting time commenting in this thread? 1 hour of wasted time by us could've been worth atleast 50$ which could've spared someone more than a week of suffering from starving, are you willing to take responsability for that?
- grosjona 8y ago
  If my comments can help to disincentivize just one future failed wannabe entrepreneur from raising money for their useless project then it was all worth it.
  - jack_pp 8y ago
    Telling people they shouldn't do obvious bad thing is pointless because those with good ethics wouldn't have done it regardless and the others won't care about your comments. Your consequentialist view is valid but you can not demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that it's the best and most useful perspective. If you think your way of thinking is so much more superior then start your own startup, be successful, donate to charity and then write a blog post proving us all wrong. The reason I'm investing time into this discussion is because I believe your way of thinking is toxic and very dangerous because you actually believe you're more virtuous for the beliefs that you hold. The most atrocious events in history have been done in the name of good, please remember that or you risk increasing mind share in toxic and evil ideologies.
  - Hoagy 8y ago
    Hah! New rule: only non-useless projects to be funded. Uselessness to be determined by investors on application for funds.
  - anovikov 8y ago
    BS; if the project is visibly non-useless and doable, it was done many times over before and has no prospects of succeeding. nearly every startup which has succeeded MUST sound like an utter crap invented by a wannabe, scamster, or lunatic. Take Google for example: who the fuck needs YET another search engine, even as there are about 50 other ones and none of them makes any money (Yahoo does make money, but search contributes just 7% of its traffic, it is irrelevant)? Take Apple: ok so you are gonna make a computer an ordinary person could buy. What for? Why do you even need a computer at home, unless you are a computer fan? Remember the Internet has 20 years to become available to non-military outside largest universities, there are even no BBSes, and totally no usable software which would make any sense for an average person. Facebook? A social app for college students - a very narrow group of people, who have no money to monetize it upon? If i was an average person trying to tell if any of the multibillion startup success stories were 'useless' or not, i'd say almost every one of them to GTFO. My vision of what constitutes a good case of a project to fund is exactly that: great people (simply by their coding skills - people with great github accounts) who pitch a visibly BS idea. Because they must be onto something.
  - SirYandi 8y ago
    You are so obviously trolling. The attitude you want people to think you have is laughably absurd.
- krainboltgreene 8y ago
  > And Marx merely philosophised on the merits of communism, an idea which resulted in the death of hundreds of millions of people. That's like saying trillions of people died to iron smelting, not to gun shots.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  >an idea which resulted in the death of hundreds of millions of people. // The idea of communism is "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" - communities of people working together for the good of the community as a whole. The idea lies behind things like hackerspaces, a lot of FOSS, cooperatives, and such. The idea was never tested on a wider scale; dictators and human greed stopped it. That might mean that communism is impractical on a large scale because people can't be trusted not to ruin it with greed. But your claim that the idea killed millions seems patently false.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't take threads on generic ideological tangents, even in the middle of a silly flamewar. It always makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tibbetts 8y ago
Donating it to charity wasn’t on offer. It’s not like OP stole the money. Heck, I raised some of my seed capital from a venture fund that is mostly backed by an international charity, and apparently that charity thinks that a little bit of venture capitalism is a good use of their money. I actually get an annual letter from their LPs about the charitable work we are supporting, and share it with my employees. Not everything people try works out, and the world appears to overall be a better place for the trying.
zeth___ 8y ago
100k is very little. I have wasted that much several times over. It's not until you get to the double digits in millions that you're dealing with serious money. My last idea tanked, ate all my savings and now I'm back at a job for the next 2 years or so. Then off we go again.

jack_pp 8y ago

And Marx merely philosophised on the merits of communism, an idea which resulted in the death of hundreds of millions of people. Money wasn't exactly lost, it wasn't dumped in a garbaged bin and literally set on fire, people were compensated for their work, that money was used to buy goods and services so the money was merely recicled back into the general economy, the investors more than likely can tolerate the risk they took and can take the hit while others won ( the people hired by OP ) Do you dedicate your life to being ultra efficient to make huge sums of money in order to save those countless lives that OP failed to save? If not then you're a hypocrite. How many lives are being lost by us wasting time commenting in this thread? 1 hour of wasted time by us could've been worth atleast 50$ which could've spared someone more than a week of suffering from starving, are you willing to take responsability for that?

grosjona 8y ago
If my comments can help to disincentivize just one future failed wannabe entrepreneur from raising money for their useless project then it was all worth it.
- jack_pp 8y ago
  Telling people they shouldn't do obvious bad thing is pointless because those with good ethics wouldn't have done it regardless and the others won't care about your comments. Your consequentialist view is valid but you can not demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that it's the best and most useful perspective. If you think your way of thinking is so much more superior then start your own startup, be successful, donate to charity and then write a blog post proving us all wrong. The reason I'm investing time into this discussion is because I believe your way of thinking is toxic and very dangerous because you actually believe you're more virtuous for the beliefs that you hold. The most atrocious events in history have been done in the name of good, please remember that or you risk increasing mind share in toxic and evil ideologies.
- Hoagy 8y ago
  Hah! New rule: only non-useless projects to be funded. Uselessness to be determined by investors on application for funds.
- anovikov 8y ago
  BS; if the project is visibly non-useless and doable, it was done many times over before and has no prospects of succeeding. nearly every startup which has succeeded MUST sound like an utter crap invented by a wannabe, scamster, or lunatic. Take Google for example: who the fuck needs YET another search engine, even as there are about 50 other ones and none of them makes any money (Yahoo does make money, but search contributes just 7% of its traffic, it is irrelevant)? Take Apple: ok so you are gonna make a computer an ordinary person could buy. What for? Why do you even need a computer at home, unless you are a computer fan? Remember the Internet has 20 years to become available to non-military outside largest universities, there are even no BBSes, and totally no usable software which would make any sense for an average person. Facebook? A social app for college students - a very narrow group of people, who have no money to monetize it upon? If i was an average person trying to tell if any of the multibillion startup success stories were 'useless' or not, i'd say almost every one of them to GTFO. My vision of what constitutes a good case of a project to fund is exactly that: great people (simply by their coding skills - people with great github accounts) who pitch a visibly BS idea. Because they must be onto something.
- SirYandi 8y ago
  You are so obviously trolling. The attitude you want people to think you have is laughably absurd.
krainboltgreene 8y ago
> And Marx merely philosophised on the merits of communism, an idea which resulted in the death of hundreds of millions of people. That's like saying trillions of people died to iron smelting, not to gun shots.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
>an idea which resulted in the death of hundreds of millions of people. // The idea of communism is "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" - communities of people working together for the good of the community as a whole. The idea lies behind things like hackerspaces, a lot of FOSS, cooperatives, and such. The idea was never tested on a wider scale; dictators and human greed stopped it. That might mean that communism is impractical on a large scale because people can't be trusted not to ruin it with greed. But your claim that the idea killed millions seems patently false.
dang 8y ago
Please don't take threads on generic ideological tangents, even in the middle of a silly flamewar. It always makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tibbetts 8y ago

Donating it to charity wasn’t on offer. It’s not like OP stole the money. Heck, I raised some of my seed capital from a venture fund that is mostly backed by an international charity, and apparently that charity thinks that a little bit of venture capitalism is a good use of their money. I actually get an annual letter from their LPs about the charitable work we are supporting, and share it with my employees. Not everything people try works out, and the world appears to overall be a better place for the trying.

zeth___ 8y ago

100k is very little. I have wasted that much several times over. It's not until you get to the double digits in millions that you're dealing with serious money. My last idea tanked, ate all my savings and now I'm back at a job for the next 2 years or so. Then off we go again.