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"The idea was conceived by 97-year-old billionaire-investor turned amateur-architect Charles Munger, who donated $200 million toward the project with the condit
by Saint_Genet 5y ago
"The idea was conceived by 97-year-old billionaire-investor turned amateur-architect Charles Munger, who donated $200 million toward the project with the condition that his blueprints be followed exactly."
Absolutely amazing
- lozenge 5y agoAnd the university has to stump up the other $1,300 million. And the investor will probably be dead before anybody can see the effect on students.
- sireat 5y agoThis is almost like a living will version of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stork_Derby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stork_Derby which at least had some crazy/funny provisions. This Munger monstrosity is positively distopian. What happened to Charlie's wisdom?
- dejawu 5y agoI'm convinced that when you reach a certain level of wealth and the people around you stop saying "no" to you no matter how fucking disastrous your ideas are, your brain just turns into a soft foam
- 542458 5y agoTo be fair, his previous works at UM and Stanford (confusingly, both called "Munger Graduate Residence") have generally very good reviews. Michigan: https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduate-residences-ann-arbor https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduat... Stanford: https://g.co/kgs/TbYAFH https://g.co/kgs/TbYAFH Honestly, it sounds like he just "optimized" the heck out of a residence, and part of the tradeoffs is that on average people would rather have a small private room with a fake window and lower rent and than a shared room with a real window and higher rent. His Michigan building houses twice as many students in the same footprint as competing plans, and the competing plans used shared rooms. Admittedly, these aren't really ideal for COVID though. As an aside, one of his other interesting architectural quirks is that any shared women's bathrooms are generally much larger than the men's, to deal with differences in how they're used.
- patycake 5y ago>with the condition that his blueprints be followed exactly. How is this even allowed from an engineering perspective? Unless his design and blueprints are perfect, which I highly doubt, it’s insane that no changes could be made. Is this common practice in architecture? I’ve never seen anything like it.
- javagram 5y agoIt’s probably shorthand and doesn’t mean literal blueprints accurate down to lowest level of detail, but rather adherence to the project plan as a whole (windowless rooms, size, etc).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- praptak 5y agoWe really need a way to protect ourselves against what the rich are doing to the rest of us.
- TigeriusKirk 5y agoI blame the administration at least as much as the donor in this case. It's their responsibility to say no, and they failed in that job.
- ctdonath 5y agoYou have a way: freedom. You're free to not associate. You can choose alternatives to UCSB, Apple, Facebook, lousy jobs, high tuition, etc. Sure you won't get the benefits those offer, but nobody is compelling participation. That's why Americans (at least some of them) are so fiercely adamant about their rights, to a degree that puzzles many: the right to choose differently, however foolish it may seem to others, is the right to choose and is the right "to protect ourselves against what the rich are doing to the rest of us".
- ripe 5y agoSorry, that's like saying that the people of Flint, MI were free to move somewhere else when their water was polluted.[1] No, the university is responsible for providing safe housing for the students, and if they accepted this lunatic's plan, they would be breaching that trust. When parents and students look for colleges, they assume a certain level of due diligence has been done for them, and they will be leaving their teenager in a minimally safe environment. You can't let people off the hook because of some right-wing idea of "freedom". [1] In April 2014, during a budget crisis, Flint changed its water source from treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River. Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.
- dantheman 5y ago
- time0ut 5y agoIt looks like a prison. Maybe worse. I think prison cells still have a small window (at least what I have seen in media). Totally crazy.
- altacc 5y agoClassic example of somebody becoming rich and thinking that makes them an expert on everything and the most qualified to solve any problem they cast their mind to. See also: just about every other billionaire on the planet.
- the_sleaze9 5y agoWarren Buffet himself calls it the "Shoe Button Complex" Apparently from his youth, his Dad had a friend that ran a shoe button factory and managed to corner the entire market of shoe buttons. Then in his personal life went on to be a know it all about everything else on the planet. Munger and Buffet both are pretty transparent about being so didactic though. If you don't want the strings attached to the money, say no.
- pxc 5y agoI think this is a general problem that's common among people with specialized expertise. This kind of problem is common among engineers, lawyers, and doctors as well.
- canaus 5y agoWait until you hear about programmers who frequent tech forums.
- dang 5y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 5y ago"Please don't fulminate." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nottorp 5y agoSo... did this billionaire get rich by selling anti depressants? I'd understand this as his cunning plan to get richer then.
- hangonhn 5y agoHe’s the other half of Berkshire Hathaway —- Warren Buffet’s company.
- ep103 5y ago1.68-million-square-foot structure that would house up to 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms. Why am I not surprised that Charles "The-most-important-thing-is-getting-your-first-100000-dollars. Work-multiple-jobs-skip-meals-do-what-you-have-to-that's-the-investing-entry-fee-to-wealth" Munger architected a large prison for students?
- nojs 5y ago> "The-most-important-thing-is-getting-your-first-100000-dollars. Work-multiple-jobs-skip-meals-do-what-you-have-to-that's-the-investing-entry-fee-to-wealth" Could you share the background for this?
- Avocadoe 5y agoI was curious about this as well but can't find any concrete sources. A blog [1] says the argument goes something like this: “The first $100,000 is a b*tch, but you gotta do it [...] I don’t care what you have to do—if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn’t purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit.” [1] https://fourpillarfreedom.com/charlie-munger-the-first-100000-is-a-btch/ https://fourpillarfreedom.com/charlie-munger-the-first-10000...
- YetAnotherNick 5y agoSquid game look less unrealistic after reading this.
- orbital223 5y agoThe worst part is: "The entire proposal ... is budgeted somewhere in the range of $1.5 billion.". So the guy is covering only 13% of the cost and gets complete control.
- vmception 5y agoMungloon Wallet City