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I'm not sure I understand the concern about the Gates foundation in particular -- they are mainly funded by Gates and Buffett and don't solicit donations from t
by atlasunshrugged 4y ago
I'm not sure I understand the concern about the Gates foundation in particular -- they are mainly funded by Gates and Buffett and don't solicit donations from the general public, don't do much domestic political stuff, and foreign political work they do doesn't seem like it'd be particularly beneficial for Microsoft or Buffett's portfolio.
Since you're skeptical of effective altruism, Givewell probably isn't going garner a lot of trust for you which is unfortunate because they really do some of the best work in the field for trying to understand the effectiveness of charities (e.g. on a cost/daly basis). Charity Navigator was founded with an idea of kind of providing independent audits but to me it's more like a Yelp for charities and not super useful.
- alfor 4y ago
- btdmaster 4y agoGates foundation primarily spends money on stocks[0] (many of which arguably going directly against its stated goals, like John Deere) [0] https://dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=GFT https://dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=GFT
- eloff 4y agoYou have to invest the money you don’t intend to spend now.
- xmprt 4y agoThat's true but that saying breaks down when you're investing money into and benefiting technology that makes the world less open and sustainable and then proceed to talk about everything you're doing to make the world more sustainable.
- eloff 4y agoDoes it? Maybe indirectly. The stock price of a company doesn’t directly translate to its power in the world. But even then the cases you’re talking about are probably not black and white. So the answer is likely a further “maybe partly, maybe indirectly”. Then if you take the profits and put it towards doing good in the world, have you done net good? Probably. It’s complicated.